15 Things That Happened When I Stopped Spending Money /… — Transcript

I cut my non-essential spending to almost nothing this year, and not only did it save me tens of thousands of dollars, but a lot of unexpected things happened as well. Some of which were weird, some of which were wonderful, and some of which were downright uncomfortable. So, in today's video, I'm sharing 15 things that I've learned over the past 15 years that I've been doing no buys and low buys, including this past year, which initially started off as a low buy and then turned into a kind of strict no buy. Starting with number one on this list, which is I realized that almost everything is junk.

So, as part of the no buy rules that I set at the beginning of this year, whenever I needed to buy something, I did my best to try to shop at thrift stores or second-hand stores or moving or estate sales first. And I was shocked by how much stuff people had and how little that stuff was worth. There was one estate sale that I went to where the mother had clearly been a hoarder, and the daughter actually confirmed that to me as I and my children were browsing through the piles and piles of stuff that were in that home. And at one point, she was literally trying to give me things for free because she just wanted to get rid of it. And what's crazy is that didn't just happen to me one time this year, it happened to me several times. It actually reminded me of a scene from one of my favorite childhood movies, The Labyrinth, and this character called The Junk Lady. And the lesson in the movie is that the Junk Lady and the other characters that you see in the junkyard are trapped there under the weight of all of the things they can't bear to let go because they consider them their most precious treasures. Like I said, that was my favorite movie back in the day, and I must have watched it hundreds of times back when I was a kid. But, it wasn't until I started decluttering the 30 years of clutter and mess that was left behind after losing my parents and my childhood home, and I felt like I was literally being crushed under the physical and emotional weight of all of the clutter that they left behind on top of losing them that the true message behind the Junk Lady slapped me in the face. It's all junk. Well, what about this? This is not junk. And? Yes, IT IS.

BUT, THEY TOLD ME. I GOT A LOT OF pushback about this after I made a video about five harsh truths I learned after getting rid of 90% of my stuff, and that video ended up going viral and getting over a million views.

But, I said it before and I'll say it again. At the end of the day, none of this stuff is worth as much as we think it is. And more and more, whenever I see people wasting their hard-earned money on things like fast fashion and single-use kitchen gadgets and all of this cheap, low-quality home decor, the word that pops into my head is landfill core because that's exactly what all of this stuff is. You're just throwing your money at cheap and low-quality stuff that's going to end up in a landfill, which actually leads me to lesson number two on this list, which I'd like to call the CMT paradox. CMT stands for clutter, money, and time. And this paradox is based on a famous quote in the minimalism and frugal living community that goes, "Look around. All of that clutter used to be money. All of that money used to be time." And I think at some point this is a classic moment in almost everyone's decluttering, minimalism, or frugal living journey where you just look around at all of the stuff in your home and you think to yourself, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe how much money I wasted buying all of this stuff and all of the time that I spent working to earn that money that's just now sitting around my home, weighing me down, draining my time, energy, and my peace of mind." And I think that another quote that's really relevant to this lesson is from Henry David Thoreau, which goes, "The price of anything is the amount of life you're willing to exchange for it." And the older I get, the less I'm willing to exchange the precious hours of my life for a bunch of stuff that's just going to take up space and time and energy in my home. Next up, I want to talk about how the meaning of wealth has significantly changed for me over the years that I've been doing no buys and low buys. As someone who grew up in a really materialistic household where I was taught that basically the purpose of money was to be able to buy stuff. The more stuff, the better. The more expensive stuff, the better. I went from thinking about wealth in terms of all the things it could buy me, like nice clothes, fancy cars, and big houses full of a lot of stuff, to redefining money as a tool that I can use to buy back my time, protect my peace, and help me create a future that I'm proud of. For me, true wealth is being able to go to the grocery store and put anything that I want in my cart and not having to worry if I have the money in my bank account to pay for it when I get to the checkout counter. It's things like being there to open the door when my kids get home from school and having the time to just go out on the back sun porch with a book and a cup of tea and be able to sit there and enjoy it. So, wealth for me is now much less about the things that I can buy with my money and more about the things that I can do with my money. Number four is that nowadays I care more about utility versus status.

