This is another timely book that, oddly enough, helped me to further develop the ideas sparked by Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism.

In The Year of Less, Cait Flanders embarks on an ambitious project: Not to buy anything outside what is approved. This doesn’t just impact her savings, it helped her to identify triggers for her behaviour and ultimately taught her about her relationship between material things, buying material things, and being happy. As she tracks her savings and her sobriety month by month, she brings us through the ups and downs of a year in her life.

You’d think that my biggest takeaways from this book would be about spending, but it’s not just about that. There were a few points that struck me:

• “I hated the acronym for that truism: YOLO. I’d watched too many friends swipe their credit cards and go deep into debt on that rationale […] Yes, you only live once. And you should enjoy it. But not if it means breaking your budget or going into debt for it” – I really like this. I’ve had friends ask me how I can resist not spending on daily bubble tea (I pretty much only make exceptions for periods of high stress, which isn’t the best habit to make but still the best coping mechanism I have right now) and my answer is always “I want to travel more so I need to spend less on things like that.” I used to feel guilty about how little I spent, especially compared to a few finance/frugal living bloggers, but nowadays, I’m just trying to fit my spending to my goals, not other’s. I like the way Flanders summarises it: enjoy life but don’t go into debt for it.
• “There is something to be said about being totally self-aware and still choosing to do what you know is bad for you.” – This was pretty interesting for me. It’s a balance between being disciplined and allowing yourself to ‘treat yourself’ when you need it. I can’t say I’ve found that balance, but I’m working towards it.
• “I had never made a plan for what I would do next, because I had never thought about leaving before. I was happy – until I wasn’t. I thought I would stay and help the company continue to grow – until I couldn’t.” – This describes my work situation now and I’ve been feeling so much guilt about it. Reading this helped me to realise that it’s okay to outgrow a place and job, even if you thought it was the perfect one. I screenshotted this and sent it to friends who are going through the same thing too, so you can see that it clearly made an impact.

As you can see, only one in three points were actually about spending. But I did like her experiment, although I’m not ready to go on a shopping ban yet. Some of her advice was also applicable for my smartphone detox – e.g. taking inventory and making lists (what are the essentials, the nonessentials, and the approved lists) – I’m doing an inventory in my weekly updates and I’m definitely going to classify my apps at the end of my experiment.

Plus, part of her last personal blog post talked about being mindful about the content you create and consume, which is another thing that prompted me to start my phone detox: What content do I want to create? What content do I want to consume? (Well, I clearly didn’t think I was consuming the right content because if I did, I wouldn’t have started the detox).

This was an interesting read. If you’re looking to rethink the way and the reasons why you buy things, I’d recommend getting this. I’m probably going to be coming back to this book in the future when I finally feel ready to tackle my spending habits and the reasons why I spend the way I do.