What constitutes a buy nothing year?

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7Wannabe5
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

jacob wrote:Owning shares might be a moral issue, but in terms of the ecological or social impacts of a given corporation, it does not really matter who owns the shares(*)(**). What matters for its existence as a ongoing concern is whether there's a demand for the products and services that the corporation provides and that is determined by how much consumers spend, that is, whether there's a revenue or not.
One argument. 97% of the wastestream in the U.S. is created at the industrial/business level. Who are the decision makers at this level if not the owners? Okay, say it's the CEO/executive suite. How are they currently likely to be motivated in their decision making? Most likely stock options. So, for example, if it's cheaper due to labor costs to simply dump industrial waste rather than to recycle it or find a secondary market, that will be the most efficient path towards staying competive and maximizing profits and maximizing the self-interest of decision makers.

When you run your own small business, even at the level of applying frugality to bring your costs down to zero in some realm for your household, you are clearly outsourcing less of your decision making. For instance, even in my current micro-1099-contract-tutoring business which is service-oriented (as opposed to product oriented= many more material streams to be considered), I have to make decisions such as whether to use paper and pencil vs. mini-dry-erase boards and markers. When I was a used book dealer, I had to figure out what to do with the books I had purchased that I determined I couldn't profit by selling, and I went to the trouble/expense of returning them into the tertiary market rather just throwing them in a dumpster. OTOH, when I was the inventory manager for a very large corporate bookstore, brand new mass market paperbooks that didn't sell were processed by ripping off their covers to return to publisher, and putting the bulk of the remaining books into the dumpster.
OTOH, as to @kane's remark. Those who run a business, like a mom&pop business or a dog&pony show (like mine), where they have control could make a significant difference applying a BN(lets just remove the Y)-attitude. I also know of examples where two different businesses essentially produce the same amount of services but where the operating margins are close to 100% and close to 0% respectively and that to a large degree comes down to the "CEO"'s attitude to spending.
Yes, but it's more complex than this. There are very few businesses that can be designed with zero operating expenses and zero initial capital investment. So, achieving success with a BNY for a micro-business is more difficult than doing it for your own personal lifestyle. For instance, my students can and do complain when I make them "use up" the dry erase markers that are almost dry :lol: and recycled shipping envelopes for rare books are more likely to rip in transit leading to customer complaints than plastic-bubble-wrap variety, etc. etc.

AND, if you are attempting to be more ethical in your decision-making as a small business person actually immersed in the results of your decisions, you still have to compete with the less thoughtful practices of the CEOs whose short-term profit-maximizing decision-making behavior is passively condoned by every investor who passively buys another share of an index fund.

So, I guess what I am suggesting (not necessarily recommending as anything approaching likely to best improve anybody's short or medium term net worth !!:lol: ) is something like why not take the money you save by creatively reducing your expenses to zero in some previously consumer category of your life, and instead of investing it in an index fund (or any other distant, diluted, decision-delegated realm of endeavor) use it to capitalize some endeavor(s) either beyond zero-expense to making-some-profit OR beyond individual/household to community/bioregion level? For instance, buy the supplies to start your own mushroom growing business and set up an independent community-based ISP. By doing this you will also be simultaneously creating all sorts of purposeful activities and meaningful relationships for yourself, so you will nevee be tempted to go back to 9-5 just because you are bored and kind of lonely.

IOW, it seems to me that there is some sort of moat(s) of risk or some sort of form(s) of "creative destruction" that must occur to move from ERE1 to ERE2, and I am just suggesting that it might involve letting go of the comfortable or comforting metaphor that likens a corporation yielding dividends to a mature apple tree yielding fruit.

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grundomatic
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by grundomatic »

If the assumption for consumers is that they spend everything they make, then a new business wouldn’t necessarily increase overall consumption–I’d tend to see the new business product as a substitute for whatever they were consuming before. If the business owner is applying ERE principles and squirreling most of their revenue away, taking it out of the “real” economy, it seems like that could reduce overall consumption.

