Shop less and save more with a 'no-buy challenge'

Summary

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Life Kit: “Shop Less and Save More with a ‘No-Buy Challenge’”

Podcast: Life Kit (NPR)
Host: Marielle Segarra
Episode Date: April 30, 2026
Guest Contributors: Stacey Vanek Smith (journalist), Alicia Berman (influencer), Aja Barber (journalist, designer), Dilys Williams (professor of sustainable fashion)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the viral “No-Buy Challenge” — a global movement encouraging people to stop or seriously curb unnecessary shopping for a set period. Host Marielle Segarra and journalist Stacey Vanek Smith dive into how the challenge works, who’s trying it, the financial and emotional reasons behind it, and practical strategies for listeners who want to shop more mindfully. The show is rich with personal experience (especially from Alicia Berman, a no-buy influencer), expert tips, and evidence on why consumption habits matter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Temptation of Shopping and Overconsumption

• Marielle Segarra sets the scene: Shopping is easier and more tempting than ever, with immediate “add to cart” moments during the most mundane parts of our day (00:19).
• Alicia Berman shares her habit: “Let’s go through my purse...1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 lip balms” (01:05). She’d often buy things she didn’t need—a theme relatable to many listeners.

What Is the No-Buy Challenge?

• Alicia started a No-Buy Year after realizing how much she was buying: “One of my goals for 2024 is to do a no buy year” (02:10).
• The no-buy movement thrives on social media, with most people attempting a 30-day stint, but Alicia went big—committing to a whole year (01:49–02:15).

Why Try a No-Buy? Emotional, Financial, and Environmental Triggers

• Breaking Point: Alicia’s impulse buy—a $600 coat she couldn’t afford—prompted her to confront her consumerism: “I left the store with a $600 winter coat that I just didn’t need and couldn’t afford…and yeah, like I was so overdrafted that I did a balance transfer” (05:03).
• Scope of the Problem: Stacey frames overconsumption as not just a personal issue, but a societal one—consumer spending is 75% of the US economy (04:19).
• Overconsumption’s environmental impact: Mountains of discarded clothes in Chile and Ghana are cited as eye-opening consequences (05:43).

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Step-by-Step Takeaways

Stacey and the guests circle around seven main takeaways (summed up at 20:21), with stories and expertise fleshing each out:

1. Find a Community (06:50)

• Alicia Berman: Being part of a supportive group online made no-buy less isolating: “It’s since kind of become almost like a support group” (06:50).
• Groups can be in-person, social media-based, or focused on specific issues (shopping addiction, sustainability, etc.).

2. Find Your Challenge (07:00)

• Aja Barber: Suggests tailoring your challenge—could be no new dresses, buying only secondhand, or sticking to a set budget.

  “I would challenge you to not buy a single dress new this year. That forces people to be a little bit creative…” (07:38).

3. Curate Your Social Media (08:40)

• Unsubscribe from emails and unfollow influencers who trigger spending.

  Alicia: “I unfollowed every single influencer who ever influenced me to make a purchase...I block them just because I’m opting out of that narrative” (09:17).

4. Make a Yes and No List (09:45)

• Create clear boundaries: What are you not buying (the “no” column)? What can you still enjoy (“yes” column)? Tailor this to your weak spots.

  Alicia’s No List: “No new clothes, obviously. No new beauty products…No jewelry, no new technology, no home decor…” (10:12). Her Yes List: “I am allowed to get dinners with friends…fresh cut flowers…buy books…buy video games. Basically anything that enriches my life is going to be in the yes column” (10:45).

• Alicia: "You have to find alternative means of getting that dopamine. You can't just kind of expect to deprive yourself and for it to work" (11:12).

5. Educate Yourself (13:37)

• Dilys Williams: Learn about where and how clothes are made. Try online resources like sustainable-fashion.com.

  “Fast fashion has long been a part of her focus, but she says, ultra-fast fashion, those are websites like Shein and Temu…It’s gone from fast fashion to now fashion. It’s literally real time” (13:37–14:16).

6. Recalibrate the Value of Clothes (14:39)

• Aja Barber: Fast fashion isn’t actually as affordable as it seems—not for you, nor the planet.

  “We've come to be a society that has utterly devalued clothing because of its abundance and because also the supply chain is so murky…” (14:46).

• Mindful consumption includes recognizing the real cost, and even meeting garment workers:

  “No clothing made in factories isn’t made by fairies. It’s made by human hands who need to get paid…” (16:51).

