5 steps to a productive food garden (progress in pictures)

It’s been just over a year since I moved into my “new” (1970s) house, and just under a year since my garden transformation began. (The transformation from lawn to productive food garden, that is.) And this last month, things have really (finally) taken a big leap forward.

There is still so much to do, but a lot of things have come together, and it’s starting to resemble in real life what until now has only existed in my head.

The main change, which was holding everything else up, was installing reticulation. I already had a bore installed, which is a pump that pulls up groundwater (the groundwater level where I live is pretty close to the surface). Using groundwater means I don’t have to use mains drinking water for the garden.

Having reticulation means I don’t have to water everything by hand every day.

(The alternative to not watering at all would be living on a sandpit.)

Having reticulation means I can now plant out my garden beds, and believe me, I wasted no time. The front garden is well on its way to becoming a productive food space.

If you’ve been following along since the project began, it is virtually unrecognizable these days.

I wanted to talk you through the five stages of getting this up and running. Depending on the scale you want to grow, stages might take less (or much more) time – but the principles are the same.

Step 1: Planning the growing space

Before I could install reticulation, I needed to figure out (more or less) what I was going to do with the space, as different plants have different water requirements. Some things have no water requirements. Also, different types of reticulation are more practical in certain spaces.

Not to mention, installing reticulation means digging trenches everywhere and laying PVC pipe, so I needed to know where the paths would be and the edges of zones. (This is why I haven’t planted out heaps of plants so far… I didn’t want to kill them all when all the roots are messed with.)

The previous reticulation was pop up sprayers everywhere, which meant my laundry got soaked as one fired directly onto the clothes line, my chickens got soaked as one fired directly onto them, Hans the greyhound got soaked as one fired directly onto his wallowing hole…

Plus delivery drivers parking on my verge (when there is a perfectly good driveway or road) had trashed the PVC pipe so when it was turned on, a man-made geyser channelled litres of water down the street.

Not every corner of the garden needs water (such as the places we sit). So thinking about where plants will grow and where they won’t is an important first step.

Figuring out what I will plant now and how the garden will evolve in future was pretty important so water goes to the right places. It’s not that I can’t change the reticulation later, but it is more expensive and very inefficient to do so! I can add on to what I have, of course.

Step 2: Deciding on plant zones

I have four main growing zones in the garden: vegetable beds, fruit trees, lawn and the verge. Each of these is now set up with its own watering schedule and different type of reticulation.

For the vegetable beds, I wanted overhead sprayers. They allow an even distribution of water across an area, and work for both raised beds and in-ground beds. They are the most flexible option: I can interchange the types of beds (installing raised beds, or removing them) without having to alter the reticulation, as well as switching things like orientation.

Drip lines (which I had at the old place) are fiddly with vegetables because different crops have different spacing requirements, so what works one season might not work the next. There is also heaps of pipe to move every time you want to add stuff to the soil. And because the drip lines sit on the soil, raised beds need raised pipe, and if you remove the beds you also need to lower the pipe.

For the trees, I’ve used drip lines. The trees are round the edge of the property, next to the fence and down the side of the house, so sprayers wouldn’t work as well – plus they’d spray the chickens, the dog and my laundry. Plus trees tend to stay in the same place for a long time, so its unlikely I’ll need to change anything here.

For the lawn, I’ve used overhead sprayers. I find pop-ups really annoying – they break all the time, get stuck in the lawn and are generally frustrating. The overhead sprayers are located around the edge of the lawn – it is small enough not to need anything in the centre.

The verge will be drip lines (so delivery drivers have nothing to snap). But it’s currently still weedy lawn, so I’ve left that until autumn when I’m ready to plant out.

Step 3: Figuring out a watering schedule / installing the reticulation

If you live somewhere with plentiful rainfall, you can probably skip this step – or at least on this scale. For me, this was a big (and expensive) job… but it had to be done.

The bore pump and original control box were still usable (although the control box needed moving) but everything else needed updating. Trenches were dug everywhere (the whole place was chaos) and pipes laid, and then more pipes laid.

But when it was finally turned on, and there was water! – oh, it was worth it.

(The previous reticulation pipes are decades old, and the control box is something out of the 1980s, so it had a good innings. The new pipework should all last a (my) lifetime. Expensive upfront, but over 20 – 30 years, not so much.)

