Why a No Buy Challenge is a Bad Idea
People often rave about no buy and low buy challenges as being a great way to save money.
And having used them myself, I totally see the benefits. They can help you hit short-term savings goals and help you recover from big spending months, like Christmas. It can also be a good opportunity to re-examine your spending habits, shining light on what you’re buying and if it actually matters to you.
But there are some serious problems with this type of challenge that actually can leave you no better off than where you started.
With no buy months and challenges everywhere online, this is why their promise of a “fresh start” with money should be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt.
While a temporary challenge can help gamify savings and give you a temporary boost, lasting financial change does not usualy come from extreme short-term rules.
Here’s why I have a few issues with low buy and no buy challenges.
1. They Don’t Teach You How to Spend Well
A no buy challenge teaches restriction but it doesn’t show you how to make good decisions with your money.
When you do a no buy challenge, you’ll be aware that there’s an end date coming up. While in the duration of the challenge you’ll be spending less and saving more, once you get to the end, old habits may resurface.
Just because you do a no buy challenge, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will learn to:
- Avoid impulse buying. This is usually driven by emotion and convenience. Unless you address the emotions that lead you to spend – boredom, laziness, FOMO – then you can’t make changes to help you avoid those triggers.
- Spend money with intention. A low buy challenge doesn’t automatically teach you to evaluate a purchase before you go ahead with it, considering whether you actually need it and how it will fit into your life, as well as whether it presents value for money.
- Budget. A temporary challenge doesn’t necessarily include a smart budget. There is so much power in awareness of how much money you spend on everything in a typical month. Without a budget, you’re more likely to spend without thinking and not seek out best price.
- Avoid lifestyle creep. This happens as you earn more money. The natural reaction is to upgrade your lifestyle, and to be honest I think that’s quite natural, but it’s to what degree it happens and whether you use income increases to better your long-term wealth, or just spend it all.
- Save. A no spend challenge doesn’t teach you the valuable information you need about saving in a decent high interest rate account or getting started with investing.
Ultimately, if your habits don’t change, your money situation won’t either.
2. They Can Trigger “Rebound Spending”
A no spend month is useless if you simply save up all of the things you were going to buy on a wish list, then buy them once the challenge is over.
Also when you restrict yourself completely from buying things in the way you’re used to, that period of restriction can often lead to a binge when it is over.
It’s a similar story with crash dieting. You need a longer term plan for a healthy relationship with your money, rather than an extreme short-term solution.
No-buy challenges can actually make spending worse long-term, as it gives you a false sense of security that you’ve done something great financially and don’t need to do any more work.
3. They Avoid the Real Problem: Your Relationship With Money
Overspending is not about a lack of discipline and it also doesn’t mean you’re incapable of managing your money. But budgeting, saving and investing are all skills that we have to learn.
A no buy challenge won’t necessarily lead you to examine your relationship with money.
What you need to overhaul your relationship with money is awareness. When I decided to make changes, I did this:
- Looked at what I was spending money on. This involved looking at three months of bank statements and highlighting non essential spending, as well as assessing what I spent on essential items.
- Considered what I wanted my money to do for me. This is a really key question. When you ask yourself this, is the answer going to be a bag of new clothes every week, or something bigger and more substantial, such as an earlier retirement, a bigger house or a dream holiday.
4. They Can Create Guilt & All-or-Nothing Thinking
If you fail at an extreme no spend challenge then you may give up, deciding you’re just bad with money. Then you’ll think “what’s the point”. Money becomes a moral issue: good or bad, success or failure. Instead, money should be viewed as a tool you can use.
Making progress does not mean becoming perfect overnight. It means taking time to examine where your money goes, considering ways it can be put to better use and improving your own knowledge.
5. They Don’t Fit Real Life Long-Term
Ultimately, never spending any money on anything beyond essential items is not particularly realistic.
I think I should be able to spend my money on stuff I like, it’s just that I need to do it with a plan.
Life still happens, including birthdays, school costs, repairs and social plans. You cannot not buy things forever.
Real money skills come from navigating everyday spending, including your non-essential spending, not avoiding it altogether.
What Works Better Than a No-Buy Challenge
So what can we do instead of a no buy challenge to improve our financial peace?
Take some time to examine your budget first. Where is your money going, and are the things you are buying presenting you good value for money?
Set a budget that will work for you, that takes into account the things you like spending money on, while also being realistic about what’s affordable.
Tracking spending for awareness is really key here. I take time every month to fill out my budgeting spreadsheet, which sets out how much money I made, and what I need to and what to spend money on that month.
Before I buy anything new, I ask myself:
- Do I already own something like this?
- Will this add real value to my life?
The Goal Isn’t to Spend Nothing
So the ultimate goal for me when it comes to good personal finance is not to spend nothing at all, it’s to spend well.
Long-term peace with money comes from intention and consistency, not from short bursts of financial punishment.
The problem isn’t that you buy things. The problem is when you don’t know why you’re buying them.
I am not saying that no one should ever do a low buy or no buy challenge. I actually do think they can help provide insight into spending and what we actually need. But they need to be used alongside this awareness that they’re not a quick fix for our spending habits, which may need examining and adaption for longer term financial wins.