If I could take the trash that blows into my yard, sandwich it in a $1 thrift store picture frame, and sell my “found art” for tens of dollars, I totally would. Though not as skilled as many around here, I'm totally going to be more efficient with that money than my customer.

7Wannabe5
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

OTOH, it's possible that I am just talking to myself about why it will never happen that I will invest in the stock market vs some project(s) of my own devising, because it's actually kind of "expensive" or friction-creating to keep thinking that I might. Carry on y'all :D

zbigi
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by zbigi »

Investing in your own local business is very risky (after all, most small businesses fail), whereas putting money in mature stocks comes with a degree of security.

7Wannabe5
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@zbigi:

Exactly.

ducknald_don
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by ducknald_don »

Running a small or local business is a job for most people. Most of them won't think of it as anything other than an alternative to the traditional world of work. Incomes for most entrepreneurs match that of people in employment.

http://reactionwheel.net/2019/01/schump ... ategy.html

kane
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by kane »

Investing in your own 'local' business might be risky (riskier than investing in XYZ ETF), but part of the risk is not having any/having small bonds with the community. Thing which might be part of being introverted thinking type. Guess how I know.

I'd say that "investing" (in the ERE sense, not as in "cocaine-frenzy blockchain speculation") might be a natural NT/Red bias. It's the same why we have so many people on the nerd-spectrum side here and probably a smaller number of people going to 4x4 off road trips with friends. Imagine their faces when they read that chess is a nice free hobby that nicely fit the Buy Nothing Year.

Funny because I know people that are your outgoing-one-joke-a-minute types that would like to get inside e.g. web programming because the narrative currently is that "the nerds are making a lot of money doing basically nothing!", and I was always thinking that they got it wrong, I mean if you have this thing for other people why would you sign up for sitting in front of computer all day?

Coming back to the topic, I just think that changing the pillars of your thinking (by using this BNY tool) can be beneficial both in personal and running-a-business life. It doesn't mean that you can't buy sh*t or that your less fair neighbour won't screw you (because he will dump his trash in the forest instead of calling municipal forces and paying the bill).

That's also why I have always been interested in other EREland types out there (7W5 is often my food for thought here).

7Wannabe5
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

ducknald_don wrote:Running a small or local business is a job for most people. Most of them won't think of it as anything other than an alternative to the traditional world of work. Incomes for most entrepreneurs match that of people in employment.
I'm not sure what point you are attempting to make? :) What struck me from the article is that the number 1 motivation for entrepreneurs or small business owners was "being their own boss" or, IOW, "autonomy." As we will all remember from the 4 quadrant diagram in "ERE" the book, The Business Man can be as non-linear in functioning as the Renaissance Man, but he will be more tightly coupled to a variety of others such as partners, employees, suppliers, customers, clients, etc. However, as the BusinessMan downsizes he approaches the loosely coupled WorkingMan, or as the WorkingMan applies more critical thinking or adds some complexity towards leverage, they both approach the RenaissanceMan. However, to the extent that the RenaissanceMan is dependent on proceeds from StockMarket investments, as opposed to high level of varied skills, he is really just a highly capitalized BusinessMan. Or another way to look at it would be that the Ideal Renaissance Man would have highest quality of life with zero expenses due to maximum skills.

However, at some point (Wheaton Level 7?), the correlation between "personal spending in $$" and "environmental footprint" starts to unravel. For instance, due to my Lentil Baby skills I could (once again) move in with one of my CalorieKing partners, pay zero rent, and thereby reduce my personal spending by approximately $500/month. OTOH, if I had more liquid capital and some landlording skills, I could pay cash for a big house, hack it into rental spaces, and maybe also reduce my personal spending by approximately $500/month. In both situations, my net shelter expense of $0 does not reflect the fact that I am still using some resources in a non-closed loop manner. And, in both situations, it could be suggested that I am just using tricks of accounting.

