No Buy 2025 Is Here to Influence You to Stop Shopping
Influencers on TikTok have a reputation for encouraging their followers to shop. But some are entering the new year preaching the opposite: No Buy 2025.
This trend on social media is mostly populated by women content creators and feels like a cousin to the underconsumption core content that took off last year. While those videos emphasized creators’ humble collections of clothes, bath products, and makeup, no-buy months or years enact a conscious pause on nonessential shopping.
And adherents swear it works. Kay, known as @adventuringwithkayla on TikTok, said in a video that she saved $10,000 through a no-buy year in 2024. She claimed she skipped buying new clothes, accessories, and home decor but allowed occasional thrifting. She curtailed getting coffees out but permitted concerts if they cost no more than $100 a ticket. And she says she will continue her no-buy mandate in 2025, with room in the budget for travel.
Those who have committed to it are serious about their intentions. They write down rules for their no-buy year, deciding which purchases they can live without. Some people choose to forgo any new clothes and avoid buying new skin care or makeup until they are all out of what they have; others mix and match. They also write down which purchases are permitted (things like groceries, toiletries, health care items, and rent or mortgages are not optional, clearly).
The trick to a no-buy challenge is to set these ground rules, says Rebecca Sowden, who is documenting her own no-buy challenge on TikTok. Sowden calls herself a recovering superspender, and though she wasn’t in debt, she felt she wasn’t saving enough money. It wasn’t until Sowden began documenting a short-term shopping ban on TikTok that she completed one successfully.
Sowden says that committing to a shopping ban so publicly helped her actually stick to it.
“It gave me so much confidence in saying, like, ‘No, I can say no to this stuff. The world will not end if I don’t buy that thing that’s on sale,’” she tells Glamour.
No Buy 2025 will be Sowden’s longest shopping ban. She has set a weekly $85 grocery limit, $65 for transportation, and a discretionary fund earned via self-directed “tasks.” (Sowden is making money as well—by becoming an affiliate with budgeting app Qube Money and by selling money-management materials on her website.)
Some adoptees of the no-buy life opt to make the challenge more forgiving. Prominent no-buy influencer Elysia Berman has a “yes list.” She permits hair and nail appointments, a couple of Botox sessions, Pilates, and select experiences like travel, concerts, movies.
“I think a lot of people can do full monk mode in their no-buy year,” she said in a video. “That’s just not realistic for me, so I like to have little luxuries like fresh-cut flowers and candles in my budget.”
No-buy and underconsumption aren’t new ideas but have become increasingly trendy in recent years. Consumers have become more aware of the environmental impact of fast fashion, and the US has experienced high inflation since the COVID-19 pandemic that has made everyone want to tighten their budgets.
“I think people are just angry about their financial situation in general,” says Sowden. “And every dollar that you spend is a vote in what you believe in.” She adds that “everyone’s sick of everything being so expensive,” and that being sick of your own shopping habits is one way to kick off a reset.
As shopping has become easier, the temptation to impulse-buy has grown. “In the last 25 years, it’s not just become a matter of self-discipline. You have been targeted based on your own personal taste,” financial expert and author Terry Savage tells Glamour.
It’s a bit ironic that the creators are posting their no-buy challenges on TikTok, as the app is a direct line to shopping and a window into new products and trends. And of course, being able to participate in such a challenge means that you have a certain level of financial privilege, as there are plenty of people who have no discretionary spending or disposable income to cut.
There are also some easy pitfalls to avoid. Doing an extreme form of budgeting such as a full year of no-buy could actually lead you to spend more down the road, some experts warn. Sowden agrees this type of binge spending is a potential danger. “You just have to be careful that during the shopping ban, you’re not just dreaming about when you can spend money again,” she says.
To combat this, Sowden intentionally creates practices for herself that she wants to use even when not on a no-buy, as with the weekly allowance she implements and divides into categories. “That also prevents binging afterwards,” she says.
Savage tells Glamour that a shorter chunk of time is “more approachable” for a no-buy and could actually lead to more success. Like the influencers, she recommends setting up a specific plan and making sure the goals, parameters, and timeline are established in the beginning.
“Set no goal you can’t control,” Savage says. She believes that successfully completing a shorter no-buy could be a step in achieving additional financial goals. “The sense of accomplishment is so overwhelming, it’s far more likely to lead to, ‘Could I do this for another three months?’” she explains.
Sowden stresses the importance of a positive outlook for all who endeavor to start a no-buy. “If you're already like, ‘Oh, I don’t think I can do a shopping ban,’ you’re not ready,” she says. “You need to go into a shopping ban being like, ‘I’m going to kill it. I’m going to do amazing. I’m going to knock it out of the park.’”
As her No Buy 2025 kicked off, Sowden shared with her followers her “first homemade meal of 2025,” a simple turkey sandwich. She might add some pesto another day when she feels like taking that extra step, but for January 1, she thinks, the dry sandwich worked.
“Good enough,” she says to the camera.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
