How to Stop Buying Things You Don’t Need

The first day of spring arrives in two weeks, and I’ve already begun my seasonal tradition of paring down my stuff: I’ve tackled small organizing projects, which experts call “soft decluttering.” (I purged the murky area under my bathroom sink.) And I’ve given away sentimental clutter like a hand-me-down china set I haven’t used for a decade.

It’s gratifying to have a newly empty shelf, but resisting the urge to load it with new stuff can be tough. When you “turn off the shopping tap,” though, you save money, have fewer things to maintain, and are more eco-friendly, said Ashlee Piper, a sustainability consultant for businesses and individuals and the author of the forthcoming guidebook “No New Things.”

I asked Piper and other experts for their best tips to stop buying stuff you don’t need.

Make purchasing less convenient.

Shopping has become a “frictionless experience,” Piper said, allowing you to buy things at a touch of a button. So creating friction will help you buy less.

One way to do this is to delete your credit card information from your accounts on online shops so that it takes longer to make a purchase, Piper said.

“Having to get up, get your wallet, dislodge your credit card, and tap the number in is enough time to take a breath and think: ‘Do I really need this? What the heck am I going to do with this?’” she explained.

And block any emails, texts or push notifications from retailers, Piper said. As she writes, “You’re not Banana Republic’s emergency contact, so why are you allowing them to message you at all hours of the day?”

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