How extreme saving changes your life.

As many of us tighten our budgetary belts, some people are taking the concept to a new extreme by vowing not to spend any money at all. No movie rentals or drinks with friends. No parking the car at the garage, no newspaper for the subway ride. No groceries, even. This is about more than just pinching a few pennies. This is a consumer detox.

These moratoriums on spending can last a week, a month, or longer. The purpose is, obviously, to save money. But many adherents of the consumer detox are also looking for a deeper meaning. Like monks who fast to bring themselves closer to enlightenment, they are abstaining to clear their minds of superfluous wants that somehow turned into needs. They also hope to reconnect with family and friends by disconnecting from the checkout line. And most of all, they seem to be searching for some lost piece of themselves that got buried under all the junk stuffed into our closets.

The practice presumes that buying stuff is evil or at least a bad habit we should be working to get rid of. But spending money is a fact of life, and it’s virtually impossible to extricate yourself from consumer society. Sure, overspending is a serious problem that can lead to credit card debt and financial ruin, just like overeating can result in diabetes and heart problems. But starvation, in either case, is not a solution.

In 2006, Judith Levine published the book Not Buying It, about her year of consumer abstinence. Levine has written several controversial books, including one on our culture’s obsession with protecting children from sexuality. The idea for Not Buying It came during the throes of holiday shopping, when she was overwhelmed by the waste and futility of it all. The same year her book was published, a group called The Compact was founded in California around a similar pledge: not to buy anything new for 12 months.

Both the book and the group sparked intense debate—particularly as reprimands to the country’ growing debt bubble—but remained the domain of progressive hippie-types. Then in February, personal-finance celebrity Liz Pulliam Weston, inspired by Not Buying It, made the consumer detox more mainstream. In her MSN Money column, she encouraged readers to buy nothing for a month and report back to her. Some of Weston’s followers reported impressive results: They lost 10 pounds. They rekindled the fire with their hubbies. They saved $800. They wanted to keep going. One woman who responded to the challenge included groceries in her moratorium because she had 120 cans of tuna stockpiled in her basement

My interest was piqued when I heard that an old college friend, Asya Johnson Valdez, had embarked on a detox. She and her husband were used to dropping $200 or $300 on dinners with the kids and three-day getaways. But she was laid off in January and decided it was time to get serious about saving. She prepped carefully for her period of abstinence, choosing a month with no birthdays or anniversaries. She even paid all her bills in advance so she could truly go cash-free in June.

She broke her no-spending promise in the first week.

She had to spend $10 on a co-pay for a doctor’s appointment and another $40 on prescriptions. A trip to the emergency room for gall stones cost $50. The washing machine broke. Trying to keep to the spirit if not the letter of the detox, she replaced it with a slightly used one for $100.

Tags: consumer detox, extreme saving, recession, spending

Ylan Q. Mui is a financial reporter at the Washington Post covering retail and consumerism.

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