Step 4: Preparing the soil for the vegetable garden

My plan has always been to have in-ground beds at the front of the house, and as soon as the reticulation was installed, I got creating them. I wasn’t sure I’d have enough time to even get things growing this year – my rule is, if it isn’t in the ground before Christmas day, it doesn’t get planted until April. Perth summers are too hot to be trying to get seeds and young seedlings going in January/February.

To get started quickly, I cheated – and ordered in a veggie concentrate mix. My soil, being basically hydrophobic sand, has nothing of worth for vegetable growing. To make the amount of compost I’d need for all these beds (prepping them all at once) would take years.

Not to mention all of the different soil amendments I’d need, too.

I ordered 2 cubic meters of veggie concentrate from the Green Life Soil Co for the beds. It’s a mix that can be mixed 50:50 with existing sandy soil to grow vegetables. It meant I could shovel, and plant the next day.

(As opposed to something like lasagne beds, which need a few weeks after creating before planting out – time that I don’t have, I need to use the cooler days whilst they still exist – and would also mean driving around getting all the components, and on a huge scale.)

I prepped the soil using a broadfork to loosen the sandy soil, and then shoveled the concentrate on top, and raked and forked it in.

Once the beds are established I can add compost and other elements as I need them, but starting from scratch – and in summer – I wanted to give my plants the best chance of success.

I ordered enough soil mix for what should have been 4.5 – 5 beds, but I seem to have enough for 5.5, so I’m keeping going until it’s all dug in. I have space for 7 beds in total, all 4 m long. I’d like to tell you it is enough space (along with my two and a half raised beds at the back) but I really don’t think it is!

(I was going to order enough soil for 7 beds, but the guy at Green Life talked me out of it. I think he was worried I was biting off more than I could chew!)

Step 5: Planting out my vegetable garden

As I prepped the beds, I started planting. Not a moment to waste!

I’ve used a mix of seedlings grown from seed and bought seedlings (capsicums, marigolds for companion plating with the tomatoes, basil because my seeds were duds, and cherry tomatoes because I was struggling to even find seeds – I always said to myself I would never buy tomato seedlings as they are so easy to grow but I panicked! I’ve since found seeds.)

Because I wasn’t sure if the reticulation would be finished I didn’t plant seeds early, and I also have a lot of expired seeds, so I decided to have a clearout and see what germinated. It’s resulted in a bit of a motley crew but it means next year I will be much more organised.

{Coughs.

At the front I’ve planted:

Bed 1 – Roma tomatoes and basil.

Bed 2 – capsicums and eggplants/aubergine.

Bed 3 – cherry tomatoes and basil.

Bed 4 – cucumbers (Lebanese and Armenian) and I’ll be planting zucchini/squash.

Bed 5 – corn (Chinese mini corn, that’s started to germinate, and regular corn from an old seed pack, so we will see what happens there.) Once the corn is done, I’m going to plant climbing beans in between.

Bed 6 – this bed is currently sandwiching the raised bed I already had full of leeks, that I’m keeping for now. Until I can harvest the leeks, at least. I’ve planted pumpkins on one half, and I still need to add soil to the other part. I might plant spaghetti squash here.

Bed 7 – I don’t have soil for this yet, but I’m thinking about planting okra here. This bed is the most exposed, and okra can handle the heat pretty well.

I have excess tomato seedlings, and I also want to grow gherkins, so I’m planning on planting these in some of the empty wicking bed pots.

At the back I’ve planted:

Raised bed 1: blackjack zucchini and bush/dwarf beans (Cherokee yellow, and purple).

Raised bed 2: Virginia bunch peanuts (my kale in there is still looking good so it’s staying, and there are carrots still from winter).

Raised bed 3: the smaller bed is still filled with leeks, and ruby chard.

I also have some overwintered chillies – jalapenos, cayenne and birdseye – in large pots, so I’ve refreshed the soil and these will be good for another summer. I’ve already pickled my first jar of jalapenos.

Creating a productive food garden – what’s next?

At the front, the three raised beds made out of a chopped up rainwater tank need filling with soil and planting out. I’ve started a lasagne bed in one with things I had on hand (leaves, grass clippings, straw and compost) but I need to finish it off, fill the second one and put the third one into place (which involves relocating my two compost bins, one of which is still mid-brew).

The hedge area next the vegetable beds is going to be removed and planted with fruit trees – something else that probably won’t happen until winter.

