Buy Nothing Day/Week/Month/Year 2025

The last Friday of November has arrived once again. It's the day advertisers shout even louder and brasher than usual, imploring us to, “Buy! More! Now! Hurry!”

And what is that right beside it? Why, it is  Buy Nothing Day, and it is whispering rather than shouting, “How about taking a break from it all?”.

I hear those whispers on this, and every day. 

Not because of what this day is against, but because of what it is for: a whole 24 hours set aside to remember that we already have enough, that our worth is not measured in things, and that true wealth lives in the moments we choose to leave unfilled.

Buy Nothing Day is less a protest and more a quiet celebration—an annual pause to enjoy what we have, to notice the beauty of an uncluttered space or an unhurried morning, to feel the lightness that comes when the urge to acquire softens into the peace of appreciating.

It is a day to walk outside and let the wind and sunshine be the only things that brush against us.

A day to cook from the pantry and discover we have everything we need to make beautiful, nourishing foods.

A day to mend, to borrow, to create, to give away, to simply be.

The hermit-poet Ryōkan wrote:
“If you want to be happy,
there is no need to go running about.
Just sit like a solitary cloud
and let the world come to you.”
We can choose to sit like that cloud.

No running.

No grasping.
No buying.

It’s an intentional moment of doing nothing commercial—so that life, real life, can come to you.

This year, whether you observe it for one day, one week, a whole month, or weave its spirit through the entire year, know that every moment you choose presence over purchasing is a small act of kindness: to the earth, to others, to your future self, to the quiet heart that already knows enough is a feast.

So light a candle, drink tea from your favorite old mug, listen to the rain or the silence or the laughter in the next room. 

Let the ads flash and the doors open early somewhere else. Here, in this moment, we are already where we want to be.

Let’s celebrate Buy Nothing Day together on Friday, my fabulous frugal friends.

May your cup, and life, stay sufficiently full.