how to stop buying things you don't need

get to know your brain

I’m about to go grocery shopping in town, where I’ll shop in-store to get 10% off the total bill, an incentive that came with a pre-paid annual phone plan.

I bought my phone second-hand off facebook marketplace. By ‘I’ I mean my partner, who is the household’s official marketplace spokesperson, seller of electronics and bike parts, buyer of gardening tools and board games, with enough patience in his soul to withstand the poor grammar and complicated messages that litter his account.

Last week I cleaned out the children’s wardrobes and sorted one pile of play clothes and pyjamas to send to a friend in the south of the state. Another friend who lives just around the corner will receive a bag of t-shirts, shorts and checked flannelette shirts for her two boys who will no doubt wear them till they’re outgrown in a few years’ time.

Yesterday I tidied the fridge and wrote a meal plan for the week. Wilting vegies and discarded stalks will be added to a soup and a curry; the last of the Greek yoghurt will be used to make muffins; there’s stewing beef in the freezer, enough for a weekly slow-cook for the next month. From where I’m sitting I can see the recycled jars on the shelf that are almost-empty: brown rice, corn chips, desiccated coconut, almonds. They’ll be topped up along with flour, sugar, butter and eggs — the staples that will become cookies and cakes to pack in lunchboxes and accompany cups of tea.

This checking-in to plan and prepare feels like a meaningful moment in my week; a small step towards wasting less and living with more intention.

Last month I pinched off the top of the sweet pea seedlings and placed them in water till they grew roots of their own and today I transplanted them back to the vegetable patch where they’ll hopefully take hold, grow tall and erupt with sweet smelling pastel petals come September. This process, of tending to and nurturing young plants is not going to change or update in the years to come. There are no advancements in these ancient practises so I carry these skills with me and they compound to become a reliable form of contentment and joy.

I’m learning that this slow process of growing something from a saved seed is far more nourishing than an online purchase that arrives a week after the transaction, its initial appeal diluted in transit.

Herein lies the key to consuming less.