So, this past year I've been reading a lot of books about frugal living, minimalism, and just personal finance in general, most of which were borrowed from the library, of course. And recently, I finally got my hands on one of the audiobooks that I had put on hold a while back, which is called The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel. And in the book, he talks about the difference between utility-based spending versus status-based spending and why it's better to spend on utility. So, the difference is that utility-based spending is spending on things that have a direct, tangible benefit to you, like a reliable car, a house with a great view, quality food, or anything that reduces your stress and improves your personal comfort. Compared to status-based spending, which revolves around spending money on things primarily to impress others or measure yourself-worth against the things that they own. So, as I was listening to the chapter about status versus utility in the audiobook, it reminded me of something that happened to my husband about 10 years back, which is that back at the company that he used to work at, he used to get there a little bit earlier than the people that worked underneath him. So, he would park and then go inside and then they would show up later. But, for whatever reason, one day he was running a little bit later than usual, and so he was pulling into the parking lot as they were also pulling in. And then at the time, he realized that even though he was senior to these people and he made more money than them, all of them drove nicer cars than he did. So, at that time back then, he was driving a 12-year-old Honda Accord, which he still waxes poetic about to this day, and his employees were driving things like BMWs and really nice Audis and Range Rovers. And I'm not judging those people because I obviously have no insight into their values and priorities and their budget, so maybe that was perfectly aligned with the kind of life they wanted to lead and they had the money to do that. I'm guessing, especially since none of them had kids, they probably had a lot of disposable income. But, I think the status versus utility question is a really interesting and useful filter for examining the purpose and the intentions behind your spending and the spending of the people around you, whether that's your actual friends and family members or the people that you're seeing on social media. And maybe this is one of the reasons why my husband and I are so compatible and our marriage is now over 15 years and going strong because just like he d

through the piles and piles of stuff that were in that home. And at one point, she was literally trying to give me things for free because she just wanted to get rid of it. And what's crazy is that didn't just happen to me

one time this year, it happened to me several times. It actually reminded me of a scene from one of my favorite childhood movies, The Labyrinth, and this character called The Junk Lady. And the lesson in the movie is that the Junk

Lady and the other characters that you see in the junkyard are trapped there under the weight of all of the things they can't bear to let go because they consider them their most precious treasures. Like I said, that was my

favorite movie back in the day, and I must have watched it hundreds of times back when I was a kid. But, it wasn't until I started decluttering the 30 years of clutter and mess that was left behind after losing my parents and my

childhood home, and I felt like I was literally being crushed under the physical and emotional weight of all of the clutter that they left behind on top of losing them that the true message behind the Junk Lady slapped me in the

face. It's all junk. Well, what about this? This is not junk. And? Yes, IT IS.

BUT, THEY TOLD ME. I GOT A LOT OF pushback about this after I made a video about five harsh truths I learned after getting rid of 90% of my stuff, and that video ended up going viral and getting over a million views.

But, I said it before and I'll say it again. At the end of the day, none of this stuff is worth as much as we think it is. And more and more, whenever I see people wasting their hard-earned money

on things like fast fashion and single-use kitchen gadgets and all of this cheap, low-quality home decor, the word that pops into my head is landfill core because that's exactly what all of this stuff is. You're just throwing your

money at cheap and low-quality stuff that's going to end up in a landfill, which actually leads me to lesson number two on this list, which I'd like to call the CMT paradox. CMT stands for clutter, money, and time. And this paradox is

based on a famous quote in the minimalism and frugal living community that goes, "Look around. All of that clutter used to be money. All of that money used to be time." And I think at some point this is a classic moment in

almost everyone's decluttering, minimalism, or frugal living journey where you just look around at all of the stuff in your home and you think to yourself, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe how much money I wasted buying all of

this stuff and all of the time that I spent working to earn that money that's just now sitting around my home, weighing me down, draining my time, energy, and my peace of mind." And I think that another quote that's really

relevant to this lesson is from Henry David Thoreau, which goes, "The price of anything is the amount of life you're willing to exchange for it." And the older I get, the less I'm willing to exchange the precious hours of my life

for a bunch of stuff that's just going to take up space and time and energy in my home. Next up, I want to talk about how the meaning of wealth has significantly changed for me over the years that I've been doing no buys and

low buys. As someone who grew up in a really materialistic household where I was taught that basically the purpose of money was to be able to buy stuff. The more stuff, the better. The more expensive stuff, the better. I went from

