Okay friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I wanted to share how my no buy year has been going. This is actually a recap of September and October since I didn’t share the last Thursday in September. I will say right up front that I have continued to struggle. I briefly mentioned at the end of September that I had another slip up in September and purchased a couple of fall tops. And then in October I purchased a hat. I’m not sure if this is considered clothing or accessories, but I kind of feel like it is! The last few months have been so much more difficult than the first part of the year for sure. Maybe I am losing momentum!

I did want to be fully transparent and tell you I also purchased some clothing items for a costume I wore to a friend’s birthday party in September. I decided halfway through the year that if I needed to purchase clothing for a specific event that I would give myself a pass, but there was part of me that felt bad because I did purchase items for the costume that I would use in the future for more than just the costume. Which makes sense from a minimalist standpoint – for the items to have multiple uses – but it still made me feel like I was cheating or finding a loophole as an excuse to shop.

All of this has me thinking about the future and what I might do moving into 2026. I feel like I still haven’t fully broken my shopping habit, or my mindset around shopping. I feel like I have just been “white-knuckling” it these last couple of months, but I want a true heart change. I don’t just want behavior modification. That is part of why I did this whole no buy year. I thought about doing something crazy and doing ANOTHER no buy year in 2026, but truthfully I just don’t think this is realistic for me. I have been thinking about rules I could set up for myself moving forward. I realized that for the last several months I have purchased one or two things each month. This was still difficult compared to past shopping habits, so I am thinking that I will limit myself to two items per month. Let me know your thoughts or ideas.

Something else I wanted to address is the clothing and accessory items I got sent to me from brands for my YouTube channel. I do really appreciate this and I have been enjoying the items that these brands have sent me, but I realized when choosing which items I want, and receiving the package in the mail was so similar to how I feel when I purchase new things. I’m not saying I will turn down free items in the future, but once again I am just evaluating my heart on how I feel about new things, and I want to be as candid as possible as I feel like this holds me accountable.

Something else I have been thinking about over these last couple of months is the buy/declutter cycle. I know I have shared my thoughts about this in a previous post. It is just something that I am contemplating again. I do think that it is a fine line, and perhaps dangerous line, when we begin to declutter items from our homes. Especially when we get to the point where we are trying to pursue minimalism and getting rid of large quantities of stuff. This could potentially cause us to shop to replace some of the things we have decluttered. It is definitely something to keep in check when we begin a decluttering journey.

I know for myself, a lot of the things I declutter is simply a result of being married for 29 years, raising three kids, and two dogs over the years. I have decluttered items that no longer serve us in this life stage. Although I know some of it is from over consumption, and by this I just mean I have too many things in certain categories for my own personal liking and what I want to have on hand or what I have bandwidth to take care of. I have been honest about my struggles in the past with using shopping for the wrong reasons, and that is exactly why I am doing this no buy year!

The other category of things I declutter quite often is items that I am replacing. I do try to be intentional with when and why I replace items from around our home, but once again I would like to keep myself in check and evaluate if I am just making excuses to shop. I like pondering these things and having these conversations online to help challenge myself to more responsible spending habits!

Okay, that is all I have to share for this week’s thoughts and for this month’s no buy year recap. I hope this was encouraging or inspired you in some way! As always, I like to hear your thoughts on my thoughts so leave me a comment and let me know!