How to quit the ‘buy now’ habit in eight easy steps – and shop smarter with forever in mind

• ‘If you pay more than £4, you’re being ripped off’: the fair price for 14 everyday items

Introversion is rarely useful, but it saved me a fortune in my younger years. So keenly did I loathe going to the shops that I just didn’t spend much money. I was perfectly happy, albeit a little bored and usually dressed in the same clothes.

Then online shopping happened. The lure of one-click, next-day consumables unleashed my inner impulse buyer like a starving castaway at a buffet. I never quite became a shopping addict, but the thrill of home delivery fuelled a period of slightly unhinged affluenza. My house filled with stuff while my bank account drained. I accumulated retro camera kit (70% unused to this day), expensive books about using said camera kit (100% unread) and an untold number of dresses that I bought only because I could send them back for free. I never did send them back, of course, and I never wore them, because I never wear dresses. But they were so pretty.

We would like to hear from people who have uprooted their life for a piece of art

The Guardian’s Saturday magazine is looking for people who filed for divorce after being inspired by a certain song, book, TV show or film. Did Taylor Swift make you realise it was time to leave a disappointing partner? Has watching a really great sex scene ever made you realise that the passion in your relationship was dead?

We are interested in hearing stories about how a particular piece of culture gave you the strength to end a relationship. Whether you came out as gay after watching Brokeback Mountain, or confronted your cheating spouse after watching The Affair, we would love to hear from you about what it’s like to uproot your life in response to a piece of art.

In her latest book, Mother Animal, the writer gives a personal account of the impact of ‘forever chemicals’ on her and her child during and after pregnancy

When Helen Jukes told her friends she was writing about motherhood and pollution, they advised her against it and warned she might make pregnant people more anxious than they already were. But she disagreed. Mother Animal, a personal account of Jukes’ pregnancy and early years of motherhood, details her growing realisation of how contaminated her body, and her baby, have become. And it’s something she thinks all would-be parents should be more aware of. There are chemicals from human industry in breast milk, amniotic fluid and bones, she writes. Toxicologists have found “forever chemicals” in embryos and foetuses at “every stage of pregnancy … in lung tissues, in livers”. It is inescapable.

Yet it is spoken about far too little. “I find it quite disrespectful to think that mothers wouldn’t be capable of handling [this] information,” she says when we meet at her home on the edge of the Peak District.