thinking about wealth in terms of all the things it could buy me, like nice clothes, fancy cars, and big houses full of a lot of stuff, to redefining money as a tool that I can use to buy back my

time, protect my peace, and help me create a future that I'm proud of. For me, true wealth is being able to go to the grocery store and put anything that I want in my cart and not having to

worry if I have the money in my bank account to pay for it when I get to the checkout counter. It's things like being there to open the door when my kids get home from school and having the time to

just go out on the back sun porch with a book and a cup of tea and be able to sit there and enjoy it. So, wealth for me is now much less about the things that I can buy with my money and more about the

things that I can do with my money. Number four is that nowadays I care more about utility versus status.

So, this past year I've been reading a lot of books about frugal living, minimalism, and just personal finance in general, most of which were borrowed from the library, of course. And recently, I finally got my hands on one

of the audiobooks that I had put on hold a while back, which is called The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel. And in the book, he talks about the difference between utility-based spending versus status-based spending and why it's

better to spend on utility. So, the difference is that utility-based spending is spending on things that have a direct, tangible benefit to you, like a reliable car, a house with a great view, quality food, or anything that reduces your stress and improves your

personal comfort. Compared to status-based spending, which revolves around spending money on things primarily to impress others or measure yourself-worth against the things that they own. So, as I was listening to the chapter about status versus utility in the audiobook, it reminded me of

something that happened to my husband about 10 years back, which is that back at the company that he used to work at, he used to get there a little bit earlier than the people that worked underneath him. So, he would park and

then go inside and then they would show up later. But, for whatever reason, one day he was running a little bit later than usual, and so he was pulling into the parking lot as they were also pulling in. And then at the time, he

realized that even though he was senior to these people and he made more money than them, all of them drove nicer cars than he did. So, at that time back then, he was driving a 12-year-old Honda Accord, which he still waxes poetic

about to this day, and his employees were driving things like BMWs and really nice Audis and Range Rovers. And I'm not judging those people because I obviously have no insight into their values and priorities and their budget, so maybe

that was perfectly aligned with the kind of life they wanted to lead and they had the money to do that. I'm guessing, especially since none of them had kids, they probably had a lot of disposable income. But, I think the status versus

utility question is a really interesting and useful filter for examining the purpose and the intentions behind your spending and the spending of the people around you, whether that's your actual friends and family members or the people that you're seeing on social media. And

maybe this is one of the reasons why my husband and I are so compatible and our marriage is now over 15 years and going strong because just like he doesn't want to spend on cars to buy status, I also

don't want to spend on things like clothes and handbags and shoes to buy status. For example, when it comes to shoes, my personal philosophy is I can only wear one pair of shoes at a time, so why would I need a closet full of

them and then just have it full of pairs that I probably only wear once or twice a year, if that. Right now, I have one pair of sneakers that I wear when I'm working out, one pair of Ugg boots that

my now husband gifted me when we first started dating over 15 years ago that I wear in the winter when it's cold and snowy, and when it's not snowing, I pretty much wear the same pair of shoes every single day, which is a pair of

sandals that I wear without socks in the summer and I wear with socks in the winter underneath for comfort. Do I look ridiculous wearing sandals with socks in the middle of winter? Probably. Do I give a crap if other people think that?

Absolutely not. The fifth thing that happened to me after I started doing no buys and low buys was I felt like I started to have this invisible force field around me when it came to ads and marketing and going out shopping. You

know how you watch the Star Wars movies and there's like those little droids that roll around in balls and then they pop up into their robot form and there's like this invisible bubble around them.

That's kind of how I feel right now, and it's almost like I've become untouchable when it comes to ads and marketing and seeing things that I'm tempted to impulse buy when I'm out and about running errands. It's like all of these

things just bounce off me. Most things that catch my attention nowadays are nothing more than a passing fancy because I'm much more attached to my own peace of mind and to financial freedom than I am to my want to own more

material possessions. Number six, I redefined waiting as sexy. In fact, I recently saw a video on this topic from a creator on TikTok who expressed this idea far much more beautifully and eloquently than I think I can. So, let

me show you that right now. We can't keep buying and throwing it into landfill. We just can't anymore because we know this system is seriously affecting nature and humanity. Simple.

