'Not Buying It - My Year Without Shopping' by Judith Levine

Not Buying It is a fascinating book which throws up many ideas about consuming I am still mulling over. It appealed to me as I'm in my own period of not buying it, being back at college again. What I've realised from my retail abstinence is not only how much of what we buy is actually unnecessary, but that we probably already have plenty of stuff which will do the job just as well.

I'm thinking here about all those packets and jars of food pushed to the back of the kitchen cupboards, the soap and shampoo stuffed on bathroom shelves. I started to use up this kind of stuff a year ago, before I was even aware I was going to become a student again, when we thought we were moving and I wanted to lighten the load. And some of it I'm still using.

We tend to justify our purchases by telling ourselves the things we want are necessities. Levine quotes an American survey in which 78% of respondents stated that most Americans are 'very materialistic', but only 8% considered themselves very materialistic! I think that would be the case in the UK too.

In the West we have got ourselves into a real mess with money and 'things' and I say this from bitter experience. When I was running my own business I had plenty of money but I was bored, so I used the money to buy treats which would free me from the boredom. And it wasn't long before I couldn't imagine life without the treats and so I was stuck with the business long after I should have moved on. Since then I have had much less money but now I'm doing something I love, it usually doesn't matter. I say 'usually' as, despite my new habits, there are times I'd like something I can't afford.

Of course I'd like to make lots of money doing what I love, and I intend to do just that, but I also don't want to fall back into the spending trap when I do.