No Buy / Limited Buy thread

[space_cowboy]

Yeah - I bought a shirt from TCB shipped via FedEx and thought I escaped tarrifs. However, FedEx hit me up two weeks later with their extortion fee. 😭

[Double 0 Soul]

So if FedEx successfully sue for a full refund do y'all get reimbursed or do y'all have to sue FedEx as a class action? 

[indigoeagle]

11 hours ago, beautiful_FrEaK said:

Been doing quite good in this no buy thing (apart from FW 601 47 and 506). Was about to break it for a deadstock pair of DENIME XX from the Orizzonti era but just got outbid and won't increase my bid. So this will help me with no buy 😅

But you had sold the '47s, no? 

And which 506 did you get? The Sugar Cane SC one?

[OutSider]

4 hours ago, space_cowboy said:

Yeah - I bought a shirt from TCB shipped via FedEx and thought I escaped tarrifs. However, FedEx hit me up two weeks later with their extortion fee. 😭

I hate FedEx for this crap. They love to send bills weeks if not months later instead of asking for the money ahead of time. It’s frustrating dealing with them 

[ATWM]

UPS has done the same thing - sometimes with adjustments. The whole thing is a racket. 

I’ve noted on this forum a few times that taking delivery with no fee ≠ having no fee.

[indigoeagle]

Yes, I've had that several times now.
Fedex demanded payment more than one year later.
He had to get a lawyer to get it sorted. And I think, he is on their black list now. They won't work with him. Not that he wants to.

And you can't really get a reply from them, if you have a question to an invoice.
If you pay at the door, make sure, that you get a receipt. A friend got an invoice later even though he had paid when he received the parcel.

Most of the drivers and also employees at the office, who I had managed to get a hold of,  are very friendly.
But it seems they have been restructuring in the last year or so.

[Double 0 Soul]

I think it's for streamlined business model.. ie- FedEx are faster than EMS.. sometimes less than 72hrs door to door, JP to UK but you can't meet these targets if you have a storage warhouse where shit is kept uptil folks pay their border charges.. delivery first, charges thereafter as opposed to charges upfront followed by delayed delivery.. you takes your pick.

[indigoeagle]

3 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

I think it's for streamlined business model.. ie- FedEx are faster than EMS.. sometimes less than 72hrs door to door, JP to UK but you can't meet these targets if you have a storage warhouse where shit is kept uptil folks pay their border charges.. delivery first, charges thereafter as opposed to charges upfront followed by delayed delivery.. you takes your pick.

Yes, I think, that is one of the reasons.
But it shouldn't be difficult to tick off the box "has been paid" after payment.
Also, they will send you an online link to pay. Sometimes they wouldn't deliver, if it hasn't been paid.
I wouldn't be surprised, if they have been implementing AI systems in their billing and customer service system in the last twelve months or so.
 

[ATWM]

I had to spend an hour on the phone disputing something like a $9 late fee for a tax I had paid even before delivery. I had receipt. I can only conclude the attempt was extortion, as most people are not insane enough to spend an hour on the phone arguing a bullshit $9 charge, but the principle grated at me. Since then I’ve gotten nothing from overseas (and that fee wasn’t related to denim). This was FedEx who I do believe is the worst of a crappy bunch. 

[Cold Summer]

Great idea for a thread and one I wholeheartedly endorse. I agree that the key to success is to avoid browsing on retailers/auction/resale websites, unless you have a specific, actual need you’re targeting. I don’t see myself buying much for the rest of the year and in fact just listed a ton of things for sale on Grailed with a few more to flip. I’ve got more than enough cool gear to last me a lifetime so now is a great time to practice contentment. 

[blomstr]

I'm all for this. What a great idea for a thread to help with accountability 🤣

 

I have enough t-shirts and jeans to hold me over for a couple of years if I buy nothing. I had been thinking about minimizing my purchases this year for this exact reason, anyway.

[mlwdp]

Stay away from Instagram.  No need to see a shop update their stock.  It’s not the end of the world if you don’t see them update.

[ATWM]

1 hour ago, mlwdp said:

Stay away from Instagram.  No need to see a shop update their stock.  It’s not the end of the world if you don’t see them update.

I permanently deleted all my meta accounts a good while back. As a photographer it felt like a weird thing to do, but I don’t regret it for a second. 

My wife deleted hers as well  bit later and said it took months to really acquaint to not being on it but that she feels better and actually sees the world differently. 