So, I am going to show you something thrilling and exhilarating. How to wait. Waiting for something you want is sexy.

So, first of all, I asked myself, what is it that I really want? Some people make wish lists. I don't.

And right now, my wardrobe is pretty full. But, I think I've got space for an Elvis and Kresse bag. I want the yellow one.

Then, what I do is that I take two boxes, one real and one invented, which lives in my head.

And I start saving money. For real or in my imagination trade-offs. Like the other day I refrained from buying something I saw in a second-hand [clears throat] store, which would have cost me eight quid. So, that went into the box in my head.

While this morning I found a tenner in my pocket, and I put it in the real box, which is this one. Now, this box belonged to my great-grandfather. So, it knows a thing or two about the importance of time. So, there you go.

Tenner. Eight quid. And then, at some point, I will get to the right sum, and that day will be glorious, and I will buy my bag, the one that I longed for, and we will live happily ever after.

If we could all buy like that once a year, maybe. If we could fulfill an intention that takes us to such a tangible, delicious conclusion, simply having saved for and having savored what was to come. Instead of succumbing to

weekly buys that give no more than 5 minutes of gratification, and which are often the wrong fit.

[snorts] To want and to wait, to desire and to deprive yourself. A little suffering that goes a long way.

I absolutely love everything that that creator said in that video, and it really leads well into my next point, which is that through this whole frugal living and minimalism journey, I kind of became my own 100% satisfaction guarantee. You know how some brands will

offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and if you're not satisfied with your purchase, you can return it in a certain window of time, and they'll refund you your money. Well, I have gotten to the point where because I've gotten so used

to really thinking through my purchases and taking my time and doing my research, I am my own 100% satisfaction guarantee. And I've gotten so good at delayed gratification and mastering the art of waiting that I've basically eliminated regret purchases and buyer's

remorse and guilt from my life entirely. One recent purchase that comes to mind, for example, is an air fryer. So, I had been thinking about buying an air fryer for many, many years now at this point, even back when we were living in

Germany, which was now over 2 years ago, and my in-laws had purchased some air fryers and used them to cook some dishes for us that were absolutely incredible.

But, back then, I didn't know much about air fryers, and we ended up having to relocate back to the USA. So, I took my time, and I really did my research, and I looked and compared the different models and brands, and really thought

about what I wanted and needed. And that also has allowed me to track historical price trends and make sure that when I see something on sale, I know it's an actual sale and not just a marketing tactic. And so, I was recently able to

get exactly the air fryer that I wanted for the price tag of $99 versus paying $159 regular price. And we love it so, so much, and I am so, so satisfied with my purchase, and we actually even used it

the other day on Thanksgiving to make the crispiest, juiciest chicken wings we had ever eaten. So, I have to say, totally knocked it out of the ballpark with that one. However, when it comes to cutting back on spending, not all of the

things that happen are necessarily positive. So, one negative side effect, depending on how you look at it, of not spending money and being more in control of my spending and my impulses, is that I stopped seeing things as being so fun

and innocent and cute and nostalgic. It's kind of like almost how you see a watch and you see the watch is working, but then inside there's all these things ticking, the mechanisms behind it. And somehow, I became more aware of that in

terms of the marketing and the ads and the pressure that brands and influencers put on us to try to force us to spend money. Don't get me wrong. I love having fun. I love cute things. Stuffed animals are really, really hard for me to

resist. And being someone who loves anime, I always find myself so, so tempted when I see things like Studio Ghibli product drops. Or recently, I saw some Naruto handbags. But, I also know that if I gave in to every single one of

those impulses, I'd be right back where I started 10 years ago, broke and surrounded by a ton of clutter. So, like I said, it's like my rose-colored glasses have fallen off, and I can no longer see things as fun and cute and

innocent and nostalgic as I used to, especially some of my favorite things like the fall season and Halloween and Christmas, because my eyes have been opened to just how toxic this cycle of consumerism and waste and clutter has

become. But, speaking of seasons and holidays, number nine is also a beautiful reminder that the simple joys are often the ones that are the most meaningful. Holidays used to stress me out so much because it took so much time

and so much of my emotional bandwidth to try to search for the perfect gifts for people, to try to set up all of the holiday decor that I had to store elsewhere when it wasn't the holiday season, and all of the food that I

