极简主义：一年不花一分钱什么样的体验？

　　A woman has saved tens of thousands of dollars after she vowed to buy nothing for a whole year.

　　一女子发誓一整年不买任何东西，而后省下了好几万美元。

　　It may sound extreme, but caught up in a consumerist society, Michelle McGagh thought it would change her relationship with money forever.

　　这听起来可能有些极端，但身处这样的消费主义社会，米歇尔·麦加认为这段经历将永远改变她的与金钱的关系。

　　The personal financial journalist became a minimalist, and stopped cluttering her house with possessions and making unnecessary purchases. Now she is about $27,000 better off for it.

　　这位财经记者现在已经成为了一名极简主义者，她不再买杂七杂八的东西，然后乱糟糟地堆在家里，也不再进行任何不必要的消费。而今她已经由此存下了2.7万美元了。

　　The Londoner wrote in the Telegraph it was a mortgage she took out on a home in 2013 that led her to think more about her spending.

　　这位伦敦市民在《每日电讯》上写道，2013年为了借钱买房子，她借了抵押贷款，从那时她开始注意起自己的日常花销来。

　　Looking into minimalism on American websites, she stumbled across Buy Nothing Day, a time when people are urged to avoid shopping for a day. She then wondered if she could attempt to buy nothing for a year.

　　在美国网站浏览到极简主义时，米歇尔偶然发现了“什么都不买日”——在这天，人们会竭力不买任何东西。于是她开始思索自己是否可以一年都不买东西。

　　“Spending nothing for a whole year would do wonders for my wallet and stop me from refilling my empty shelves with more possessions,” she wrote.

　　“一整年都不买东西真的很神奇，不仅我的钱包变得充裕了，我本人也不再买任何东西来填我的空架子了。”她写道。

　　“It sounds extreme, but I’d set myself budgets and spending plans in the past and they’d always fallen by the wayside on my next night out.”

　　“虽然这听起来很极端，在以前我总会给自己制定预算和支出计划，但是这些计划往往会在第二天就半途而废。”

　　McGagh would pay for necessities — her mortgage, bills, insurance and charity donations. That all equated to about $2,200 a month.

　　日常的必需品，如抵押贷款、票据、保险金和慈善捐款，麦加还是会付钱的，这相当于每月约2200美元。

　　She’d then spend money on toiletries, cleaning products and groceries.

　　当然她也会在化妆品、洗涤用品、食品上花钱。

　　Her food budget was only about $45 a week and she would cook in bulk so meals would last.

　　她每周的食物预算只有45美元，为此她会选择自己多做些饭，以此使预算之内三餐正常供应。

　　“But there was no budget for luxuries,” she wrote.

　　“但并没有奢侈品的预算，”她写道。

　　“That meant no cinema trips, no nights in the pub, no takeaways or restaurant meals, no new clothes, no holidays, no gym memberships, not even a KitKat or cheeky cheesecake from the supermarket. And certainly no flat whites.”

　　“这意味着不能去看电影，晚上不能去泡酒吧，不能吃外卖或者去餐厅吃饭，没有新衣服，没有假期，没有健身房的会员卡，甚至连从超市买一个奇巧巧克力或者厚芝士蛋糕都不行，当然也没有卡布奇诺。”

　　McGagh did not spend money on transport and began riding her bike from A to B and she refused friends and family who wanted to buy her things.

　　麦加没有交通预算，她开始骑着自行车从一处到另一处，要是家人和朋友中有谁想买东西给她，她也会被拒绝。

　　Her year of buying nothing began on Nov. 26, 2015, and she wondered if she had made a mistake.

　　麦加一年不买东西的计划是从2015年11月26日开始的，她曾一度怀疑自己是否做了一个错误的决定。

　　“Would I get uncontrollable FOMO? Would I have to spend a year indoors living like a hermit?” she wrote.

　　“要是我患上信息强迫症怎么办?我要一整年都待在家里像个隐士一样生活么?”她写道。

　　McGagh made it through Christmas without buying or receiving gifts, but she said it became tiring in the winter months when she was sitting with drunk friends by a fire at a pub.

　　麦加在圣诞节也坚持了下去，她没有买礼物，也没有收到礼物，但她说，在冬季的几个月里，当她在酒吧里和喝醉的朋友们围着坐在火堆旁的时候，她感觉自己快坚持不下去了。

　　wander around galleries and museums or meet for a walk in the park,” she said.

　　“我会去画廊和博物馆走走，或者去公园里散散步，”她说。

　　McGagh wrote in the Telegraph that she began doing different activities to keep her social life and “fostered a new appreciation of sitting in the park in the sunshine with a homemade, in budget, picnic of falafel salad.”

　　麦加在《每日电讯》上写道，她开始做些不同的事情来维持自己的社交生活，还养成了新的享受生活的方式：坐在洒满阳光的公园里野餐——预算内的自制沙拉三明治。”

　　“These simple pleasures made me far happier than any expensive restaurant dinner,” she wrote.

　　她写道：“这些简简单单的乐趣让我感到比在昂贵的餐厅里吃晚餐还要开心”。

　　McGagh and her husband became closer and she began to realize the true meaning of the saying “Money doesn’t buy happiness.”

　　麦加与她丈夫的关系也变得更为亲密，她开始领悟到“金钱买不来幸福”这句话的真谛。

　　What McGagh missed most was clothes shopping and beauty products, but on Nov. 26 last year, marking the end of her buy-nothing year, the first thing she bought was a round of drinks for friends and family who had helped her.Even though she was allowed to spend again, she didn’t want to make a habit of buying unnecessary products and only replaced worn jeans, tattered sneakers and sweaty T-shirts.

　　在这一年里麦加最想念的是新衣服和美容产品，但是在去年11月26日，这一天标志着她的不购物之年的结束，她的第一样消费却是请帮助过她的家人和朋友一起喝了一圈。即使她可以再随意消费了，她也不想养成乱买不必要的东西的习惯，她只是更换了自己破旧的牛仔裤，穿旧的球鞋和汗衫。

　　“I decided to use the surplus of cash to pay off a chunk of my mortgage early. I’m now a step closer to getting rid of our debt instead of being beholden to a bank,” she wrote.

　　“我决定用多出来的钱提前偿还一部分抵押贷款。现在我离摆脱债务、不再受制于银行又近一步了。”她写道。

　　“After a year of no spending I realized that I valued financial security over material possessions: I don’t want to be forced to stay on the treadmill of work just to pay off a home loan for the next two decades or accumulate more stuff.

　　在坚持一年不花钱之后，我意识到自己把财务安全摆在物质财富之前：我不希望自己只是为了偿还房贷就让自己今后的二十年都一直在单调的工作上毫无自由，也不想再买什么东西了。

　　“I also came to understand that I don’t need things to make me happy. Spending time with the people I love makes me happier and if I do have money available, I’d rather spend it on them — like traveling to see my grandfather or visiting my friend in Australia.”

　　我也开始明白，我不需要用什么东西来让自己快乐。花时间和我爱的人呆在一起会让我更快乐，如果我有足够的钱，我宁愿把钱花在他们身上，比如去看望我的祖父，或者拜访我在澳大利亚的朋友。