Things I Am Buying in 2026

I know the trend is "Things I'm Not Buying," but this is a shorter list:

1. Food. Gotta feed myself.

2. Nutritional supplements. I enjoy being the most animated corpse I can be, and that takes nutrients.

3. Hygiene, skincare, and hair care consumables. Which I don't use a lot of, and only buy one bottle of one kind at a time, two if there's a BOGO sale.

4. Marijuana.

5. Infrequent "little treats" in the form of inexpensive jewelry and perfume.

6. Possibly a piece or two of secondhand clothing, potentially the fabric and elastic to make a pair of "balloon pants."

7. I'm adding "new tattoo" to this list purely for manifestation purposes.

8. Update: it occurs to me that I've been wearing the same glasses since pre-pandemic. I should probably have my eyes looked at. Not a sponsored link, but I discovered Zenni Optical 20 years ago, when I was in college, and I haven't bought glasses from anywhere else since.

That's... about it. My current wardrobe is fantastic. You know how I said I have an ancestress recorded only as "Enormous Viking Lady," not by first name? I got her build. It means that 50lb weight loss I can't stop bringing up in every post didn't drastically change my measurements, and my weight's been so up-and-down over the past 10 years, anyway, that my wardrobe is very forgiving. And so very well curated right now, I can't wait to be able to wear it out again. But that means I don't really need to add anything to it. I'm even set for 80% of the predicted trends already!

I'm getting the biggest and most gorgeous library you have ever seen right down the road from me, so I'm planning on utilizing it to the fullest for my physical media needs when it opens later this year. YouTube & YouTube TV are the only paid online services I have... I'm on a family plan, I'm not the one paying, heh. No Netflix, no Hulu, no Amazon Prime, no HBO, no Disney+, no Spotify... you get the idea.

I have a small makeup kit I assembled last year, it's all still just fine, and also rarely touched. The only time makeup has been my thing was during the pandemic, and I'm kind of over it. If I do anything, I like the minimalist approach Gen Z is starting to take.

As for beauty maintenance, I do my own (ish). I wear and cut my own hair, use temporary glue-on strips if I want lash enhancements, do my own manicure and have a podiatrist for my toes, I don't have dermatological procedures or plastic surgery done, and I don't remove my body hair. And yes, I know the science behind it, but those red light masks still look like the worst beauty snake oil. I don't need to spend my money on one.

And as for "stuff," I have so much stuff already, I don't need more stuff. I need more stuff to do.

That's it. I feel like this should end with everyone holding hands and singing "Simple Gifts."

I went looking for those Cottagecore memes glorifying living a "simple life," but memes from the 2000's MTV show came up and... I'm not mad.