Denim stuff aside I think it’s good life advice. It’s deleterious, addictive technology which now only serves to extract time and money from people. Even the ones who use it to success I would argue are getting a bad deal. Besides all social media I’ve taken all internet browsing and email off of my phone - I did this a good while back too. It helps, but you still see stuff you want to get either here or on the sites you know of that you may check once in awhile, etc etc 😃 

Edited March 10 by ATWM

[Hopethisoneisnttaken]

On 3/11/2026 at 1:44 AM, ATWM said:

I permanently deleted all my meta accounts a good while back.

I completely agree with this. The sole reason I still have IG is to message Japanese retailers and I have a Facebook account for marketplace. Both are very inactive aside from that. 
 

Feels like day one million of not browsing for clothes at different websites. Still finding myself reaching for my phone and laying it down a second later when realizing I don’t have a reason to pick it up.
 

Wearing more of the same today. Punctuation/ tcb jeans/ Jim Green

the jacket is battledress repro from some guy on IG that was called workandwar. I bought it like 6 years ago. I’ve never seen anyone else wearing it. The fabric is deadstock Japanese chambray from the 50s, and the fit is weird at times (being true to vintage) but I like it a lot anyways. I always wear it in March and April. 
 

 

[Double 0 Soul]

I've nvr used fb or Insta..

Rampant buying sprees?.. yep, still inclined

[Hopethisoneisnttaken]

15 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

I've nvr used fb or Insta..

Rampant buying sprees?.. yep, still inclined

IG and FB were never about material consuming for me, mostly time and mind consuming. 

[PBTony]

I found IG pretty good for searching other people's denim. For example when i was deciding on Resolute few years back searching gave me a much better idea of how the denim fades and ages as there's so many examples from over the years on IG. There wasn't many examples on reddit and even on here obv the info is obv better but not as many photos and more tine consuming to use being the old style forum. I guess you can still search on Google image but it's not quite the same. 

But yeah not worth the mindless scrolling and if it's on my phone I'll go on it so removed completely. Old IG was great but then they tried to replicate Tikktok (which I've never used) and focus too much on video shorts. It's addictive enough to make you log on but 99% time not worth the time.

[Double 0 Soul]

45 minutes ago, Hopethisoneisnttaken said:

IG and FB were never about material consuming for me, mostly time and mind consuming. 

Our brains can only hold so much therefore you’re pushing the old, often good stuff out and replacing it with junk.. 

For instance.. I can read old threads on Denimbro and I think “that’s good info, I never knew that.. I wonder who wrote it”

..and it was me! 

[indigoeagle]

10 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

Our brains can only hold so much therefore you’re pushing the old, often good stuff out and replacing it with junk.. 

For instance.. I can read old threads on Denimbro and I think “that’s good info, I never knew that.. I wonder who wrote it”

..and it was me! 

Yes, funny how that can happen.
I had a similar experience.
I was sorting things a few years ago and found a printed out text, that I found quite interesting. Wondered, who had written and then realized, that I had written it myself

[Hopethisoneisnttaken]

Still going strong with the no buy (at least as far as clothing goes). And I find myself not interested in browsing through the websites of favorite stores, which is very nice. I think the real hard part will be when summer ends, because the weather now is not very clothing friendly anyways. 
 

how’s everybody else doing in that regard?

[Double 0 Soul]

I've never been one to browse shop websites unless there is something i want to buy.. even then, it's always something very particular so i just search out that single item..

I've recently found that It would mean certain doom for my bank balance.. there is so much nice clothing outside of this denim-rut i've dug myself into.

A couple of weeks ago @Jared_Lee popped up on some BiG spam so i looked through the inventory for the first time in more than a decade.. they certainly know how to dress the models to make the clothing look good, as aspect where a lot of (especially JP) stores fail .. 

I was on the cusp of buying some saggy MacMahon Mills knitwear with cats on for $235.. looked on Yahoo for fit pics and they were cheap as (something like $70 used) so i thought.. "meh, i can buy it from anywhere" and went to bed.

Forgot about it.. the next evening i opened my laptop..  BiG tab was still open and i thought "what the hell are you thinking 00! you'll never pull off 'crazy-cat-woman steeze' 

 ..best not to look in future! 

Edited May 12 by Double 0 Soul

[PBTony]

Still going strong though being skint definitely helps

[ATWM]

I’m officially qualifying as “limited buy” as I put a deposit down on an OA Cossack jacket - but in my defense I’d been after one for years.

I also bought some sandals which are outside the purview of this all for me, but worth mentioning. My previous pair was from a discount bin over a decade ago and had gotten lost in a move a few years ago, and my dog had chewed up my summer pair of Bostons. I don’t even like sandals much but need (stretch use of the word) a pair for how often we’re out at pools and the lake in summer.
 

So…I would say I am only doing just okay. None of the usual fare for me though. Been quite tempted by a few pairs of jeans but no need for them. I also think fall will be tougher, my favorite time for sure.

