Playbook
Buy it for life: when paying more saves money
A thing that lasts decades can be the cheapest thing you ever buy, or an expensive way to own something you stop using in two years. How to tell which, before you pay the premium.
Why one purchase leads to the next, and how to stop the chain.
Top stories
Start here
-
The Effect
The Diderot effect, explained
What the Diderot effect is, where the name comes from, and how to stop a spending chain once it starts.
-
The Essay
Regrets on parting with my old dressing gown
Our own English translation of the 1769 essay by Denis Diderot that gave the effect its name, with notes.
-
Tool
Chain Cost Calculator
Add up everything one new purchase is likely to pull in after it, and see the total in months of saving.
-
Effects
The effects library
The psychology behind spending, one effect at a time: what it is, the study that found it, how sellers use it and how to push back.
Effects
See more-
Effect
Anchoring effect
Leaning too heavily on the first number you see, so later estimates and prices stay close to it.
-
Effect
Bandwagon effect
Wanting something more because many other people already have it or are buying it.
-
Effect
Choice-supportive bias
Rating something higher after choosing it, and remembering the rejected option as worse than it was.
-
Effect
Commitment and consistency
Saying yes to a bigger request after agreeing to a small one, to stay consistent with your earlier choice.
Playbooks
See more-
Playbook
Buy it for life: when paying more saves money
A thing that lasts decades can be the cheapest thing you ever buy, or an expensive way to own something you stop using in two years. How to tell which, before you pay the premium.
-
Playbook
Cost per wear
Divide what a thing will cost you by the number of times you will really use it. The sum takes a minute. The honest wear count takes some nerve, and it decides almost everything.
-
Playbook
How to stop impulse buying
Impulse buys are rarely random. They cluster around a few times, moods and prompts that you can learn to spot. Find yours, make buying slower at exactly those points, and have something else to do when the urge arrives.
-
Playbook
Lifestyle creep after a raise
A raise tends to disappear in the first few months, a little at a time and mostly into costs that repeat. Decide where it goes before the first bigger paycheck arrives, and it stays where you put it.
The Wardrobe
See more-
Wardrobe
Ana Kraš
A designer and photographer who calls her style free, yet keeps returning to comfort, simplicity and clothes with a long history. What her approach, in her own words, teaches about buying less.
-
Wardrobe
Basic is not boring: dressing in repeats
Wearing the same clothes often does not make you look dull. Sameness of shape and surface does. How to make a small set of basics look chosen, again and again, without buying more.
-
Wardrobe
Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran
Two Paris designers who talk about clothes as tools for everyday life, dress practically themselves, and design each season as part of one long wardrobe. What their stated approach teaches about buying for compatibility.
-
Wardrobe
Françoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg
Two of the most photographed people in Paris in the 1960s and 1970s wore the era's most daring clothes for the camera, and a small, steady set of clothes for everything else. What a personal uniform did for each of them.
Tools
See more-
Tool
Chain Cost Calculator
Add up everything one new purchase is likely to pull in after it, and see the total in months of saving.
-
Tool
Cost per Wear Calculator
Divide the price by the times you will really use it, care costs included, and compare two options side by side.
-
Tool
The 30-Day List
Put each want on a dated waiting list, see its decision day, and keep a running total of what you did not spend.
-
Tool
Lifestyle Creep Calculator
See how much of a raise your new monthly costs already take, and what the rest could grow to if you keep it.
Featured: the Essay
See moreIn 1769 Denis Diderot wrote a short, funny essay about a new scarlet dressing gown that made everything else in his study look shabby. We have translated the whole essay into plain modern English, in six short chapters with notes.
-
The Essay
The old robe and the new
Diderot mourns the shapeless old gown that fit him like a second skin, and discovers that the splendid new one has made him its servant.
-
The Essay
Everything out of tune
Diderot warns his friends against wealth, remembers how well his shabby study once hung together, and admits that the scarlet gown has thrown it all out of tune.
-
The Essay
The study, piece by piece
The chair, the hanging, the prints, the bookshelf, the mirror, the casts, the table. Diderot lists what the scarlet gown pushed out, one object at a time, and curses the taste that did it.
-
The Essay
The rag rug and the confession
One cheap rug survives the makeover, and Diderot swears to keep it. Then he protests that wealth has not changed him, lets slip what it would look like if it had, and starts to pray.
Our mission
See moreA new couch makes the rug look tired. A new phone wants a new case, new earbuds and a new charger. One purchase quietly asks for the next, and the bill arrives one reasonable step at a time.
We explain why that happens, using the research behind it, and we publish plain plans for stopping the chain before it starts. No lectures, no guilt, and nothing to sell you.
How we work
See moreEvery explainer names the study or primary source it relies on, in a Sources section at the bottom of the page. When we get something wrong, we fix it and date the change.
The site carries no ads, no affiliate links and no sponsored posts, and nobody pays to appear on it. The calculators need no account and no email address.