7. Give Yourself Grace (18:29)

• Slip-ups are normal and should be expected.

  “I broke my no buy. I bought a pair of shoes that…I've wanted for probably close to 10 years” (18:48). “Y’all, I broke my no buy… I just found these for such a good price and I am so happy” (19:25).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alicia’s honesty on relapse: “The siren song of Frankenstein boots. Sometimes it just gets you” (Stacey, 19:03).
• On not shaming yourself: Alicia posts about breaking the no buy on TikTok — open, real, and self-forgiving.
• Transformative Impact: “I am very proud of myself, which is not…I never really felt very proud…a new level of dedication and focus that maybe I wasn’t aware of” (Alicia, 19:57).

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:19 – Marielle sets the shopping temptation scene
• 01:05 – Alicia’s purse inventory and shopping habit
• 02:10 – Alicia’s first no-buy TikTok and rationale
• 05:03 – Breaking point: The $600 coat
• 06:50 – Value of no-buy community
• 07:38 – Aja Barber’s challenge ideas
• 08:40 – Social media curation for mindful shopping
• 09:45 – Alicia’s yes/no rule lists
• 10:45 – Focusing on enriching purchases
• 13:37 – Educating yourself & fast vs. ultra-fast fashion
• 14:46 – Redefining the value of clothing
• 16:51 – Humanizing the supply chain
• 18:29 – Emotional payoffs, self-forgiveness after relapse
• 20:21 – Stacey’s summary of the 7 takeaways

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Final Reflections and Outcomes

• After a year, Alicia is out of debt and shops with intention. She’s no longer “no-buying” but has radically improved her relationship to consumption (21:48).
• The episode closes on the idea that progress, not perfection, is what counts. Even small steps to consume with intention can meaningfully improve personal finances, reduce stress, and help the planet.

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Seven Takeaways, In Short (20:21)

1. Find a community
2. Find a challenge that suits you
3. Curate your social media
4. Make a yes and no list
5. Educate yourself about sourcing and labor
6. Recalibrate your value of things
7. Give yourself grace — everyone slips up

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This episode offers not just encouragement but actionable strategies and emotional support for anyone rethinking their relationship with spending and stuff—making the “no-buy” challenge feel both approachable and genuinely rewarding.

Transcript

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[Marielle Segarra]

You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, everybody, it's Marielle. When was the last time you bought something like a piece of clothing or jewelry or electronics or makeup or a kitchen gadget or home decor? Was it a month ago, a week ago, an hour ago? After all, buying things is so easy. Now we can drop a hundred bucks on a deluxe egg cooker while we're waiting for the subway or buy sunglasses on flash sale while we're in line for coffee. Even grab an adorable hot pink cake stand while we're in a zoom meeting. Because we definitely will start making cakes if we have a cake stand, right? Of course, a lot of this stuff we're buying isn't stuff we need.

[Alicia Berman]

Let's go through my purse. I have. Let's count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 lip balms.

[Marielle Segarra]

This is Alicia Berman in a conversation with journalist Stacey Vanek Smith back in 2024. At the time they talked, Alicia was 30 in fashion and beauty in New York. Trying new products and new looks was relevant to her job. But mostly she just loved shopping. And she ended up with a lot of stuff she didn't need.

[Alicia Berman]

I have two hand creams, two perfumes. I have sun. Oh, I have a lip liner. I have sunscreen. I have face spray, basically. Oh, cuticle cream. I'm like the Mary Poppins of beauty products.

[Marielle Segarra]

All of these products are things Alicia bought almost a year before. She talked to Stacey because she started doing a no buy challenge, as in she made a decision to join the no Buy challenge. No Buy has been a movement on social media with millions of people giving it a try, most for 30 days. But Alicia, she felt like she needed something more drastic.

[Alicia Berman]

One of my goals for 2024 is to do a no buy year.

[Marielle Segarra]

This is Alicia's first TikTok post. She started making the videos just to hold yourself accountable.

[Alicia Berman]

No new clothes, no new accessories, no new beauty.

[Marielle Segarra]

So right now, a lot of people are reexamining how they consume because they want to get a handle on their finances, because they want less clutter in their houses, because they're worried about how all of the buying we're doing is affecting the planet. We asked journalist Stacey Vanek Smith to look into the viral no Buy challenge, how it's going and what some of the best advice is for people who want to start their own challenge or just to consume more. Mindfully.

