I'm NOT buying it

Lila Das Gupta and her family have begun a one-year 'no shopping' experiment. But they are not all sold on living without new things unless they're necessary. And already the strain is showing...

'Mummy, sometimes I feel like I'm leading a life that's different to everyone else's," says my eight-year-old, trying on some pathos for size and settling down with her new favourite reading: the Argos catalogue.

	Want for nothing: Lila Das Gupta had the idea not to shop in the haze of post-Christmas deflation and clutter

I gently remind Sophie that a large proportion of children in the world don't have enough to eat or decent housing and often live in unstable countries that have wars. After a moment's thought, she gives a giggle and says: "Ohhh, yes." And then she goes back to the catalogue with the remark: "You know, I hardly got anything that was on my Christmas list..."

We are one month into a year-long shopping moratorium and still at the negotiation stage with Sophie and Julius, five, on what constitutes a "necessity". Luckily, Alex, 12, is more laid-back and beyond the stage of wanting everything in the catalogue, now that the toy shop is out of bounds.

The idea not to shop for a year was born in the haze of post-Christmas deflation. Like many people, not only did we spend more than we needed or ought to, but I wondered if anyone was really the happier for it.

All three children's birthdays are around Christmas, so it's a time of year that I've come to dread - all that consumption in one go. Then you've got the problem of where to put the stuff you've just acquired. This year I felt we were choking under the weight of clutter.

So when I read an article in this newspaper about a group of friends in San Francisco who decided to see if they could live without buying anything new for a year, I realised there might be an alternative to the boom-and-bust of our buying culture.

Fed up with consumerism and lack of respect for the environment, these San Franciscans surmised that most people don't need to go shopping at all, and probably have enough things in their houses to keep them going for a whole year.

John Perry was one of the original group of friends from the "Compact Group" (named after the Pilgrim Fathers who signed the Mayflower Compact as they landed in America in 1620). "We have all bought into this idea that life is an open-ended material project," he says from his home in California. "Your wardrobe is never finished, or you're thinking about the next room to decorate. Why can't we say: 'My life is furnished. Now I can start living it.' "

Perry, 42, works in communications for a high-tech firm in Silicon Valley and he and his partner have two children, aged five and one. What started as a light-hearted experiment is now a way of life for him and, as news of the project spread, thousands of others in the US, too.

It's no surprise that the idea originated in San Francisco. It must be one of the few cities in the world that has a smart department store stocked only with second-hand items. That's in addition to its fully funded artist-in-residence programme at the local dump - a job that comes with its own studio space and gallery.

What have we let ourselves in for? Lila Das Gupta, her husband Ben Fenton and their children Sophie, Alex and Julius are all doing the no-shopping experiment

Perry says that, as well as money, he has also saved enormous amounts of time: "People don't realise how much time they actually spend shopping. We're encouraged to think of shopping as a leisure activity, but you don't have to go shopping unless you actually need something."

Yet it's environmental, rather than financial, considerations that motivate Perry. It's all about cutting consumption and keeping things out of landfill. In his opinion, there has never been a better time to get off the shopping treadmill: "Years ago, you had to rely on serendipity if you wanted to buy things second-hand, but for the past five or 10 years you have been able to make very targeted searches on the internet. It can take as little or as much time as you want."

So what does "no-shopping" mean? What exactly have we let ourselves in for? The first rule is that we are not allowed to buy anything new from a shop. Everything we need must be purchased second-hand or bartered. Fortunately, this does not mean that we have to live like Ray Mears, the TV survival expert, and get used to eating ants, because buying food and wine is permitted. Just as well. It would hurt me enough to live without an annual trip to Jo Malone or Selfridges, but being teetotal for a year would be a punishment too far.

Permitted items also include medicines and underwear, although I am presuming that, in keeping with the spirit of anti-consumerism, they mean something basic from Marks & Spencer rather than anything from Agent Provocateur. I have also decided to add the children's shoes and some very basic items such as school uniform (which is not always available second-hand) to the list of permitted items.

There is, of course, plenty of scope for cheating, especially since we are also allowed to buy items "absolutely essential for work". But there doesn't seem to be much point in cheating, as the only person you would cheat is yourself. As the adage about pornography goes: you can't define it, but you know it when you see it. In this case, if buying it gives you a thrill, then you're probably out of order.

