The Year of Less - a review

Cait Flanders, author of "The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store", wrote about how she pared down her expenditure in reaction to a combination of personal circumstances and crises while living in Canada in 2016.

The blurb says: "In her late twenties, Cait Flanders found herself stuck in the consumerism cycle that grips so many of us: earn more, buy more, want more, rinse, repeat. When she realized that nothing she was doing or buying was making her happy, she decided to set herself a challenge: she would not shop for an entire year."

This was a good book, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Learning about the background to Cait's decision to live on much less as the book unfolded was interesting: as the reader, I felt that I was slowly getting to know the author, and to understand what were very human foibles accompanied by personal breakthroughs as the book went on. This was not a self-help book as much as a personal narrative accompanied by questions that we could ask ourselves.

Despite there being many of the sustainability, not-spending genre out there now, I recommend reading Cait's story. Much of what she relates will resonate with all of us, and some of it may change our own perspectives on our consumer society.

I would expect, at the least, that reading this will help to make all of us a little more thoughtful in what we need, and what we chose to buy.


Sam

References:

• Flanders, C. (n.d.). Cait Flanders. Retrieved from https://caitflanders.com/
• Flanders, C. (2018). The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store. USA: Trantor Media.