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[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I've been covering business and economics for more than 15 years, and one thing that has always blown my mind is how much shopping is the lifeblood of our economy. Nearly 75% of the US economy, biggest economy in the world, is consumer spending, aka people buying stuff. It is not an exaggeration to say that you buying that coastal grandma cardigan on your lunch break is a main pillar of the whole world's economy. Consumerism is a vast and powerful machine, and opting out of it is not easy. For Alicia Berman, the push to try came from this one moment when she ducked into a store in Brooklyn to buy gloves.

[Alicia Berman]

I left the store with a $600 winter coat that I just didn't need and couldn't afford. And yeah, like I was so overdrafted that I did a balance transfer into my account to pay for it. Like it was a mess. So that was kind of my like breaking point.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Alicia started to think about how much she was buying and she started to feel like it was too much.

[Alicia Berman]

I got probably between 10 and 30 things a week. It was like, you know, there would be one big ticket item a week and then maybe like lip glosses or a pair of socks, you know, but I had to get something pretty much every single day. Or like I was an addict.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Alicia was Also in a lot of debt. Her bank account was empty, her closets were bursting, and she had been reading about what over consumption was doing to the planet. The giant mountain of discarded clothes in Chile, the one you can see from space, the piles of clothes that have washed up and overtaken the beaches in Ghana. She decided she was gonna make a change, a big change. Alicia decided to try the no buy challenge. She'd seen it on social media, people saying, I'm not gonna buy anything for 30 days or 60 days. And then chronicling their no buy journeys on TikTok, Alicia decided to join in for a year. At the time she made her first TikTok, she did not have many followers. The videos were mostly for her. But almost right away, people started following Alicia in droves. She now has more than 100,000 followers and they direct message her all the time, saying things like, I'm doing a no buy challenge too, or you inspired me to do a no buy challeng. Alicia says it's been incredibly helpful and incredibly inspiring. So that is our takeaway number. Find a community.

[Alicia Berman]

I was seeing that there was this community of people doing it out there already and it's since kind of become almost like a support group.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

The community can be social media, but there are also all kinds of support groups from mindful consumption, minimizing waste, shopping addictions. Some are in person, some are online. Pick whatever works best for you. Now, the community you choose should align with whatever your goal is. So maybe a no buy challenge is not for you. You can try something different. That's our second takeaway. Find your challenge. This comes from Aja Barber, designer, journalist and author of the book the need for Collective Colonialism, Climate Change and Consumerism. Aja also runs her own online community oriented around mindful buying.

[Aja Barber]

This is something I do on my platform. I would challenge you to not buy a single dress new this year. That forces people to be a little bit creative, but it doesn't entirely limit them. I've challenged my readership to buy 50% of their clothing secondhand, which is a challenge I did for myself.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Other ideas? Do a low buy month or year where you set a spending budget and stick to it. You can also try delayed gratification shopping, where you save all the things you want to buy until the end of the month and then decide so you're less likely to make impulse buys. You can also challenge yourself to mend your clothes. In fact, we have an episode on how to start up a mending hobby so you can extend the lifespan of what you wear. There's also the 75 hard style challenge, where you document what you wear every day for 75 days. Don't buy any clothes, and this can help you get a broader perspective on your style and what you feel good in. Once you have your challenge on lock, AJA says it's time for takeaway number three.

[Aja Barber]

Get a grip on your social media. And that looks like unsubscribing from email list. And it also looks like looking at who you're following on social media, because when you get onto Instagram and other platforms, those ads that are being served to you are being tailored based off of who you follow and who you interact with with. We have all of these interesting tools on the Internet that really encourage us to buy things we don't need. You look at a dress once, and that dress follows you around the Internet, haunting you until you buy it. So it'll leave you alone, you know?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

For Alicia Berman, modifying her social media was a game changer.

[Alicia Berman]

I unfollowed every single influencer who ever influenced me to make a purchase. Even today, if someone comes across my for you page and I see something that they're shilling, I block them just because I'm opting out of that narrative, if you will. And then another thing that I did was I put like, blocks on certain sites. So, like, I can't literally, if I go try to browse certain sites, I'm not able to.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

After your social media is sorted, it's time for takeaway number four, setting the ground rule. What are the rules that you set for yourself? Oh, you just pulled it up on your phone. Oh, you like wrote. Is this like a treatise that you wrote yourself?

[Alicia Berman]

I wrote myself, yeah. I have a little treatise with myself. So this is.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So there's like a no column and a yes column. Okay, now identify your problem areas, the things you'd like to change, what you want to stop buying. Buy less of, AKA your no column. Tell me the no column.