And this applies to second-hand goods as well, because, although you are permitted to buy used items, you could just as easily spend all day on eBay getting caught in the same mania for buying things you don't really need or want.

Interestingly, one of the first major consequences of this experiment has been to reassess my relationship with the things I own, to ask myself why we bought them, whether we need them (all six computer mice) or whether they ought to be owned by someone else. The end result was a major de-clutter after I joined the growing number of people signing up to Freecycle (www.uk.freecycle.org), the online network of local groups dedicated to recycling or giving away unwanted goods and preventing them going to waste.

The beauty of Freecycle isn't just that it allows you to give away useful but unwanted things, such as a bag of computer cables that a charity shop wouldn't touch, but that you can also post a "Wanted" message. So, if your vacuum cleaner breaks down, or you need an extra pushchair to keep at Grandma's, there's sure to be someone out there who has a spare one lying around. And one can always live in hope: a man in our group has asked if anyone has a pair of black-glass chandeliers they don't need.

Just a week into the "experiment" and my ingenuity was soon tested. The cleaning lady arrived to iron my husband's work shirts and at that moment the steam iron conked out. The thought of having to iron them properly, myself, was too depressing, so I dashed around in desperation to my neighbour, Audrey, who was only too delighted to lend me hers.

I would never have dreamt of doing such a thing had it not been for my shopping ban, but she was clearly charmed by such dotty behaviour and the pot of home-made damson jam I gave her afterwards. A week later, the cleaning lady turned up and I'd forgotten to find a replacement iron. I was too embarrassed to go to the same neighbour, so I called on the lady opposite who, again, was happy to help and invited me in for a cup of tea while we were at it.

Luckily, there was a pot of my blackberry jam to give out this time (I can see jam playing the same role as cigarettes in prison here: small currency to pay for favours). A friend then offered me her spare iron, so I was saved the ignominy of working my way down the whole street. The normal modus operandi would have been to trundle down to Tesco for an instant replacement.

The next challenge came when I was called for an interview, but didn't have anything that fitted the bill for "smart/casual". In the old days, I would have gone straight out to buy something, probably decided it wasn't quite the right thing and even bought something else.

Instead, I asked Kim, one of the mothers in Julius's class who has a figure similar to mine and the same uncontrolled curls. Could I borrow the lovely red flowery blouse I saw her wearing a couple of days ago? In truth, I only had the confidence to ask because she runs an organic café in Richmond and is a great recycler herself. She let out a yelp of delight when I asked her. "I wish more people would pool together," she said.

But the trickiest part of this experiment so far has been how to keep the children on board and include them in a humane way. Sophie has had something of a drug addict's reaction to going cold turkey. A couple of weekends ago I had to take her to visit a few charity shops, just to get the yen to shop out of her system. (Like a lot of girls, she consumes endless amounts of trinkets from shops such as Claire's Accessories - cute, cuddly toys and pink stationery.)

Her planned birthday party at the Teddy Bear Factory, where each child comes away with a bear, has been put off this year. At first, she was horribly upset, but after a short while she came up with the idea of an Ancient Egypt party (her current Year Three history topic) at home. "Wrap the mummy" (in loo roll), "Pass the Sarcophagus", "Pin the Pharaoh on the Pyramid", home-made invitations on tea bag-stained "papyrus", seven girls, no party bags - bliss.

And just to prove how successful Sophie has been, another girl in the class was so impressed that she is planning a small Egyptian sleepover at her house for her party.

Julius has already told us in no uncertain terms that he hates the "sperriment", when we said we wouldn't be visiting the toy shop for a year. After some thought and consideration, we have now decided that, since their birthdays fell at the start of the sperriment, they should each be able to spend some of their birthday money. We're going to let each child spend £50 for the whole year. After that they will have to rely on charity shops or the library for toys and books.

And what about me? Am I feeling the pinch yet? I never thought of myself as being materialistic or a shopaholic, but suddenly I am feeling more like an alcoholic who's in denial. Of course my shopping isn't a problem, I'm a happy shopper, a social shopper. I can handle my shopping...

Follow Lila Das Gupta's progress throughout her family's no-shopping year on her blog: telegraph.co.uk/blogs

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