And then there’s the digging out of the lawn on the verge.

At the back, I’m adding a second passion fruit near the first because the plan is to add an outdoor shower (why let the water go down the drain when you can add it directly to the soil?!) and the new passionfruit will screen one side.

(Haven’t figured out the screening of the other side, or the front yet!)

I was hoping to plant a couple more trees but all of the nurseries have sold out of what I want (a panache fig and a persimmon – they blame Covid). I’m also keen to get my fruit tree espalier area set up, but I might need to change the fencing (which is currently asbestos) so that might be a bigger, slower and more expensive job than I’d like.

So there is still a lot to do, but it is starting to come together. The more pressing challenge will be keeping all the plants I’ve planted alive (I’ve mulched with pea straw, and I’ll be setting up shadecloth), and then eating and preserving the harvest so it doesn’t go to waste. I’m not sure a gardener’s job is ever done.

Now Id love to hear from you! Are you growing food right now? What have you planted? Or if you’re in winter, what are you planning for Spring? Want to set up a new veggie patch and have questions for getting started? Anything else to add? Please share your thoughts in the space below!

Where to shop online for sustainable gifts that isn’t Amazon

Someone on my local zero waste Facebook group recently asked the question, “what are some good zero waste stocking fillers?” and my favourite response was this one: “air”.

When it comes to living zero waste, the less stuff we buy the better.

I’m all for cancelling Christmas altogether, in fact.

But we all like to celebrate Christmas in different ways, and if gifts is your thing, I have some ideas – not on what to buy, but on where to buy it.

If I can’t persuade you to cancel Christmas altogether, then perhaps I can persuade you to spend more of your money with independent small businesses, and less of your money with global mega-corporations, and especially with Amazon.

What’s wrong with Amazon?

Yes it’s cheap, and yes it’s convenient – but we all know that most things that are cheap and convenient are causing issues elsewhere. And that’s definitely the case with Amazon, and its founder, Jeff Bezos.

Bezos is a billionaire, worth around $150 billion US dollars. That’s a lot of money. It’s almost too much money to fathom.

To paraphrase a popular tweet: If you worked every single day, making $5,000 a day, from the year 1500 until the year 2020, you would still not be a billionaire. You’d have to work for 548 years (and not spend a penny of what you earned).

To have as much money as Jeff Bezos has, you’d need to earn $5,000 a day, every single day, for about 77,000 years. (Jeff earns about $150,000 a minute.)

No-one becomes a billionaire ethically and sustainably. And Amazon is notorious for its exploitative practices: from not paying tax, to underpaying workers, to exploiting workers, to destroying small businesses.

(If you’d like to know more, and I hope that you do! – there are two great articles that I recommend you read.

Bezos the billionaire hero? Nope. A really good explanation of what being a billionaire actually means (in the context of greenwashing).

The Ethical Issues with Amazon. A well researched piece with links detailing many of Amazon’s wrongdoings.

Hopefully you’ll give them both a read, but if not, my message is this: this Christmas, if you’re buying gifts, try to give more of your money to business owners that aren’t already billionaires, and are working hard to operate ethically and sustainably.

This post contains some affiliate links. This means if you click a link and choose to make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Where to buy ethical Christmas gifts online that isn’t Amazon

Books

So many people tell me that they don’t buy books from Amazon (because boycott), they buy from Book Depository – which is actually (sigh) owned by Amazon. As is Abe Books.

Here are some Amazon-free alternatives.

Bookshop.org. An online US bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. You can choose for the profit from your order to go to a bookstore of your choice, or added to an earnings pool to be distributed among independent bookstores. B-Corp certified. UK Bookshop just launched in 2020.

Booktopia. Australia’s biggest locally owned online bookstore, and one of Amazon’s biggest (Australian) competitors.

Chapters Indigo. Canada’s biggest online bookstore.

Dymocks. Australian bookstore chain. Many Dymocks stores are franchises. One of the better-than-Amazon-but-not-the best-choice options.

Hive. Online UK store connected (and giving a cut to) to hundreds of independent bookshops across the UK, by giving them a chance to sell online through Hive.

Indiebound. Launched by the American Booksellers Association, this is a US site for independent bookstores.

Rabble Books & Games. My local independent bookstore (Perth, Australia) that has an amazing range of books. Champions Indigenous writers and illustrators, LGBTQIA+ fiction, small publishers, and diversity. Made the international news when they announced they were going to remove JK Rowling’s books from the shelves to create a safer space (you can still order them in – profits donated to Trans Folk WA) after outrage from the trans community over the content of her latest novel and other transphobic comments.

