1st – 31st August
Pausing Our Spending to find ‘Enough’ – Rediscovering Abundance and the Joy of Living Well with Less
what is the enough festival?
The Enough Festival is an invitation to step off the treadmill of endless consumption. For the whole of August, we come together and commit to not buying anything new — except for true essentials like food, medication, and bills. It is a personal and collective exploration of what it means to have enough.
Each of us is surrounded by advertising and a culture of “more”, urging us always to buy, upgrade, and accumulate. The Enough Festival chooses a different path: for one month, we challenge ourselves to pause, reflect, and uncover what is truly required to live well.
the practice of ‘enough’
Practicing ‘enough’ means shifting our attention from what we lack to what we already possess. This is not a month of deprivation, but of discovery. We become more aware of our habits, find satisfaction in repairing, reusing, and sharing, and create space for gratitude and well-being.
By stepping out of the cycle of consumption, we make lighter footprints on the planet and enrich our own lives in the process. It’s also a chance to trade softly — both with the earth and with ourselves.
How to take part
Participation is simple and you can do it from your own home: commit to not buying anything you don’t absolutely need for the month of August. Essentials — like groceries, medicine, or urgent bills — remain part of normal life, but all other purchases are paused. You’ll likely notice where your habits are automatic, how creative you can be with what you already have, and what “enough” really feels like.
Share your journey, whether quietly with yourself or online with others joining in. Over the course of the month, there will be opportunities to connect, exchange experiences, and reflect on what you discover.
The Power of Community
‘Enough’ can be a privileged word. While the Enough Festival is about recognising, celebrating, using and giving from our own abundance, many of us are still struggling to find ‘enough’. Wealth inequality is not just an abstract issue; it has deeply human implications affecting lives daily. However, rather than succumb to despair, we can harness this awareness to foster a culture of sharing and connectedness. By acknowledging our privileges and the myriad of ways others have contributed to our own abundance—whether through the support of family, friends, community, mentors, or perhaps the culture we come from or the stolen land we inhabit—we can begin to reshape our understanding of what it means to have ‘enough’.
The festival encourages us to redefine ‘enough’ in collective terms: sharing our time, skills, and resources to create a community of abundance where everyone has ‘enough’. For those of us with experience of what it means to live without ‘enough’, we often have a wealth of knowledge and skills about how to live frugally. We would encourage you to share this knowledge as part of The Enough Festival!
Through the power of community, we can create a tapestry of support, resources and resilience, fostering a nurturing environment where everyone has ‘enough’. In coming together and giving from what we already have, we can transform individual abundance into a collective strength, demonstrating a powerful and more equitable model of what it means to live in abundance.
Acknowledgement of Country and a call to action
The Enough Festival acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the Land, Waters, and Sky of all the places you are participating from. For us, this is the Kaurna People. Always was, and always will be, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land. Our festival is rooted in principles of giving freely from our abundance, building community, and deepening our connection with and care for the Earth. First Nations Peoples of Australia have embodied these principles for millennia, fostering thriving communities rich in culture, connection, wellbeing, knowledge and skills. We can learn invaluable lessons about living with enough from the wisdom of First Nations Elders, and we should have been listening sooner. We encourage you to use this month to deepen your understanding of First Nations knowledge and practices and to apply what you learn. In recognition of our shared learning journey, we will be learning alongside you—we all have to start somewhere!