Consumer culture hurts everyone. It drains our wallets, contributes to human, animal, and environmental exploitation, and actually separates us from our communities.
Here are ten easy swaps and habits you can implement that can lower your consumption, foster more intentional spending, and help you live a better life.
1. Swap parties
Hosting a swap party is a great way to reduce waste, build community, and start constructive conversations about consumption.
A swap party is where you invite a bunch of friends (or the whole neighborhood!) over and ask them to bring unwanted items and “shop” for new stuff! The categories of items can include clothing, plants, decor, kids’ toys, gardening equipment, or anything else that’s relevant for your life.
Learn how to host a clothing swap party.
2. Grow your own food
I know not everyone can be Farmer Dan on their front lawn, but there are easier ways to grow your own food for a lower grocery bill and a nutritious, organic add to your diet. One practically effortless addition is micro greens and sprouts.
It’s so easy you can grow them in just a couple of days with one jar: How To Grow Sprouts
Once you’ve mastered sprouts and micro greens, a kitchen herb garden is also pretty achievable, though that may take more setup time.
Other low-effort crops include potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers!
You don’t have to have a complicated garden spread to grow your own food. Start small! If it goes well, you can always grow from there.
3. Learn to mend
Being able to care for and repair items is an amazing skill to build. Simple sewing skills like attaching buttons, hemming, and patching can make your clothes comfier, better fitting, and longer lasting.
There are tons of easy-to-follow tutorials for anything you’d like to try on YouTube:
This is a practice to extend the life of the clothes you already own, and broaden your horizons for buying new clothes. With more skills, you can thrift shop and save pieces from landfills by Frankensteining pieces into something you love and actually want to wear.
It’s a fun and practical hobby to pursue!
4. Take pride in being creative and thrifty
It’s a real skill to be able to make do with what you already have. It can even be fun.
The next time you feel the impulse to buy something, ask yourself:
- Do I need this?
- What do I already have that can serve this function?
- Do I know someone I could borrow this from?
- Does the library or other source have one I can borrow?
- Does it make more sense to rent this item?
With a little time and creativity, I’ve been able to sidestep the majority of “necessity” purchases over the past few years. We truly don’t need to buy most of the stuff we convince ourselves we need–we certainly don’t need to buy it brand new.
5. Buy Nothing Groups
There’s an app for this–it’s called Buy Nothing–but you might have a Facebook group or other local option that serves the same purpose. Basically, it’s a place people can ask for what they need and offer what they have. No money exchanged. Just folks plugging in and helping out how they can.
Get on Facebook or Nextdoor and look for swap/free groups for your area. If you live in a rural place, it may be harder to find, or it may not exist at all. If that’s the case, I encourage you to start a group with your neighbors–even a handful of people in your network can make an amazing community for sharing and supporting each other.
6. Pursue skills and knowledge
In a culture rampant with consumerism, buying things becomes…everything.
We shop.
We scroll.
Scrolling is optimized to get us addicted to scrolling so they can get us to shop more.
And…that’s much of our nation’s most frequent activity. And we really aren’t choosing it on purpose.
That sucks.
Illiteracy rates in the United States had dropped to nearly 3% by 1950 (source). By 2024, 21% of adults in the U.S. were functionally illiterate (source), that number only growing since.
This could be credited to consumerism. And I don’t mean individual behaviors, I mean a systemic emphasis on money over everything. We are a nation (one of many) that values money over education.
Over community.
Over human rights.
Over kindness.
Over self-actualization.
But on an individual level, we can choose a different path for our families.
The best way to combat anti-intellectualism is with education. By encouraging your children to read. Reading yourself. Starting a book club. Pursuing knowledge. Building skills.
Here’s a quick list of free learning resources you can access online (via nourishing minimalism):
- LearnCraft Spanish (learn Spanish)
- Code Academy (learn to code)
- ifixit (learn to fix anything)
- musicca (learn music theory)
- We All Sew (learn to sew)
- Free Sewing Designs (customize free patterns to fit you–this site is awesome)
- Waking Up (learn to meditate and self-regulate)
Note: The Waking Up meditation subscription is not technically free, but you can request a scholarship to access it at no charge.