Readings. Independent bookstore in Melbourne, Australia which also sells books online. Won Australian Book Retailer of the Year 2020.

Waterstones. Big UK bookstore chain. Owned by a hedge fund so not the most independent and ethical option, but a better choice than Amazon.

Wordery. Has a similar model to Book Depository, with free delivery worldwide, only it isn’t owned by Amazon. A great alternative if you need (free) worldwide shipping.

Zero waste and plastic-free reusables

There are so many online stores selling zero waste alternatives and plastic-free swaps, that it’s possible to find everything you need (and plenty of stuff that you probably don’t!) without using Amazon. These are stores I’ve used, or that come recommended by my readers.

To make it easier, I’ve divided into UK, USA and Australian sites.

Australia:

Biome. One of the best Australian online eco stores (and six physical stores, most in Brisbane), founded in 2003. B-Corp certified business.

Flora & Fauna. 100% vegan, ethical and cruelty-free online store. B-Corp certified.

Nourished Life. Online store selling mainly organic, natural skincare and beauty products. There is a lot of plastic packaging to sift through, but they do have a good range of zero waste products.

Seed & Sprout. An online eco store selling beautiful own-branded zero waste and plastic-free products including reusables, cleaning and skincare products.

Spiral Garden. Natural, ethical and sustainable products (and gardening supplies) from this Tasmanian-based store. Lots of unique items.

Urban Revolution (my local Perth-based store). Garden and zero-waste store with a constantly updated range of items.

Velvety. An ethical marketplace featuring 100% vegan, ethical and sustainable fashion brands. A wide variety of products from sustainable clothing to jewellery, vegan leather wallets, handmade soy candles and a range of eco-friendly vegan beauty products.

Zero Store. Large range of zero waste products, with no plastic in sight. Based in Fremantle, Western Australia.

UK:

&Keep. One of the best UK online eco stores, with a fabulous range of products. (The name, &Keep, comes from the premise that if you buy quality, well made things, you only need to buy them once and you will keep them forever.) Most products are plastic-free.

A Slice of Green. One of the longest-standing online eco stores, operating since 2007. Mostly selling reusables, with a small (but excellent) range of books.

Anything but plastic. Wide range of plastic-free products including skincare.

Boobalou. An eco home store with plenty of zero waste and low waste products.

Ethical Superstore. Not just plastic-free and zero waste products (there is plenty on this site you probably don’t need) but a good one-stop shop of ethical products that isn’t Amazon, including food. Their sister store thenaturalcollection.com has more of a focus on ethical homewares.

Eqo Living. An online eco store selling mostly reusables, with some beauty products.

USA:

Life without plastic. The original plastic-free shop (beginning life in 2006). Many products are completely plastic- and silicone-free, and made entirely of metals and natural materials.

Package free shop. Founded by Lauren Singer of Trash Is For Tossers, with products divided into five categories based on values: ‘circular’, ‘compostable’, ‘organic’, ‘100 % plastic-free’ and ‘vegan’.

Tiny Yellow Bungalow. An adorable zero waste shop of hand-picked products (by the owner, Jessie) with an excellent accompanying blog.

Wild Minimalist. Online store with a great range of products.

Underwear and socks

I had to include a section on underwear because it’s the classic Christmas gift, after all – and probably one of the most useful and usable things you can gift someone (assuming you know their size).

Organic Basics. This is my favourite place to get underwear. And I love their socks. Great quality, and very comfortable. They sell a range of basics, made of organic cotton… which you might have gotten from the name.

Pact. This US brand comes highly recommended by many of my readers. A large range of basics made from organic cotton.

Very Good Bra. The only completely zero waste bra on the market. Stephanie, the founder, is so passionate about zero waste fashion, and it shows. They have just released a range of zero waste sleepwear, and also sell underwear (which I haven’t tried but I’m sure I will love just as much as I do their bra.)

These are my top three, but if you’d like more options for ethical underwear, you might find these posts useful:

A Guide to Ethical + Organic Underwear Brands

A Guide to Ethical + Organic Bras (and Bralettes)

A guide to men’s ethical + organic underwear

And slightly more niche, but still an excellent Christmas gift in my view:

Zero waste periods: the pros and cons of menstrual underwear (+ 6 brands to consider)

Other sites to consider

Etsy. A great online marketplace for finding independent artists and creators making ethical, low waste and upcycled products.

