Been doing this for the last 12 years of my life; never realized it had a name.

Probably a healthy think to try like cutting back on drinking or sweets.

Probably won’t make much of a difference environmentally though, and I hope this being a “challenge” doesn’t sprout an industry of pinning issues on people who consider new clothing a luxury.

The big lifehack here is to not just buy less stuff, but to pool time and resources with your friends.

You spend less money if you cook and play together on a regular or semi-regular basis. Restaruants, pubs, movie theaters, sporting events, all ask or require your money to capitalize on your need for socialization. Also, material goods are frequently aimed at the solitary consumer and aren’t really for sharing. Just go around all that nonsense, share/exchange your tools and appliances, host a board-game night, hang out on slack/discord for a few hours, or watch Netflix together.

Edit: if the above seems out of reach, or even the least bit “bad”, I encourage you to dig deep and ask yourself: why? I get that I’m advocating a far less solitary lifestyle. Maybe that can’t be helped, but it might also just be possible that there’s more at work here. For me, I found that I had internalized biases and habits all pointing at a maximal consumption lifestyle. Our economy (here in the US) is built around this behavior, complete with an advertising arm that aggressively teaches it. So, I really am advocating swimming against the current here. But I can also say that the rewards are worth it if you can.

Lemmy is pretty anticapitalist but in my experience asking people to stop supporting the system with their spending tends to upset them. I don’t get it.

I hope none of these “only buy what’s necessary” people have kids. Or at least think things like birthday and Christmas presents for those kids are necessary.