A Life Less Throwaway: The lost art of buying for life. Tara Button

life, because the focus is off consumption and on what really matters.

      As my company name, BuyMeOnce, suggests, living a life less throwaway does involve buying certain things, but this lifestyle isn’t about buying beautiful stuff to gloat over, it’s about buying only those items that will support a functioning and fulfilling life.

      MINDFUL CURATION

      I call my method ‘mindful curation’, which might sound as pretentious as bringing your own tablecloth to KFC, but is the best term for it. It is ‘mindful’ because it is done with purpose and thought. And it is ‘curation’ because, like a curator putting together a collection in an art gallery, it’s about picking only those things that will work together to form a home and a life that uniquely reflects you and your needs.

      It is comprised of several steps:

       1. Understanding the benefits of mindful curation. (Chapter 1)

       2. Understanding the pressures that promote mindless buying and developing tactics to free yourself from them. (Chapters 2–8 and 12)

       3. Investigating your life’s purpose and the long-term priorities that will help you meet this purpose. (Chapter 9)

       4. Identifying which items you need to fulfil those priorities and to live comfortably without being swayed by status. (Chapters 9–11)

       5. Identifying your true tastes and sense of style so you can buy future-proof items. (Chapters 3 and 7)

       6. Identifying your values and the brands that reflect those values. (Chapter 9)

       7. Taking stock of the items you already have to understand your present tastes, priorities and buying habits. (Chapter 10)

       8. Letting go of the clutter and the superfluous. (Chapter 10)

       9. Developing a healthy attitude towards money. (Chapter 15)

       10. Choosing each new item with your long-term priorities and tastes in mind. (Chapters 7, 12 and 13)

       11. Developing the skills to take care of and keep the things you’ve chosen to bring into your life. (Chapter 14)

      This book contains practical exercises on how to put all these steps into action. Skipping straight to the exercises may leave you with a shallower understanding of why they are important. However, if time is short and you just want to get cracking, go ahead – there’s a list of exercises on the next page, or simply flick through the book for them.

      This is above all a book on how to be happy in the ultra-commercial world we live in right now. It’s meant to be useful, so please use it in the way that’s most helpful to you.

      Let’s get started!

List of Exercises

       Persuade yourself of the importance of non-material actions

       Sign up for BuyMeOnce mantras

       Simple ways to combat materialism every day

       Identifying your homeware aesthetic

       Generating empathy

       Free yourself from celebrity influence

       Make your own adverts

       Ad-blocking

       Separate lifestyle and product

       Finding your fashion identity

       Dressing up for the roles you play

       Shape up

       Find your true colours

       The mindfully curated capsule

       Turning necessities into luxuries

       If you were the last person on the planet

       Refusing to feel ashamed

       How to increase your sense of being valued by your tribe

       Digging deeper to find purpose

       Discovering your passions

       Kill yourself off (metaphorically)

       Bringing it all together to find your ‘42’

       Your purpose and your purchasing

       The common threads of taste

       Where your values and brand values meet

       An exercise in commitment

       The life-less-throwaway challenge

       Write your own unwish list

       Nourishing your self-esteem

       Identifying impulse-buying triggers

       Preventing lost property

       Memory training for glasses

       Saying goodbye to an object

       Prioritising where your money goes

       Find your freedoms

       Connect with your special people

       Find your tribe

       Grow every day

       Tell yourself a better story