needed to cook, and the money that I needed to spend to do all of those things. But, after getting rid of over 90% of our stuff and radically simplifying our home and lives, I now feel so much more joy and happiness and

contentment around the holiday season. When it came to this past Halloween, for example, my kids and I love dressing up, and we love trick-or-treating. So, that was a huge focus of our Halloween celebrations. But, when it comes to

decorating, we're not so much into that. And so, basically, all we have fits into a very small box. And then, besides those decorations, one other thing that's kind of become a tradition for us is we buy some really nice pumpkins, and

we don't carve them. And instead, what we do is we stack them outside on our front doorstep. And then, when Halloween is over, we will take those pumpkins, and we will set them to the side so that the squirrels and the chipmunks and the

other little creatures in our neighborhood can enjoy them. And we get so much joy from watching these fat, chunky little squirrels chomp away on those pumpkins after the Halloween season is over. And almost every single day, my kids were asking, "When are we

going to give the squirrels the pumpkins? When are we going to give the squirrels the pumpkins?" So, for me, that was a really wholesome reminder that sometimes it's the simplest things that add the most joy and meaning to our

lives. The 10th thing that changed for me is that I've become so much more attuned to misalignment. One example of this that comes to mind for me was that at the beginning of this year, I put The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F by Mark

Manson on reservation at my local library. And I think that I waited like six or seven months for this audiobook to come in because it is so, so popular.

But, when I finally got the chance to listen to it, I think I only made it five or 10 minutes into the book before I had to quit listening to it because it was like a "Ew" moment for me.

Brother ew. What's that? What's that, brother? It just wasn't my cup of tea. And this is something that has really changed for me over the years because I definitely used to be someone who felt like I had to push through

things I didn't like because everyone said it's great or in order to get my money's worth. Whether it was something like feeling like I needed to finish a book from cover to cover because it is a must-read or popular classic. Or sitting

through a movie that I didn't enjoy. Or finishing a meal at a restaurant and cleaning my plate, even if it was gross or borderline inedible. Nowadays, I've gotten so, so much better in being able to recognize when something just isn't

for me and being able to say, "Nope" or "No, thanks" to that thing. The 11th thing that's changed is something that has been really important and life-changing for me, and it's that emergencies are no longer as scary as

they used to be. So, I shared a story in the past about why I'm so frugal that I will link up here and in that video I talked about an incident where I ended up injuring my ankle really, really badly when I was

rock climbing and because I didn't have health insurance, I was working minimum wage jobs, and I was a poor college student, I wasn't able to go for an x-ray or get medical treatment and I pretty much just crawled around on my

hands and knees for three or four weeks after that happened. I'm actually getting choked up about it because I can't tell you how much it means to me that nowadays I know that if something happens to me or my husband or my kids

that we can go and we can see a doctor and we can get the treatment that we need and my family doesn't have to suffer through that like I did back then. I think that I'm probably a little

bit more emotional than usual about this because this time of year is right when my mother passed away and I guess I can finally tell you that around two years ago I went for my very first mammogram and it was actually on the anniversary

of my mother's passing. And because that was the only appointment I could get for months and months and so I just had to keep my fingers crossed and hope that that meant that she was looking out for me. And at that mammogram they actually

found a lump in my breast, which was very, very scary as someone who has lost so many family members to cancer as I have. So, for me it was really, really scary to get called into another room and have the nurse pull up those results

and then, you know, see that mass and not know what it was and not know what it meant. So, what I was told at that time was that what I had was called a fibroadenoma and that it's not cancerous

or cause for concern, but just to be safe they wanted to monitor me every six months for two years and so after that now I've finally been cleared. I just went to my last exam a week or so ago, I

think. And something else that happened this year is that both of my boys needed to have their hands x-rayed because we suspected that they might have fractured their fingers. In the case of DD, at the beginning of the year it turns out that

he didn't fracture his finger and he only had a bad sprain that he needed a wrist brace for, but just this past month when we were doing a complete no spend challenge for no buy November, my oldest son Googa actually did end up

fracturing his finger and needed to get a custom splint done. It was his pinky.