Gumtree. An online classifieds site, where you can find unwanted gifts and lightly-used products, as well as vintage items.

Who Gives A Crap. If there is one thing people need even more than underwear and socks, it’s toilet paper. I’ve given this as a 40th birthday present, and as a wedding gift (more than once). They even make limited edition Christmas toilet paper.

Christmas gifts might not be my thing, but persuading people to look for options away from Amazon and the big box stores most definitely is my thing. Spending a little more (or perhaps, spending the same, or buying a little less) means not lining the coffers of the richest man in the world, sharing the wealth by supporting independent businesses and having a more positive impact on the planet.

If you have any other ethical sites you’d like to recommend, I’d love to hear them. Happy festivities!

How to buy nothing on Black Friday

Every Black Friday, I set myself a challenge. To buy nothing. (I also like to do this challenge in the Boxing Day/January sales. I just discovered this year that Amazon has started a thing called ‘Prime’ day, and whilst I never shop at Amazon, if I did buy stuff from Amazon, I’d do this challenge on that day, too.)

When I Googled ‘Prime Day’ for the purposes of writing this, I found the following explanation: ‘an annual deal event exclusively for Prime members, delivering two days of special savings on tons of items.

‘Special savings on tons of items.’

‘Tons of items.’

Shudder.

If you’ve been reading what I write for more than about five minutes you’ll know that I’m not a fan of stuff. Mostly because I’m not a fan of waste, and 99% of everything we buy becomes waste within 6 months of purchase (according to the Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard).

Stuff uses resources to make, energy to manufacture, fuel to transport and creates carbon emissions at every step of the journey – including the rubbish truck that eventually takes it from the kerb to ‘away’.

That’s not to say that I never buy anything. Of course I do! Some stuff is necessary. Some stuff is not necessary, but we (I?!) buy it anyway.

In my mind, one of the most effective skills to have when it comes to sustainable living, is being able to distinguish between ‘need’ and ‘want’ and resist the constant call of advertising.

And Black Friday is the day (well, one of them!) when I particularly like to test my skills, and resist the siren call of ‘stuff’. Which is the same day that marketers are doing everything in their power to seduce us to buy.

Black Friday, the day after US Thanksgiving, actually has another name – and one that I much prefer. Buy Nothing Day. It’s an international day of protest against consumerism, and it began in Canada in 1992.

And so on this day that is a recognised day of protest against consumerism, and on a day when we are being sold to harder than ever, I pledge to buy nothing.

And if you’d like to join me in buying nothing this Buy Nothing day, I thought I’d help you prepare. Because unless you have a will of steel (and if you do, hats off to you!), you’ll likely find it a little more challenging than you expected.

What Buy Nothing day is and what it isn’t

Buy Nothing day is protesting consumerism, a social and economic order that ‘encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts.’

That’s not to say you’re subscribing to the idea of never buying anything ever again. It’s about standing up to the marketers, not filling your house with more stuff that in reality you don’t actually need and it’s strengthening your resolve to resist the urge to buy stuff on a particular day only.

And if you do genuinely need something, all you need to do is wait until Buy Nothing day is over (which is the following day – but I’d encourage you to wait a full 30 days if you can) before searching and making a purchase.

I know you think you’ll get a better deal on Black Friday, but so many retailers extend their sales to the weekend, and then have Cyber Monday offers, and then do pre-Christmas sales, Boxing Day sales, New Year sales, discontinued sales, fire sales…

You get the picture.

If you need something, you will undoubtedly be able to get a great offer another time.

And if you’ve been waiting all year with your eye on a particular product that you need and hoping for it to reach a price that you can finally afford, and Black Friday is that day, then there’s no need to feel bad about making that purchase. This post (and Buy Nothing day) is not about that.

This is about protesting consumerism, and avoiding going to the shops or browsing online to look for stuff you might like and will probably find useful and buying it all in the name of a ‘bargain’. It’s about not buying stuff that it hadn’t even crossed your mind to buy the previous day.

Buying an essential item that you’ve been looking out for and genuinely need and couldn’t afford any other time is not the same thing at all.

Am I committing to buying absolutely nothing on Buy Nothing day?