[Alicia Berman]

So no new clothes, obviously. No new beauty products. I'm not allowed to buy any new perfume because I have so much, so many. No jewelry, no new technology, no home decor, and no bathing suits or beach stuff. These are weird and highly specific to me. The no buy rules are going to be different for everyone. My area of over consumption was beauty and fashion. You know, there are people who may over consume books.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

And now onto the yes column. Think about what you do want to spend your money on and what kinds of things are allowed in your no

[Alicia Berman]

buy in the yes column. I am allowed to get dinners with friends and my husband. I do allow fresh cut flowers. I'm allowed to buy books. I'm allowed to buy video games. Basically anything that enriches my life is going to be in the yes column.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Having things that you are allowed to spend on, even splurge on, is really important, says Alicia. That's because the dopamine hit you get from shopping is real and when you stop buying new things, it can get really hard.

[Alicia Berman]

I think you have to find alternative means of getting that dopamine. You can't just kind of expect to deprive yourself and for it to work

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

like you will fail things in Alicia's yes column Pilates classes, concerts, even budget travel. These are things Alicia feels good about spending money on. And when the hard moments come, Alicia says she tries to focus on what her long term values are and whether whatever she's tempted to buy aligns with those values.

[Aja Barber]

We've got to really rethink what it

[Alicia Berman]

is we're doing and what our intention is as you know, as human beings.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Dilys Williams is the director of the center for Sustainable Fashion at the University of the Arts in London. Dilys recommends choosing clothes and other products the same way you choose what you eat. After all, she says, food and fashion come from a lot of the same places. Fashion tells us about who we are. It's a visual barometer of what's going on in the world, and everything that we wear comes from the earth. So it's really powerful and it's personal.

[Marielle Segarra]

We'll have more Life Kit after the.

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[Stacey Vanek Smith]

number five educate yourself about where your clothes come from. There are some wonderful online resources, including sustainablefashion.com that's sustainable-fashion.com. that is where Dilys and her colleagues offer courses, discussion groups, and all kinds of free information about clothing and how it's sourced. Dilys has been teaching sustainable fashion for more than a decade. Fast fashion has long been a part of her focus. But she says, ultra fast fashion, those are websites like Shein and tamu. They have taken things to an entirely new level. It's gone from fast fashion to now fashion. It's literally real time.

[Alicia Berman]

Click on something and the algorithms mean

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

that they can just, yes, outsource this. And what would have taken a few weeks now can take 10 days. But author and designer Aja Barber says, I need to change that mindset.

[Aja Barber]

I always get people asking me, you know, oh, fast fashion is more affordable. It's not affordable for the planet. And it's probably not that affordable for you either. This system of constantly buying isn't actually that affordable.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Takeaway number six, recalibrate your idea of what is normal when it comes to how much clothes cost.

[Aja Barber]

We've come to be a society that has utterly devalued clothing because of its abundance and because also the supply chain is so murky that it's very easy for those of us who are on the consumer end to completely ignore what this system is doing to our fellow humans and our planet.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Aja says the way she thought about clothing and value changed profoundly in one afternoon.

[Aja Barber]

I was living in my parents basement. I was, you know, in between jobs, and for some reason I had saved all of my receipts for one particular store, which was H and M. And I remember sitting down one day and going, let me add up all these receipts for just this year. I did that and I was absolutely horrified. I was horrified because here I was in my parents basement buying clothing that I didn't need to impress people. I didn't even like. You know, I just knew that that wasn't how I wanted to spend my money.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Asha started to wonder what it was about buying all of these mountains of really cheap clothes that she found appealing. And she realized in a really tough moment in her life, this was the one moment where she felt in control, where she felt abundant and excited. Ultimately, though, it left her feeling empty.

[Aja Barber]

I think people are leaning into fast fashion because we ultimately feel powerless. When you get to a point where you're like, okay, I am having a hard time finding steady work and I don't think that I'm ever going to be able to own a house in this lifetime. And I've had to move back in with my parents and the planet is on fire. But the one thing you can do is you found this website called Shein where you can buy 100 items of clothing for $200. So why don't I do that and share it on social media?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Asha says one thing she's found most helpful in recalibrating her price expectations around clothes is meeting the people who are making the clothes, demystifying and humanizing the supply chain.