If you can find value in learning and intellectualism, you don’t have to find it in money or material things.
7. Set purchase parameters
One great way to get a handle on shopping habits is to set parameters in which you are allowed to buy things. This can look however you’d like–here are a few ideas:
Wait 48 hours before making a purchase. It won’t rot in the cart (and letting things sit in your cart for a day or two usually triggers a coupon code to your inbox anyhow…win-win).
Only buy things one day of the week. I used to take this to the extreme and make all of my non-food purchases one day a month–the last day. Throughout the month, I’d keep a list of purchases I thought I wanted to make. By the end of it, I had time to think it over, let the impulse pass, and shop for the best version of the item. Often, I only purchased 1 or 2 of the twenty-ish items I collected over 30 days. Now, I barely add anything to my “considering” list, because I broke the habit of consuming. Really. You can train yourself out of the impulse.
Start with one no-buy day a week. A more accessible version is to choose one day a week that you DON’T buy anything. If it feels good, you can make it two! Always start a new pursuit with an achievable goal you can build on.
Limit where you can shop. You can challenge yourself to only shop local, only shop from a list of ethical stores, only shop vegan, etc.–set up whatever boundary feels important to you. This takes away a lot of the convenience that can make shopping fun. By taking out easy-buy options, like Amazon, your purchasing habits naturally become more mindful and less reflexive. So cancel your Prime and delete the app from your phone.
(Amazon is greedy and deeply unethical with borderline monopolies in SO MANY industries. And their products are usually trash. Stop giving them your money!)
Make it a challenge. Okay, this one might be extreme, but I find it fun: Set a personal goal for yourself with the purchase as a reward. Right now I’m doing a two-month running challenge, and when I finish it, I’ll buy a new kitchen faucet. My current faucet is SO annoying, and running is also so annoying…so I’m trading one annoyance to relieve another. Every time I use my kitchen, I feel inspired to stick to my challenge. What do we think? Too extreme? Maybe… 😅 But it’s working! I only have two weeks before that faucet is MIINEEE!!
8. Optimize your home for energy efficiency
There are easy (and complicated) swaps you can make in your home to consume less energy, save money on utilities, and live a little cleaner.
I’m not saying it’s up to the individual consumer to fix the environment–I think we’re all generally aware that 71% of green house emissions are created by fewer than 100 corporations. One guy installing solar panels on his house isn’t going to fix this. Policy change and holding corporations accountable is the only reasonable solution.
BUT we can save money on a personal level, educate ourselves, and help our families and communities gain awareness by making energy efficient swaps in the home. Here are a few ideas:
- Consider solar panels
- Insulate your walls and attic
- Use weather stripping on windows and doors
- Seal holes in your home
- Consider upgrading windows
- Consider energy efficient machines when shopping for new appliances
- Consider less wasteful modes of transportation, like biking, walking, or using public transport (I know this is tough in a lot of places, but even cutting one car trip a week in exchange for biking is easier on the wallet and better for your health)
- Wash laundry during off-hours
- Turn off lights and unplug electronics when not in use
- Water your garden in the early morning and/or use drip irrigation
- Mulch your trees and gardens to prevent evaporation
- Install rain barrels (check your local restrictions for amounts legal to collect, then complain to your state government if you don’t think it’s fair)
9. Find free activities
If shopping is a hobby for you, you’re definitely not alone. You’re with the majority. But we’ve GOTTTTTT to find a new activity, friend.
If you have no idea what to try first, you can start here: Simple & Free Spring Activities [LIST]
10. Declutter your home
Mindful decluttering helps us know what we have on hand, keep better inventory management, and grow awareness of our consumption habits.
Putting in the hard work of decluttering can also make you appreciate that everything we buy holds weight. It takes up space in our home and our minds. That realization can make passing on impulse purchases much easier.
If you’d like help getting started, you can try this free list of 100 items to declutter today:
Are you going to try out any of these consumption-curbing habits?
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