That of course, is up to you, but I like to buy nothing at all – even groceries – on Buy Nothing day. Going to the store or a shopping centre or even going online is bound to tempt me to buy stuff I didn’t need.

And so I’d suggest making sure the pantry is stocked, the car is filled with petrol, you have postage stamps, you have laundry powder, and there are emergency snacks in the cupboard (or whatever it is that you might need) in the few days before, so there is no need to head to the shops.

If that’s not going to work for you, have a think about what you might need to buy (you might only get the opportunity to grocery shop on Fridays, for example, or you might be waiting for Thursday payday before you top up the tank with petrol) – and stick to that list.

And of course, if there’s a genuine emergency – you need medicine, or your hot water boiler explodes – of course you can buy these things.

Remember, it’s about protesting consumerism.

How to prepare for Buy Nothing day

Every* single brand you’ve ever shown even the slightest bit of interest in is going to have some kind of offer, and they are going to do their best to make sure you see it – TV adverts, billboards, shop windows, radio, social media feeds, email newsletters, sponsored posts, etc.

(*Actually this isn’t entirely true. Forward-thinking brands are recognising the negative impacts that Black Friday has, and are choosing to opt out themselves, by closing their stores on this day, or pledging to plant trees or donate proceeds they do make – such as via their websites – to charities on this day. It’s sometimes called Black(out) Friday, or Green Friday. But for the most part, brands are still on the let’s-sell-people-more-stuff bandwagon.)

The less adverts you see, the less you’ll want to buy stuff. It is amazing how often a ‘great deal’ makes you consider buying something that just wasn’t on your radar before.

How to reduce your exposure to advertisements, starting now (because most brands are advertising already – getting us warmed up and ready to buy):

  • Avoid the shopping centres as much as possible;
  • Unsubscribe from retail mailing lists (I’d recommend doing this forever, but even if you unsubscribe until after Christmas, you’ll save yourself a lot of temptation);
  • Unfollow those companies on social media that just sell, sell, sell… or at the very least, mute them;
  • Install an ad blocker on your computer or phone to stop advertisements following you around as you browse the web – I use AdBlock Plus which is free to download;
  • Make a plan to do something away from screens on Buy Nothing day.

With sponsored ads appearing everywhere (even in email inboxes) the best way to avoid temptation is to be offline.

Make a plan to do something else on Black Friday – a hike, an outdoor picnic with friends or family, or a swim in the ocean. Or you could read a (borrowed) book, spend the day doing crafts, or start (or finish!) a DIY project.

Fill the time you could be spending browsing the internet with something else.

Resisting temptation on Black Friday

But what if I see an amazing deal on something I’ve been wanting forever?

You might do. You probably will do. It’s very hard to buy nothing on Buy Nothing day. I’ve been doing this for years, and whilst I’m pretty good – I’ve practiced – at not buying stuff, last year I was bombarded with emails and advertisements from software companies and website plugins and other tools I use for my business.

I wasn’t expecting it, the deals were great – and of course I was tempted. I spent the day agonising over whether I should make a purchase, before deciding not to. But it was close.

(Because of course, these were the ‘best deals ever offered’ and ‘for one day only’. Scarcity is a tool marketing companies use very effectively to encourage us to buy.)

For me the goal is to avoid purchasing anything no matter how amazing the deal might be. It’s standing up to consumerism, flexing my ‘no-more-stuff’ muscle, and putting my values where my wallet is. There will be other days to buy stuff, if I really need to.

I find it helpful to ask myself: is it a ‘want’ or a ‘need’? What would happen if I didn’t make the purchase at this price on this day?

What would be the worst that would happen if I didn’t buy it? (We have to answer this based on our unique circumstances.)

I hope you’ll join me in taking part in Buy Nothing day this year. In a society where we are encouraged to shop, shop, shop and that more is good and upgrading is even better, where marketers have even hijacked sustainability and zero waste to persuade us we need to buy (their) things to be eco-friendly, it feels really good to opt-out.

To say ‘no thank you, I have enough stuff and your marketing isn’t going to work on me.’

Embrace the best deal of Black Friday and make the biggest saving you can: save 100% of your money when you buy nothing at all.

Now I’d love to hear from you! Are you a regular participant of Buy Nothing day, or is this your first time? Have you taken part in previous years? Did you succeed or did you end up buying something? Any tips for resisting the siren call of the stores? Anything else to add? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!