This year, one woman quietly pressed pause. No codes, no tricks, no spreadsheets. Just a week of doing absolutely nothing while the internet begged her to spend.
The first morning felt odd. Kemi propped her phone against a cold mug, the lock screen wet with notifications: FLASH DEAL, EXTRA 20%, FINAL HOURS. Rain braided down her flat’s window in Manchester; the kettle hissed like a dare. She slid the phone into a drawer and turned the key. Then she sat with her coffee and stared at the nothing she’d chosen.
Her friends were swapping discount links on WhatsApp. Instagram turned into a high street with infinite doors. Emails stacked themselves like dominoes. She watched the little red circles blossom and refused to press them. The sales rolled past like buses she didn’t need to catch. *She did nothing.*
The week the internet shouted — and she stayed quiet
Black Friday is wrapped in urgency. The banners pulse. The countdowns breathe on your neck. Kemi’s experiment was a dare to the noise: could she keep her wallet shut while everyone else sprinted?
By day three, the temptation got personal. Her favourite trainer brand nudged her with a bespoke code. A retailer she forgot about offered “win-back” credit. She made tea and let them all expire. The flat felt weirdly spacious. Quiet makes its own kind of sound.
Here’s the surprise. Doing nothing didn’t feel passive. It felt like steering. Urgency is a sales feature, not a personality trait. Kemi learned to let the clock run out and notice what stayed interesting after the countdown died. That’s the trick: the items that matter will still matter once the fireworks go cold.
How £1,200 stayed put by refusing the click
Kemi kept a notebook by the kettle. Every time she didn’t buy, she wrote the amount next to a small square. Air fryer she’d eyed since summer: £129. Winter coat she liked in October: £210. Candle set, skincare bundle, smart speaker, random “gift” for a person who didn’t ask for one: the little squares filled fast.
By Sunday, the log told a different story of the week. Fashion she didn’t need: £320. Gadgets paying rent in dust: £480. Home bits that duplicated things she already owned: £260. One sneaky subscription that would have rolled into the new year: £140. When she totalled it, the number looked indecently round. **£1,200.** Money she didn’t touch. Money still hers.
Call it subtraction by attention. She wasn’t clipping coupons; she was starving the click-reflex. Retailers make buying feel like beating a game. The brain gets a hit, not the life. Refusing to press “checkout” let her watch the craving fade like a ringtone. Twenty minutes later, what felt essential turned into wallpaper.
The Do Nothing Protocol you can copy
Here’s Kemi’s exact move, no heroic discipline required. She set her phone to grayscale for one week, binned shopping apps into a folder called “Later”, and created a rule that auto-archived any email with “Black Friday”, “Deal”, “Last chance” or “Code”. She also moved her credit card out of her phone case and into a kitchen jar. That’s it. The distance did the heavy lifting.
Three micro-rules helped. The 72-hour hold: if she wanted something, it had to sit in a list for three days, not a cart. The checkout breath: she read product reviews sorted low-to-high, then asked, “Where will this live in my flat?” And the calendar test: if the item didn’t solve a problem showing up in her last week’s life, it wasn’t a problem. Let’s be honest: nobody really does that every day. For seven days, it worked.
We’ve all had that moment when the parcel lands and the thrill already left the building. Kemi’s week swapped that dip for an odd calm. The stillness isn’t moral; it’s practical. It keeps your future self in the room.
“I thought I needed willpower,” she told me. “Turned out I needed friction. A drawer, a jar, and time did more than any budgeting app.”
- Anti-Black Friday Challenge: name it, start Monday, end Sunday.
- Put cards in a jar; delete auto-fill from browsers for a week.
- Auto-archive sale emails with simple filters and keywords.
- Grayscale your phone; group retail apps into “January”.
- Use a paper list, not a cart. Revisit after 72 hours.
What not buying bought her
Silence. That’s the first dividend, and it’s stranger than it sounds. When the alerts stopped, Kemi noticed the quiet like a missing radiator hum. She cooked what she had. She wore last winter’s coat. She messaged a friend instead of browsing. The week felt both smaller and fuller, like a tidy drawer.
There’s a second dividend too: clarity. The thing she still wanted on Sunday got a fair chance. She sized it against rent, December plans, a train ticket to see her sister. One by one, the “bargains” shrank to their real shape. The keeper was boring: wool socks and a dimmable lamp. That’s **Black Friday brain** flipped on its head.
And about that £1,200. It wasn’t money she “made” — it was a ghost of spending that never turned real. The ghost still haunts your statements if you click. Refusing it is a skill you can learn. Kemi isn’t a monk; next week she might buy the kettle she keeps side-eyeing. *Spoiler: the £1,200 stayed in her account.*
Marketing teams will say sales are sensible if you were going to buy anyway. Sometimes that’s right. But “anyway” is the slipperiest word in retail. It often smuggles wants in dressed as needs. Waiting strips off the costume. That’s why doing nothing works: it gives your attention back its coat.
If you want numbers, here’s a simple measure. List three items you “nearly” bought last week. Add the totals. Ask yourself where those pounds would feel better in January. Holiday train fares? Heating? A buffer you sleep better with? Money is a story we tell ourselves. Pausing lets you edit the draft.
Real talk: sales season can be lonely if spending is how your group bonds. Naming it helps. Tell a friend you’re running the **Do Nothing Protocol** and invite them to check in on Sunday. Turn the group chat into a brag wall for “things I didn’t buy”. The screenshots are funnier than unboxings, and they don’t need bin bags.
What stays with you once the noise dies
The idea of saving by abstention sounds dull until you try it. Then it becomes a game with a deeper prize: proof that waiting won’t kill you, and desire changes shape under light. Kemi kept the notebook by the kettle. She’ll likely use it in January, when the sales start pretending to be “New Year Fresh Start”. The protocol is portable. So is the calm. If you run it next week, tell someone what you didn’t buy and what you got back in return. The comments that follow might be the best bargain of the season.
| Point clé | Détail | Intérêt pour le lecteur |
|---|---|---|
| Pause beats pressure | 72-hour hold turns impulse into informed choice | Fewer regrets, fewer returns |
| Friction is a feature | Drawer for phone, jar for card, auto-archive for sales | Reduces triggers without willpower |
| Track the “non-spend” | Notebook list of items not bought and amounts | Visible wins, real savings motivation |
FAQ :
- Does doing nothing mean buying nothing at all?No. It means waiting long enough to see what still matters after the rush fades.
- What if an essential item is genuinely discounted?Use the calendar test: did this problem exist last week? If yes, buy it once you’ve compared prices.
- How do I handle gifts without looking stingy?Set a per-person cap and choose one thoughtful item or an experience; skip padding the pile.
- Will retailers punish me with higher prices later?Prices swing all season. If it’s not urgent, the next fair price will come around.
- Can I run this outside Black Friday?Absolutely. Try a “no-click week” any time your feeds turn shouty.
