The ‘No Buy 2025' pledge is growing on social media. How much can you actually save?

There’s a phrase that’s been floating around social media since the start of the new year.

It’s called ‘No Buy’. It means that you don’t buy anything except for a few small exceptions.

The term has now become a challenge to anyone who wants to be more conservative with their spending in 2025.

But how do you do it? And could this change in purchasing habits create a wave in our economy?

Here’s more on the trend of #NoBuy2025.

WHO ARE THE ‘NO-BUYERS’?

“After the pandemic, I got a little too much into treat myself a little here, treat myself a little there.”

Emilia Grace is a pen name for the South Florida blogger who's been creating content for the last 12 years.

Back in 2022 she fell down the social media rabbit hole to find the concept of ‘no buy’.

The idea is that for a certain amount of time, typically a year, you eliminate all non-essential purchases. That could include new clothes, makeup, books, home décor, and take out.

You can be as strict or loose as you’d like and create your own rules as to what you can and can’t buy.

For Emilia, she eliminated all of those and set some strict rules on one of her ‘problem areas.’

“Primarily dining out is where I saw a huge portion of my money, not like excessive into debt or anything, but like a larger than I would like portion was going into dining out. And then subscriptions here and there, and I was like these need to be tamed and reeled back in,” she said.

So, to hold herself accountable, she like so many others online has documented her progress.

“I have noticed I can let go of some of those things that were challenging before. It’s only been a month in, but this month I’ve been pretty successful. I’ve been great about having set parameters and scheduling in moments where I can kind of let go a little bit,” she said.

In 2024—with just the no buy challenge, she saved $2,432.67.

Her goal for ‘no buy 2025’ is to double that, and more.

“Re-establish good lifestyle habits, and kind of address that lifestyle creep, and not fall victim to consumerism and buying in excessive quantities, but more so to see what I can let go of and still live a good life.”

WHY ‘NO BUY’?

Users online say some of the reasons they take part is due to:

• to save more money
• to get out of debt
• to help the environment
• to understand their purchasing habits
• to be more intentional with purchases

Economic experts also believe there’s another reason why someone might be taking part.

“The main reason about this movement is about the prices we are facing,” said Hakan Yilmazkuday, a professor of Economics at Florida International University.

“If you have a look at the prices versus the wages we have, they have different adjustment frequencies, meaning the following: We can observe the increase in price pretty much every time we go to the grocery store or any other retail store, but when we have a look at our wages, they are either adjusted annually or not at all. So, it depends on how much of our purchasing power is changing, which is how much we earn versus how much the prices are.”

THE ‘NO BUY’ EFFECT ON THE ECONOMY

Yilmazkuday says a movement like this can work in one of two ways.

One is by creating a demand effect, which means that the demand for a specific item increases or decreases. The other is a shift effect: the money you spent on one item is now being spent on another.

Yilmazkuday gives an example, “I am not going to dinner tonight, but I am going to go to grocery stores to cook at home.”

While many have vowed they wouldn’t buy as much in 2025, the FIU professor thinks spending among Floridians might actually be higher this year.

“Good news is inflation rate is coming down gradually. It means the prices are going to stop increasing.”

Yilmazkuday says in order to cause a big ripple in our economy or the way we consume, 50 to 60% of Americans would need to hop on the trend train, and he doesn’t foresee that happening.

WHAT NO BUYERS WANT YOU TO KNOW

But for those like Emilia, the trend is more about making choices that feel good.

“I think a lot of folks have fallen to online shopping over the last few years, I’ve been trying to get back to local shopping,” she said.

“It gives you an experience in addition to the shopping and I think that’s something else I am trying to adopt. Turn it into something more than just clicking a button and getting something delivered to my house.”

And by these small changes, she hopes eventually, more people will start participating.

“It can have a ripple effect in the way that maybe those stores think about their consumers and what their consumers want and what they are actually purchasing, and maybe have a good effect overall in terms of product design and how things are made.”

Now for those interested in partaking in the challenge, Emilia has some tips.

She says to just focus first on one area of your spending where you may be having a hard time with.

If you happen to have lots of products, she says you can try product panning. That means you use the entire product until it reaches the end, then you can buy a new one.