Anyways, I am making muddled work of extending this line of thought to the difference between using proceeds from Passive Index Fund Investing Business to pay Extremely Low Personal Expenses vs. using proceeds from Active Engaged Business to pay Somewhat Higher Than Extremely Low Personal Expenses. In simplest terms, I am suggesting that it would be better, more on the right path forward, to maybe have $12,000/year in personal expenses covered by an Actively Engaged Business than to have $8000/year in personal expenses covered by Passive Index Fund Investing Business.
kane wrote:I'd say that "investing" (in the ERE sense, not as in "cocaine-frenzy blockchain speculation") might be a natural NT/Red bias.
Interesting thought.
That's also why I have always been interested in other EREland types out there (7W5 is often my food for thought here).
Hmmm...you might want to consider limiting your ingestion from my pot of babbled reasoning :lol:

Maybe I should change my handle to 7nowannabe5, because I am hereby officially giving up on anything resembling the transformation of eNTP me into INTJ y'all. My dopamine pathways are unalterable. I will likely continue to try to get my Spender level even lower (although I would guesstimate that my lifetime somewhat variable average would be in the lowest 10-20% of even this forum), but I am no longer going to kid myself into thinking that I am capable of being an Earner/Saver. I found myself in an argument with my sisters recently about the premise of Picketty's "Capital." Since I tend to argue the Socialist line when in more Libertarian/Capitalist company and vice-versa, I was arguing Libertarian/Capitalist line with them. At one point I said "We all could have decided at the age of 22 to take jobs as Administrative Assistants paying $40,000/year, lived modest middle-class lives on $30,000/year, saved $10,000/year for 30 years, and now we would all have significant net worths." That's where I won that argument, and shut them down, because they all, being no dummies mathwise, instantly agreed, that "Yes, we could have done that, but no we didn't/don't wanna."

JenniferW
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by JenniferW »

For me a buy nothing year means to buy nothing which is not a necessity -- i.e. discretionary. I don't deprive myself of necessities. I am currently doing a $500 max discretionary spend for 365 days, with a stretch goal of $0. So far so good w/ respect to the $0 discretionary spend.

I realize necessities are subjective depending on the person, we each have our rules and well my personal $0 discretionary spend will be quite challenging for myself: no hobby money, no dining, no fast food, no convenience store food, no coffeehouses, no outings (outings which cost money that is, there is still the park etc.) no optional subscriptions, no optional clothing, no political contributions, no gifts, etc.. I really want to see what it is like to spend nothing on discretionary items for a full year, just to see how I do..I don't think I'll feel deprived; I'll make good use of my existing possessions. Examples of some of my necessities which might not be for others: a well air conditioned home (for health reasons) and I'll never give up toilet paper; I also won't hang dry clothing -- we don't do that much laundry anyways; we have a natural gas dryer which is affordable compared to electric drying.

Biofact
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by Biofact »

Except the things which you have to buy to not break the law (such as health insurance and other insurances like old age care insurance, pension plans, house or rent so you can be registered on an address), the next thing would be food.

I would really like to know how some of you who do this challenge stay healthy and fit, while at the same time not buy food and not break the law.

ducknald_don
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by ducknald_don »

I'm sure most people doing this challenge will continue to buy food.

You could apply some restrictions though such as no processed food or eat everything in the larder first.

ertyu
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by ertyu »

My version, which I didn't really stick to for unrelated reasons, was to choose a store that only sells produce (fruit, veg, eggs, tofu, some meat, legumes, very minimal packaged goods) and say "i will only shop there." If I'd stuck to it, it would've meant cooking everything from absolute scratch. I've heard people frame this as, "I'll only shop the perimeter of the store" or "I'll make a shopping list from the loss leaders brochure I looked up online and only buy what's on the list"

VinceJ
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by VinceJ »

Biofact wrote:
Sat Mar 11, 2023 10:47 pm
Except the things which you have to buy to not break the law (such as health insurance and other insurances like old age care insurance, pension plans, house or rent so you can be registered on an address), the next thing would be food.

