7 things that made me stop wanting to shop all the time

There was a point in my early and mid twenties when parcels arrived at my front door so often that I sometimes had to open them to remember what I had ordered.

The individual purchases were small enough to feel inconsequential. £15 jumper from vinted here, £30 face mask there, another £8 serum because this one had niacinamide in it and the two serums I already owned failed to understand that apparently my pores should be invisible to the naked eye.

What bothered me eventually was the sheer volume of stuff moving through my life.

I had clothes I barely remembered buying, drawers full of things I was saving for an unspecified future occasion. My wardrobe was full and I still regularly felt as though I had nothing to wear. I could spend an entire evening sitting in a flat full of things I had once wanted and somehow end up on my phone looking for another thing.

I wish I could tell you I had a dramatic moment of clarity where I looked around at all my earthly possessions and renounced consumerism!!

I did not.

But when I started thinking about what had changed, I realised there were a handful of things I had done deliberately and several others that had happened almost accidentally. None of them involved becoming especially disciplined. I still like clothes, I still like beautiful homes and nice skincare and finding some little object that delights me. I am also living inside the same economy as everyone else, one that has become exceptionally good at making shopping frictionless and making ordinary life feel slightly incomplete without whatever it is trying to sell us this week.

I did, however, become much harder to sell to.

These are the seven things that helped.