[Aja Barber]

I'm doing a lot of field trips where we go to, like, a workshop of a designer that I know, and they could see the clothing in person, putting faces and names to people who make our clothing and understand that no clothing made in factories isn't made by fairies. It's made by human hands who need to get paid the same wages that we need to get paid. When people actually know more of the backstory, I think that it makes a lot more sense that maybe I should actually save for a top from Phoebe English rather than, you know, just buying the same fast fashion stuff that lasts me a year.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Aja says there are huge rewards to be had when you start to consume more mindfully. Yes, changing how you buy can feel like deprivation, but it can also connect you to the people and communities all around the world who make clothes, design clothes, and to the people who want to connect more fully to the things they buy. And, says Aja, this can move the needle. The fashion industry is reportedly responsible for around 10% of carbon emissions. There are emotional payoffs as well. TikTok influencer and no Buy challenger Alicia Berman says since she stopped buying stuff, she's noticed her relationship to clothes has changed profoundly. She still loves fashion and design, but she doesn't always feel compelled to buy the things she likes and admires. And her mental health has improved in ways she didn't expect.

[Alicia Berman]

I kind of had this, like, newfound mental clarity and I was like, what? Like, what am I feeling? Essentially, I had gone through, like, detox and withdrawal, like, from the dopamine that you get from shopping.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

As far as the extremeness of a no buy, Alicia says, yeah, it's tough. She says doing a low buy challenge could be a better place to start. Her advice for anyone who wants to go all in like she did is her takeaway number seven. Give yourself grace, because you will need it.

[Alicia Berman]

I broke my no buy. I bought a pair of shoes that, to be fair, I have been wanting for probably close to 10 years.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

What kind of shoes were they?

[Alicia Berman]

They're Alexander Wang. They're called the Sloan boot. They look like Frankenstein boots. Most people won't like them, but I love them.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

The siren song of Frankenstein boots. Sometimes it just gets you. Alicia has broken her no buy a few times, but every time she's posted about it on her TikTok right away. She didn't want to hide it or let herself go into a shopping shame spiral. She wanted to own it, open up about it, and let everybody know she's not a stoic and that backsliding is part of the journey too.

[Alicia Berman]

Y', all, I broke my no buy. So I've wanted these shoes since 2014 when I saw them on the Runway and I just found these for such a good price and I am so happy.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Alicia told reviewers she would make good on this moment by selling a pair of shoes. She already had a one in one out policy, which will also bring in a little money, keep her on track financially. And that, she says is very important to her. But there's been another payoff too, for Alicia, one of the biggest and one she never really expected.

[Alicia Berman]

So I am very proud of myself, which is not. I don't really. I never really felt very proud. I've seen a new level of dedication and focus that maybe I wasn't aware of. It's not that I didn't have it, it's just that I wasn't aware that I was capable of it before.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So if you want to try a no buy or a low buy or just start consuming more mindfully, here are seven takeaways for how to get started. Takeaway number one Find a community. Social media support groups. Find people who will make the journey and any changes you make much easier. Takeaway number two Find. Find a challenge that works best for you. No buy, low buy Vintage challenge, no dress challenge. Take your pick. Takeaway number three Curate your social media. This will make changing your buying habits a lot easier. Takeaway number four Make a yes and a no list. What do you want to stop buying or buy less of and what do you want to replace it with? What are some things you feel good about spending your money on? Takeaway number 5 Educate yourself. Find out which brands are doing it right and which ones aren't. Websites like Fashion Revolution labor Behind the label Clean Clothes campaign. These are all excellent resources. You can Also check out sustainable-fashion.com it offers classes, community and lots of information. Takeaway number six Start to recalibrate how you value clothes. Maybe it's better to have a few pairs of really nice shoes, then 20 pairs of really, really cheap shoes that destroy your feet. And finally, takeaway number seven, Give yourself some grace. Change is hard, it takes courage, and failure is a part of it. Don't worry if you break your rules. Just keep going.

[Marielle Segarra]

That was journalist Stacey Vanek Smith. By the way, an update on Alicia. She says she's no longer doing the no Buy Challenge, but her financial situation is dramatically improved, her debt is gone, and she now shops much more responsibly and intentionally than she used to. All right, that's our show. By the way, if you love Life Kit and you want it to be even easier to listen to with curated playlists on popular Life Kit topics like sleep and personal finance, sign up for Life Kit Plus. Find out more at plus.NPR.org LifeKit this episode of Life Kit was produced by Margaret Serino. It was edited by Sylvie Douglas and Meghan Cain. Our visuals editor is CJ Reekalon, and our digital editor is Malika Garib. Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagle and Claire Marie Schneider. Engineering support comes from David Greenberg. I'm Marielle Segarra. Thanks for listening.

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