I would really like to know how some of you who do this challenge stay healthy and fit, while at the same time not buy food and not break the law.
Probably the only way if you have your own garden yeah.
Also maybe if you're a hunter with stockpile of stuff you might be able to fill your freezer during the season. Personally, I've put a bunch of my firearms for sale during buy nothing year since I've realized I don't need that many. I agree though, in my understanding, this challenge is "avoiding" anything that is not a bare necessity to stay healthy and well.
Last edited by VinceJ on Tue Mar 28, 2023 1:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

mathiverse
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by mathiverse »

VinceJ wrote:
Mon Mar 13, 2023 1:43 am
A couple other options...
  • Work places that provide all your food. (eg restaurants that provide free meals to employee or companies with free food, Workaway or other situations where you get free room and board, etc)
  • Dumpster dive
  • Volunteer someplace that provides your food (eg soup kitchens, food banks that let volunteers take extra food home, other volunteer positions that provide food for the day)
  • Trade businesses, neighbors, friends, or family for food
  • Go to uni on a full scholarship that provides room and board
  • Find all free events giving out free food everyday and go there with a take home container

jacob
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by jacob »

I don't recall people struggling so much to understand the BNY concept when it first came out.

The purpose is to undergo a 365 day shopping detox from consumerism.

Thinking or debating exact rules for what or when or how much one is allowed to consume seems to be missing the point entirely. That's like trying to quit alcohol by obsessing over what kind of drinks counts as drinks or vowing to not buy wine while spending the next year raiding a well stocked wine-cellar. Staying with the metaphor, the point of abstaining is to learn how to enjoy life without having to drink. Likewise, the point of a BNY is to figure out how to enjoy life without having to consume. This is harder than it sounds.

What goes:
paying bills like electricity, heat, water, food, insurance, ... as well as going to the dentist if you get a tooth ache or replacing the furnace if it breaks.

What doesn't go:
meals out, cafe coffee, take-out, TV dinners, going to the movies, buying new/used clothes, trips, vacations, buying new electronics or small appliances, subscriptions, cable TV packages, "rewarding" oneself, etc. UNLESS one can find solution that doesn't involve handing over money.

Finding those solutions is the entire point of the solution. If by the end of the one year one has not discovered a new world of non-consumerist alternatives, the year was wasted.

clark
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by clark »

Speaking as someone who’s figured out how to live very frugally, I still feel like BNY is a huge mentality shift. Most of my entertainment is from used books and CDs. All my furniture is either second hand or hand-me-downs. I’ve lived many years without wifi service.

And yet I still have cravings to buy more books, cds, and whatnot, and my house is chock full of stuff I found for cheap. Living frugally clearly hasn’t eliminated my consumerism. Thus, the idea of doing a BNY fills me with trepidation - and excitement, as I know that the deprivation would fundamentally change me as a person. It is a fundamentally different idea than just living far enough below one’s means to retire, and would require a different set of mental skills.

So I welcome the radicalness of the idea, and I have enjoyed this discussion greatly. These kinds of ideas are why I keep coming back to this forum (I’m also a 80% thinking/ 20% doing person). It is making me strongly consider taking the plunge into a BNY.

Frita
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Re: What constitutes a buy nothing year?

Post by Frita »

clark wrote:
Sat Mar 25, 2023 7:17 pm
And yet I still have cravings to buy more books, cds, and whatnot, and my house is chock full of stuff I found for cheap. Living frugally clearly hasn’t eliminated my consumerism.
Hm, as an American I think of the folks who survived the Great Depression (Greatest and Silent Generations) and learned to save everything who produced the Boomers. Both share an outward focus with the former being more frugal out of necessity.

So I am an older Gen Xer. With public libraries I can borrow nearly any book and many CDs for free. I know that they’re available and don’t need to directly pay for them or house them myself. I don’t need to have shelves full of books as some status or virtual signaling. Nothing to gain.

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