Status Updates From The Year of Less: How I Sto...

1. declutter
2. take inventory
3. write three lists (what you’re allowed to buy when you run out, what you’re not allowed to buy, the approved shopping list of specific things you’ll need)
4. unsubscribe/unfollow
5. set up a shopping ban savings acct
6. tell everyone
7. replace costly habits with free/cheap alternatives
8. pay att to your triggers
9. learn to live without/get creative
10. gratitude

“more was never the answer. the answer, it turned out, was always less.”

“the best gift the ban had given me was the tools to take control of my life and get a fresh start as my real self.”

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

“anything was possible if i made it a priority.”

“i gave up the feeling that i owed anyone anything, or that i could be someone to everyone. […] and i was okay.”

“what was done was done. […] the only thing we could do now was move forward.”

“when you want less, you consume less — and you also need less money”

“advertisements and marketing campaigns had conditioned me to believe everything was now or never. it never occurred to me to wait until i actually needed something. the truth, i was learning, was that we couldn’t actually discover what we needed until we lived without it.”

“the silence would hurt, but the noise had to go.”

“who are you buying this for: the person you are, or the person you want to be?”

“that was all i was ever going to be to her: a novelty; something to talk about. i don’t want to be known as the sober one anymore. i wasn’t just the sober one. there was more to me than that. wasn’t there?”

“when people announce your sobriety, it […] makes you feel like they have whittled down your worth to one sentence and turned you into nothing more than office gossip.”

“people will always make comments when you decide to live a countercultural lifestyle”

“i had felt things and kept living”

Very quick read and so far I feel like anyone would be able to resonate with some of the things the author has spoken about