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

Shouldn’t I have been cured? I could’ve let the shame set in, felt like a failure, and given up on the shopping ban altogether. But slipping up didn’t make me a bad person. I was not bad. What I did wasn’t bad. I had just slipped up. And I knew I didn’t want to relapse and repeat the cycle of self-loathing. It always led to trouble. The only way to

compulsive shopper. I was a compulsive binge consumer of everything, really, including food and alcohol. I didn’t even know how to stop myself from binging on television for hours on end, something I wasted all the rest of my time in my 20s doing when I wasn’t out actually getting wasted.

It had to fit right and feel good and be something I could imagine wearing almost every day, because that’s what all the items in my new, tiny wardrobe did—they were worn almost every day.

I didn’t know how many habits I had that centered on drinking take-out coffee until I wasn’t allowed to buy it. Each time I craved it, I had to stand in the moment, pay attention to what had triggered the craving, and change my reaction.

However, I decided to also set a stretch goal for myself. Stretch goals were something I had first learned about through reading personal finance blogs. People set them to challenge themselves to accomplish something even faster than they thought they could—by stretching their limits, so to speak. I had set stretch goals to pay off my debt sooner.

I still don’t understand why we are always so quick to push off the things we actually enjoy doing for the things that take just a little less effort.

This was not a diet. I didn’t want to lose weight or change anything about my body. I simply wanted to feel better. It seemed the healthiest thing I could do was be aware of how foods made me feel, and eat less of what made me feel sick and more of what gave me good energy.

Why do my friends still talk to me? I would ask myself. I am a terrible person. I didn’t just feel guilty, I was deeply ashamed of my actions. In her second TED Talk, “Listening to Shame,” Brené Brown says the difference is that guilt equals I did something bad, and shame equals I am bad. I was a permanent resident of the world of shame. I told mys

I wanted to be surrounded by those who valued living over working, spending time outdoors over spending time online, and doing things for themselves over paying for every possible convenience.