‘Buy Nothing’ Helps Neighbors Share More Than Free Stuff As Gen Z's latest version of minimalism, underconsumption, gains traction on TikTok, others are finding their own sweet spot to consume less and reuse more.

‘Buy Nothing’ is about more than getting rid of stuff – it’s also about building community and saving the environment. 

You can find just about anything in a Buy Nothing Project group – from brown bananas to fine china.  

Perhaps one of the strangest gifts?  
 
“Somebody either had or needed chinchilla droppings for their garden,” said Elaine Jardon about the group in central Overland Park she started in 2019. “Those are my favorite kinds of gives– the very niche items that you can’t just go to the store to buy.” 

Like brown bananas, suitable for making banana bread. “That’s my favorite, and it’s become a group joke,” said Jonna Rann, an administrator for the Prairie Village North group. 

Chinchilla droppings may be one of the more exotic items distributed via Buy Nothing, but many of the “gives” – and “asks” or requests for specific items – are what you’d expect – from kids’ clothes and toys to furniture and kitchen utensils. 

There are also lawnmowers that don’t run and nightstands that need refinishing, and there are often members who take those items, fix them and even give them back to the group. 

No firearms, alcohol, prescription drugs or recalled items are allowed, but just about anything else goes. 

“Buy Nothing is cheaper than regular retail therapy,” said Brittani Rhoades, a member of the Blenheim Square group in Kansas City, Missouri who calls herself “a striving minimalist.” 

“I really enjoy getting things I didn’t even know existed, like a portable scanner for documents,” said Danielle Raymond, a member of the Overland Park (Central SE) group who moved from Boston, where she had also participated in Buy Nothing. 

From Local Facebook Groups to a Global Movement

Search Facebook and you’ll find around four dozen or so Buy Nothing groups in the metro area that follow the guidelines of the international Buy Nothing Project. Most of these groups have anywhere from 500 to 1,000 members and strict geographical boundaries. 

Started by friends Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller in Washington state in 2013, the Buy Nothing project has grown to 8,000 groups on Facebook and 11 million members around the globe; of those, 1.4 million have downloaded the Buy Nothing app which allows users to set their own geographic boundaries. 

The Rules: It’s Not First-Come, First-Serve

The project’s philosophy goes beyond a way to dump your well-loved couch or score a Chiefs shirt for your teenager. Read “the fine print,” or rules, and you’ll see how it differs significantly from other freebie groups. 

It’s not first-come, first-served. In fact, participants are encouraged to let items “simmer” for at least 24 hours. Exceptions are made for perishables—that leftover birthday cake or the brown bananas, for example—and are labeled “flash gives.” 

Waiting to give items allows more people time to see posts and to respond if they’re interested. And they’re encouraged to say why they want the item. 

That helps givers decide on recipients, and they can choose whomever they want for whatever reason. “I liked to give based on the stories they told,” said Patty Modig, who moved from Lenexa to Oregon three years ago and relied on her local Buy Nothing group to downsize. “And sometimes I just used random selection.” 

How Buy Nothing Builds Community Beyond Free Stuff

Building community is one of the goals of the Buy Nothing founders. “It’s not just about the stuff,” Jann said. “I’ve gotten to know so many more people in my community, especially my fellow gardeners.” Her group’s met for happy hour and one member even hosted a holiday party. Before Buy Nothing, Jann didn’t feel connected to her neighborhood even though she’s lived there for nine years. 

Karla Perkowski of Platte Woods described a Buy Nothing “garage sale” in a member’s business parking lot where everything was free this spring. “People got to meet each other.” 

Kathryn Boman, in the Blenheim Square group in Kansas City, Missouri, met her rock climbing partner who offered to swap belays at a local rock climbing gym as a gift of service several years ago. They’re planning a climbing trip to Greece together. 

Jardon started a group in central Overland Park when she moved there from mid-town Kansas City as a way to get to know her neighbors in the summer of 2019. She recalled having swap meets and play groups before the pandemic switched members to mostly porch pickups. 

That group has grown and split into smaller ones. Once groups reach a thousand or more members, they’re encouraged to “sprout,” as the founders say, or split, creating hyperlocal communities. 

The gifts, or “gives” as they’re called, aren’t limited to things. You can offer the gift of self – your skills and talents – as well as the gift of time. Boman saw that someone had asked for assistance with a low-cost wedding. Already ordained from officiating at a friend’s ceremony, she offered her services. Another group member did the photography. “It was a beautiful wedding at a Johnson County park,” she said. 

When Perkowski had shoulder surgery, Buy Nothing members organized a meal train. “They brought us meals two to three times a week,” she said, while her shoulder was in a sling. 

In keeping with the spirit of a true gift economy, no bartering, trading or selling is allowed. “Initially it’s hard for people to grasp,” said Clark. “Then something magical happens….Gratitude is the glue that holds it all together.” 

Why “Asks” Are Essential to Buy Nothing

“Asks” are encouraged. Members are urged to see if anyone has something before they shop at the store or place that online order, no matter how expensive the item might be. 

