The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store

by Cait Flanders

One thing debt and clutter have in common is that as soon as you start letting it pile up, it can be harder and harder to see your way around it.

The toughest part of not being allowed to buy anything new wasn’t that I couldn’t buy anything new—it was having to physically confront my triggers and change my reaction to them.

More often, though, it was simply because that was what I had always done. In the past, whenever I wanted something, I bought it—no questions asked, budget and savings goals be damned. To combat these impulses now, the only thing I could ever think to do was remember how much stuff I had gotten rid of and how much I still had at home. It was enough.