Tara Button

Tara Button founded BuyMeOnce in 2016 and is changing the way we shop forever. Her book A Life Less Throwaway is out 8 February 2018. 

2013

The idea for BuyMeOnce is born

2016

BuyMeOnce goes viral

2017

A Life Less Throwaway is written

2018

A Life Less Throwaway released 8 Feb

"It started with a pot..."

A baby blue Le Creuset casserole pot was given to me for my 30th birthday. It came with a reputation of lasting for generations and when I held it, it just felt like an heirloom. I reflected that owning it meant I potentially never had to buy another pot again. ‘If only everything in my life it was like this,’ I thought.

Enthused, I set out to find more objects that I would never have to replace. I assumed there’d be a website that sold a collection of lifetime products, but when I went looking for one, it didn’t exist. ‘Maybe I could be the one to build it,’ I dared to think.

The more I thought about it, the more powerful the idea seemed. If this website could release people from the constant pressure to renew and replace, it could solve some of the biggest problems the world is facing today. It could ease the clutter, unhappiness and debt that come with over-consumption, it could lessen the environmental impact of our throwaway society and it could save us all money in the long-term.

I started to make changes in my own life and uncovered the surprising practical and emotional benefits that come with carefully choosing only those objects that reflect your values and will be with you for decades to come.

I knew that if I didn’t at least try to build the website, I’d always regret it. So in 2015, I started a company, BuyMeOnce, and started hunting for lifetime items in my spare time.

Then, in 2016, miraculously the site went viral. Thousands of e-mails started to flood in, BuyMeOnce was featured in almost every major newspaper in the UK and I was suddenly being asked to be on TV in America. I hadn’t realised it, but I had tapped into something that people all round the world were feeling. They were tired of our throwaway culture.

Events

11 Nov 2017

Cambridge Repair Cafe – setting a world record

11 Nov 2017 all day

Tara will be speaking and the BuyMeOnce team will have a stand with some of their best products. Come and join us. Also bring anything you'd like to get fixed!

The Wesley Methodist Church

Christ's Pieces

Cambridge

CB1 1LG

8 Feb 2018

A Life Less Throwaway Released

8 feb 2018

Harper Collins will be releasing Tara's first book!