The Economy of Buying Nothing

The Buy Nothing Project Offers a Hyper-Local Gift Economy, Including in Pacific Palisades

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

As the saying goes, the best things in life are free.

That rings particularly true for Highlands resident Sylvia Yim and the 800 members of the Pacific Palisades iteration of Buy Nothing on Facebook, a gift economy movement started almost a decade ago in the Pacific Northwest in an island community near Seattle by Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller.

“Each of us has the power to form a local gift economy around us that is complementary and parallel to worldwide cash economies,” according to the Buy Nothing website. “Whether people join because they’d like to quickly get rid of things that are cluttering their lives, or simply to save money by getting things for free, they soon discover that Buy Nothing is not just another free recycling platform. A gift economy’s real wealth is the people involved and the web of connections that forms to support them.”

After finding herself driving all around the greater Los Angeles area in search of free or deeply discounted items, Yim launched a Palisades-specific Buy Nothing group almost seven years ago.

“What’s funny is you get to know some of the people because they’re frequently people that you buy from often because your kids are reaching a certain age that their kids are growing out of,” Yim explained of being a part of swap groups. “So I got to know some people in the Santa Monica and West LA area.”

One of the moms who was part of a Santa Monica-based group suggested that Yim start a Buy Nothing Pacific Palisades group.

“I had no idea what I was doing,” Yim said of starting the Palisades group, adding that one of the main admins for the Los Angeles area helped her set up the page, including going over the Buy Nothing curriculum.

“It’s a really, really great philosophy if the Buy Nothing group is done in the correct way and there isn’t any real subjectiveness to it,” Yim shared. “The rules are very clear cut.”

From her very first give, which was a bunch of lemons from her “really voracious” tree, Yim’s transactions now include everything from a bounce house for her kids to an inflatable buffet, which she filled with ice and used to serve fruit at a recent party.

Another recent post was ahead of a weekend-long snow trip Yim planned to take with her family. Before she went to buy any new gear, she looked at the Buy Nothing group—knowing that by the time they would be able to use the gear again, it would be outgrown. After her post, Yim said her kids were “fully outfitted,” thanks to the generosity of neighbors.

“We exist to build resilient communities where our true wealth is the connections forged between neighbors,” according to the Buy Nothing website. “Everything shared on Buy Nothing is given freely. No strings. Free.”

The concept is simple: The group allows posts with “asks, gives and gratitude.”

For a give, a participant makes a post about an item they would like to give away—which range from about-to-expire foods to a set of dining room tables and chairs—then group members who are interested comment on the post saying so. The original poster then selects a person to give to, and then coordinates the pickup/receiving of said item.

There are also posts that ask for requests for services or goods to keep or borrow, as well as sharing gratitude for the group/gifts.

In order to keep operations working smoothly, there are a set of Buy Nothing guidelines, which include things like no private messages to gift givers (unless coordinating a pickup/dropoff), honest disclosure about the condition of an item—and, most importantly, everything must be free.

Seasoned members of the group use specific language to communicate different styles of giving away, like a “flash gift” (typically given to the first commenter) or something that will be left to “simmer” (giving 12 to 24 hours before choosing a recipient to give others who do not see it immediately a chance to comment and claim). ISO means “in search of.”

Other groups, like in Santa Monica, become too big and have to split into several—which is called “sprouting.”

“Santa Monica might have three or four different areas now because it just started getting so big that it sprouted into two,” Yim explained. “And then those ones sprouted even more.”

Yim shared that the Palisades group is “pretty active and it’s really great.” She said that people were reluctant at first—since it can be “hard to give people your address”—but “little by little, the community started growing.”

And, Yim explained, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the group “really took off.”

“People were looking for things that weren’t your normal Buy Nothing kind of thing, but more staples and stuff,” Yim shared. “Then there were just a lot of kindness gifts, like people making food and having extra or someone was painting tiles.”

Yim shared that she has a tile in her front yard that was painted by a local artist giving them away during the pandemic.

As the sole admin of the group, Yim said there have been “very, very few issues,” even when she spent a year and a half living in Hawaii during the pandemic.

“Luckily it is such a small community and the majority of people in there at the time kind of knew each other,” she said of running the group remotely.

Since its inception, the Buy Nothing movement has expanded to an app that is available for both iPhone and Android. There is also “Buy Nothing, The Podcast” and the “Buy Nothing, Get Everything” book, described as a “primer to the entire” lifestyle.

“Filled with helpful lists and practical suggestions including 50 items you never need to buy (Ziploc bags and paper towels) and 50 things to make instead (gift cards and salad dressing),” according to a synopsis on Amazon, “‘The Buy Nothing, Get Everything Plan’ encourages you to rethink why you shop and embrace a space-saving, money-saving and earth-saving mindset of buying less and sharing more.”

One of the podcast episodes, titled “The Wedding,” details how one admin planned her “dream romantic wedding and reception,” all of which cost her nothing, thanks to her Buy Nothing community.

There is a list of participating communities available via the Buy Nothing website, where users can search by city, town or neighborhood around the globe. To date, there are groups in 44 nations, according to the website, with more than 7.5 million global members and 128,000 groups.

One of the highlights of giving through the group, Yim said, is seeing the joy certain gifts bring neighbors.

“We got a bounce house the other day,” she said with a laugh. “Somebody was like, ‘We bought this bounce house during COVID, and my kids have outgrown it and it works perfectly.’”

Yim videotaped her kids’ response to seeing the bounce house in their home and “how thrilled they were” to send to the gift giver, who said it made her “so happy to see how much joy it’s bringing someone else.”

“I’ve had so many people reach out and just be like, ‘I love this group,’” Yim shared. “You’re actually seeing the joy it’s bringing someone.”

To learn more about the Buy Nothing Project, visit buynothingproject.org. To join the Palisades-specific group, visit facebook.com/groups/597624983671604.