10 Steps for a Year of Less

The Year of Less by Cait Flanders

According to Cait Flanders, below are the essential steps needed to commit to living a Year of Less. For her, the Year of Less essentially started with a commitment to a one-year shopping ban but it blossomed into so much more as you will see in her book.

The Year of Less Steps

1. Declutter your home.
   • Get rid of what doesn’t SERVE a PURPOSE in your life.
2. Take Inventory.
   • What items do I own the most of?
   • In each room of your home, what are the top 5 items and many do you have in “stock”?
   • Once you know the inventory, don’t buy more until you run out.
3. Write 3 Shopping Lists.
   • Essentials Lists (buy from this list when you run out of items in stock)
   • Non-Essentials List/No-Buy List
   • Approved Shopping List
4. Unsubscribe from all mail/email lists.
   • I’ve used unroll.me to help declutter and unsubscribe in my email inbox
   • Here are a couple of options I will look into for my snail mail: Stop Junk Mail Ecocycle and from the Federal Trade Commission Consumer Information.
5. Create a Shopping Ban Savings Account.
   • Deposit money you make from selling items you’ve purged from your decluttering phase.
   • Deposit money you’ve “saved” by not buying items you normally would have purchased– consider creating an Amazon wish list where save items you plan to or would have bought were it not for your commitment to less this year.
6. Tell everyone you know about your plans to live less this year.
   • This creates both accountability and support in your daily interactions.
7. Replace costly habits with cheap or free alternatives.
   • For example, turning off or suspending your Audible account and instead frequenting the local library and it’s online/app resources.
8. Pay attention to your triggers and change your reactions.
   • A key element here is mindfulness. Break bad spending habits by paying attention and choosing to react differently. Practice, practice, practice. It’s hard to stop a bad habit, but it’s easier to practice replacing the habit.
9. Learn to live without or become more resourceful.
   • If you are feeling the “need” to buy something, note it– write it down, save it to your Amazon wish list, etc.– and wait 30 days. See if the need is still there.
   • Can you borrow or share the item? The more we share, the less goes into the landfill in the end.
10. Appreciate what you have.
    • Once you’ve decluttered and taken an inventory making yourself acutely aware of what you really own, take time to appreciate and use those items.
    • Be grateful for everything in your life. To live with such abundance, an abundance unfathomable to our great and great-great grandparents is a true blessing.
    • Use everything around you.
    • With less, you can appreciate the people around you more and make them top priority over your things.

This last point, #10, paired with #1 and #2 were the most impactful for me. I was already a follower of Joshua Becker’s minimalist blog and books, and my husband and I semi-annually go through a decluttering of our house as the seasons change and the kids outgrow another set of clothes, toys, etc. I do not have a shopping addiction but also the idea of waiting 30 days before an “essential” purchase in this day of Amazon Prime same-day delivery this was key for me.

I have not yet committed to a year-long shopping ban, but I have begun to think thoroughly through almost every purchase and always consider buying used or sharing or making-do before committing to buying new.

Stay tuned to see if there is an update on a more thorough shopping ban. For now, I simply commit to focusing on family and friends over things.