So, I did not pay that bill yet. I just got it in my email inbox, but I'm just so grateful that we have the insurance and the money to pay for the out of pocket expenses to get the medical care

that we need. So, that's something that I will never, ever take for granted. The 12th thing that happened is I became aware of something that I would like to call the obsession curve. This is something that I've never really heard

people talk about before and usually when it comes to stuff like this that's more kind of psychology based, I like to look for data or research around it, but I couldn't really find anything around this. So, let me know if you know any

studies or data about this, but basically what I noticed is that when I would get obsessed with something and for me towards the beginning of the year it was the idea of buying a KitchenAid stand mixer and then after that I moved

away from the KitchenAid stand mixer to wanting to buy a vintage stand mixer and I was absolutely obsessing over these avocado green vintage stand mixers and I was looking at them every single day and I was tracking the prices and I set

alerts so that I could see if any new ones came onto eBay that I might want to buy. And what I noticed was that there was this kind of curve where I would become less and less obsessed over time

with this thing. And I will say that I know that minimalists love to talk about like the 30-day waiting period for like buying things so that you know it's not an impulse buy. For me personally, I feel like it did take more than 60 days,

maybe even in some cases like 90 days for that obsession curve to gradually fade away, but the point is that it did actually fade away and I went from obsessing about that thing every single day basically to never thinking of it at

all. So, again, I think this really goes back to that idea of being able to delay gratification and look at things that you're thinking of buying in terms of utility versus status and the more you're able to push your buys out and

just kind of take your time and think about things, I think that the less you'll actually end up buying in the long run. The 13th thing I wanted to talk about is how not spending so much money has allowed me to be more grateful

and generous. One stereotype I often see getting projected onto people in the minimalism and frugal living communities is the stereotype of them being a cheapskate or being miserly or really, really stingy with their money. But what I've actually observed is that money is

really an amplifier. It just makes you more of who you already are. If you're a stingy person already, having more money probably isn't going to change that. But on the other hand, if you're a grateful and generous person, that money is only

going to amplify your gratitude and generosity. I actually mentioned this in one of my previous videos and talked about how my husband would tip his hairdresser $20 every time she did his hair because he knew that she was

struggling and she really did a good job and he wanted to support her. And what's funny is I actually got some rude comments and pushback about that saying that it was ridiculous and in fact one person commented and asked, "Are you

sure Mr. Zen isn't bopping the hairdresser? 20 bucks tip each time when he cuts hair seems like a lot." But Mr.

Zen had my full support with that and we're actually really happy that we did tip her when we had the chance because his hairdresser ended up having to quit her job to go and take care of her mom

who is very, very sick and now at the point where she needs around-the-clock care. So, we're glad that we at least tipped her a little bit extra when we had the chance.

Another thing that you'll probably find happens when you cut back on your spending is that you'll have a lot more free time for your hobbies.

I think a lot of us aren't really aware at just how much time shopping and consumerist habits can really suck up in our lives. And when you kind of pull back from looking for things to buy on social media and researching all of the

things that you want to buy and coveting the latest and greatest things and actually driving to physical stores to just go shop around and try to find things to want to buy. When you cut back on all of that time that you previously

devoted towards shopping-related habits, you'll have so much more free time and energy to spend on hobbies. For me, the things that I enjoyed most were things like reading and watching movies together with my husband and my children and that's a double bonus for me because

not only do I enjoy those things, but they're also free because I got all of those books and movies from the library.

But even if you have hobbies that cost some amount of money, like for example, knitting or crocheting or gardening or cooking, it is still okay to put money towards those things if they're actually something that you enjoy and add value

to your life versus just going out and buying stuff that you don't really need or want. And finally, the last thing I wanted to mention is how not wasting and spending so much money has completely rewired my brain.

I feel like I've completely rewired my brain and went from a mindset that was focused around scarcity and hoarding and always wanting more to this overflowing feeling of gratitude and joy and contentment and enoughness that I never used to have when I was growing up.

And I know that I'm not the only one who's experienced this feeling of having kind of reprogrammed their brain because I recently saw some videos on TikTok where people were talking about how they've gone from being addicted to

spending money and buying a bunch of stuff to instead becoming addicted to saving money and reaching financial freedom and independence. I recently made an entire video around this topic and how I brainwashed myself to stop wanting to buy stuff and I will be sure

to link that over here for you or I will see you next week. Until then, take care. Bye-bye.