Edited May 12 by ATWM

[Cold Summer]

A couple months ago, I bought a Stetson Open Road felt cowboy hat after thinking about it for the past year, so it definitely wasn't an impulsive purchase 😅 Recently I got a few shirts (a Sugar Cane short sleeve and three Flat Head long sleeves) off Yahoo Auctions Japan/Mercari. I have a really hard time resisting good shirts when they show up on resale sites in my size, especially stuff from Flat Head's peak. Even with tariffs factored in, the value is often phenomenal, and the clothes are usually in virtually like-new condition. I'm just surprised that after so many rounds of doing this, I've never gotten anything that smelled like cigarettes. Anyway, there are maybe about four TFH shirts out there which I'd immediately buy if they came up for sale in my size and weren't crazy expensive, but excepting that, I'm probably done buying shirts for a while.

In an effort to focus on wearing my Flat Head 3003xx and TCB Late S40s jeans, I took my three unworn/barely worn pairs (TFH 3003W, TCB 50s, and SC Okinawa) and packed each one up in a package and stashed them away. I'll probably keep my current two pairs going until next fall, and then open up one of the new pairs to start wearing - essentially tricking my brain into thinking I'm getting something "new" when I'm actually ready to start wearing it. For me at least, I hate it when I'm got several pairs of jeans floating around and start to have trouble deciding which to wear or focus on - so maybe this is going to help with that.

[Jared_Lee]

On 5/12/2026 at 1:44 AM, Double 0 Soul said:

 ..best not to look in future! 

I wish that worked for me. Working in menswear in New York, I'm constantly exposed to people dressing and styling well. I'll see someone wearing something and maybe I like the thing, maybe I like how they wore it, or maybe I don't like anything about it, but it gets me thinking about what would have worked better and next thing you know I have some inspiration for a way to style something into my wardrobe that I don't currently have. I often won't even know who makes the thing or exactly what to search for, but at that point the itch is there. I will seek it out, sit on it, and if I'm still thinking about it, imaginary styling it, and visiting the sites where I've found it periodically, I'll usually buy it. The process these days has been extended out to around 4-6 weeks before purchase. At that point, I at least know that I want it and haven't acted impulsively because the certain fact is that I don't "need" a damn thing.

[mlwdp]

Other than a chambray shirt I’ve been eyeing since last year and maybe a pair of pants, there’s nothing else I really want.  I’ve been using weight loss goal as motivation though for these purchases and won’t buy anything that’s not accessory oriented until I’ve lost weight.  That’s my motivation currently (weight loss).

[mlwdp]

Bought my grail for the year, Phigvel blue denim chambray shirt.  I may sell the white one I have though.  The blue denim one I’ve missed years ago.

 

Thats it for me this year.

Edited May 31 by mlwdp

[PBTony]

Fell off the wagon pretty hard. Well for me anyway. I've got a friend's birthday thing coming up next month so needed something smarter so ordered some navy FOB chinos and collarless shirt from them too. I actually got a few items from TOAST but kinda glad they didn't fit as had to return and the FOB stuff was cheaper and more my kind of thing anyway.

Also got Denime 224 66 as got obsessed with 'needing' a 60s cut with a red tab (which now I have I am not too fussed about and might sell) and then also found a barely used year 1990 pair of levis 501 stf for a decent price so had to order that. I have a very faded beaten 1995 pair I wore a lot this summer and really love the soft denim and cloudy fades on them so would like to fade my own pair.

I kept going back and forth about getting a Bakers jacket from Universal Works and found one in great condition for like 1/4 of the price on ebay so had to get that.

Then some bass wejun loafers were also on sale....

I get a real dopamine hit out of searching my favourite sites to see whats dropped but I know I should cut that out because that doesn't help with curtailing spending.

Of course justifying these purchases by telling myself they are significantly cheaper from Japan and thrifted items are at least cheaper and better for the environment. 

How are you guys doing? Do you take any measures to stop yourselves looking up whats available online?

 

Edit

Oh and totally forgot I had a pair of 501s early 80s potentially late 70s selvedge on my list on Marrkt for AGES and finally decided that despite the stains and all and likely being an inch too short I would buy them but a week later they got in touch to say that the jeans 'were lost' so they processed a refund. Which was great for my bank balance. Someone in their warehouse is walking round in some sick jeans right now.

Edited August 25 by PBTony

[Thanks_M8]

^For me less exposure to triggers works well. Meaning I try to search for new stuff, only when I need it. I am not strict in any way, though  

[mlwdp]

Tariffs have control on my purchases right now.  Why pay extra on top of shipping just for 1 tshirt?  Doesn’t make much sense.