When Buy Nothing began, gives outnumbered asks two to one, Clark said. Now it’s split about 60 to 40. 

Boman first joined a Buy Nothing group five or six years ago after her divorce as a way to save money and get out of debt. “I set goals such as not buying anything without asking first if anyone was willing to gift it,” she said. “And to not buy any clothing or shoes for a year.” 

Rhoades, an activity director for a nursing home, asks for DVDs or VHS tapes of old movies requested by the residents. She’s also received old National Geographic magazines she uses with dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. “It helps them to hold tangible old magazines,” she said. “And it helps stretch my budget. 

The Joy of Receiving – and Giving 

“Gratitude” posts are always encouraged. Recipients will post a photo of how they’ve used the item, thanking the person. 

That joy goes both ways. “I really like knowing (my stuff) goes directly to another person and not to the garbage dump,” said Raymond. “A mass donation (to a thrift store) isn’t as satisfying as one person who appreciates what you give.” 

But couldn’t people make money from selling unwanted items? 

“Garage sales are way too much work and I would just as soon give stuff to individuals,” said Modig, who was downsizing to move to Oregon. She gave away living room furniture, fishing tackle, gardening tools – even her iron and ironing board as she swore she would never iron again in retirement. 

She recalled the toy kitchen her husband had built for their daughter, now an adult. “It was heartwarming to give it to somebody’s kid whose parent was probably struggling financially.” 

It Started with Plastic on the Beach 

Appalled at the amount of plastic washing ashore near their homes on Bainbridge Island, Washington, friends Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller were inspired to start the first Buy Nothing group, using Facebook as the platform, in the summer of 2013. 

“We wanted to change the first R in ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ to ‘refuse’ to buy new to stave off consumption,” Clark said. 

“It was a social experiment with our neighbors…within minutes, we were making connections,” she said. “It was delightful and joyful. Needs were being met and we were learning about each other.” 

Clark, a filmmaker, was also inspired by the gifting economy she’d seen in Nepal, where nothing goes to waste and community members share with one another. 

The two have worked as unpaid volunteers for Buy Nothing and wrote about their experiences in a book, The Buy Nothing, Get Everything Plan, published in 2020. The irony of selling a product was not lost on them and they encourage people to share the book or get it from their local library. Donations, using a PBS model for subscriptions, help fund the app that’s now available while donations to Angels to Angels, a 501(c)3, support the Buy Nothing project. 

It’s tough to measure the environmental and economic impacts of the Buy Nothing movement. 

Perkowski, who volunteers at a thrift store, said people don’t realize how much of what’s donated ends up thrown away. 

One of her favorite gifts was a door from a china closet that she turned into a stained glass window hanging on her porch. She also painted a couple of “old and rusty” milk cans that hold solar lights at the end of her driveway. 

Boman, who first joined Buy Nothing to save money, stayed because she enjoys “the sustainability of reusing items and the opportunity to build community.” 

Then there are those brown bananas. You can’t donate them to the local food pantry, but your neighbor might decide to bake banana bread tonight. 

Raymond has given away opened bags of cat food that her cat, plagued with food allergies, couldn’t eat. “I was grateful it wasn’t going to waste and glad someone could use it.” 

Even Buy Nothing Becomes Controversial 

The emphasis on hyperlocal communities backfired in 2018 with accusations of racial discrimination and redlining. Clark and Rockefeller have addressed the controversy on their website. 

The development of the app removes the constraints of neighborhood boundaries, allowing users to create a world of gives and asks as close as half a mile or as far as global. You can even use the app while remaining a member of your hyperlocal group. 

But the app hasn’t solved the problem yet, especially in Kansas City, where racial and socio-economic lines are pretty obvious. It’s no surprise that the hyperlocal group east of 71 Highway is basically “dormant,” according to Jamaica Collins, one of the administrators. 

Buy Nothing “really excluded poorer communities from the movement,” she said. As a result, the Buy Nothing Greater Kansas City (Unofficial) Facebook group was formed to fill in the gaps. 

Nearly 20,000 people across the metro, including both Kansas and Missouri, have joined. “It’s meeting a need our hyperlocal group could not,” said Collins, who serves as one of four administrators. 

“Our impact on the planet may be greater,” she pointed out. “If you have a living room set and no one in your hyperlocal group wants it, there may be someone in our group who says ‘I would love it.’ And that’s one less bulky item to put at the curb for the landfill.” 

She recalled how she furnished her classroom to make it feel like home during her first year of teaching, with pillows from Kansas, plants from Mid-town, a set of chairs from Overland Park and books, including the Nancy Drew and Magic Treehouse series, from all over the city. 

“I think our group hits every mark” of the Buy Nothing philosophy, Collins said. 

“We’re the true embodiment of what Buy Nothing is supposed to be.” 

Flatland contributor Diana Reese is an award-winning writer, journalist and editor with hundreds of articles published in magazines and newspapers. She has specialized in health and medical issues and now writes on whatever she thinks will make a good story. She’s been a member of her neighborhood Buy Nothing Group for three years.