Shopping is incredibly time consuming. That’s why Henry Ford gave his employees an entire day off every week to do it.
With the start of my sabbatical–and my income slashed by 75%–comes a renewed need for mindful spending.
The “Good Ole” College Days
In undergrad, my budget for groceries, clothing, toiletries, and entertainment was about $250 a month. My grocery budget was about $35 a week. I bought the same seven or eight ingredients and made the same three or four meals throughout the week: sandwich, salad, pasta, repeat. I’m sure my college roommates have more than one story of me having an anxious breakdown at the mall trying to buy jeans or in the grocery store because I exceeded this $35 cap by $12.
How I managed this budget, I’m not sure, but I do remember the perpetual anxiety that I might run out of money any month and have to drop out of school. I emphasize this was anxiety, a highly unlikely scenario, but a scenario that truly terrified me nonetheless.
Although I still had a lot of fun in college, these were not my good ole days. From my perspective, anyone particularly nostalgic for their undergraduate years conveniently forgets about the whole living-off-borrowed-money stress. This is besides the point.
Then the first few years of active duty, when I was actually making money instead of living off loans, I focused my financial energy on student and auto loans but I was still able to loosen the reins. I spent more like $100 a week on groceries, went on lots of weekend and international trips, and ate out at restaurants regularly. What a luxury! I was still frugal in other areas–furniture in particular. I sourced furniture from garage sales, thrift stores, and quite literally the curb. You can actually get pretty good curb stuff on base during PCS season.
Then, when my debt was all gone in 2019, I loosened the reins even more and now find myself with lots of pretty things: the NEW(!) furniture, the natural fiber clothing, the shoes made of real leather, the European handbags, and a bench at the foot of my bed.
During my college years, the bench at the foot of the bed was my holy grail of adulthood. To have enough disposal income to spend $100 on piece of wood to invariably collect worn, but not actually dirty clothes, AND have a large enough bedroom to accommodate a bench!? Goals.
I still almost always wait for a sale (this is part of that Midwestern thrill streak in me). So now, I obviously have way more than enough. Yet sometimes I find myself tempted to buy a new blouse or sweater only to realize I already have a very similar item hiding in my dry cleaning pile. Absurd.
Having lived those nerve-racking, “good ole” college years, and the few years thereafter where any spare dollar went to student loans, I do love a little abundance (especially if it’s on sale). It’s okay to be seduced sometimes, as long as it’s consensual.
But now it’s time for a little overconsumption cleanse.
What is an Overconsumption Cleanse?
This is not a real trend, by the way. I googled it. Nothing. It sounds like it should be though, right?
First, for the purpose of this post, I’m going to define overconsumption as the consumption for pleasure rather than necessity. Under this defintion, the notion of buying something we don’t need simply because it’s beautiful, holds no moral value. It does however pose certain risks. Some risks of course are the additional pollution from production, shipping, and disposal that then cost even more resources to manage. Other risks are psychological, for example when a person’s pursuit of things harms themselves or others. Finally, if/when businesses exploit humans and resources to meet a particular market demand (particularly when those businesses have engineered that demand).
Second, I’m going to define cleanse as ridding the body of toxins–toxins being things that, whether physical or psychological, cause us harm.
This overconsumption cleanse is about significantly slowly down my consumerism (particularly non-essentials) in order to recapture and redirect my time, attention, and money toward the people and other activities that bring me joy. My overconsumption cleanse is about taking a pause to re-acknowledge how “want more” signals inundate me daily and to carefully consider if I do actually want more.
This is about practicing deliberate choice in contested environments rather than removing my choice altogether.
Someone is always going to create something new and exciting to buy. Always. In a capitalist culture, we are bombarded by a never ending onslaught of advertising. Sometimes (I stress sometimes) that advertising alerts me to something I’m already looking for, and sometimes it tries to convince me I have a problem that actually doesn’t exist.
What essential act can an avocado slicer do that a knife can’t? What’s the point of a coffee pod machine when a stovetop moka pot produces a better cup of coffee with zero plastic or paper waste? Why are there different lotions for my hands versus my body? And what the heck is a luxury candle?!
As they say, “a solution looking for a problem.”
So sometimes it’s nice to temporarily unsubscribe. The objective is quieting the bombardment of external voices trying to tell me who I should be, what I need to buy to get there, and why this candle is so much better than all the other candles that it deserves to cost $65.
I need to remember what my own voice sounds like.
This is not an anti-consumerism manifesto. I think it’s clear where I stand on pretty things and bed benches by now. Rather, like everything else, this is an exercise in moderation.
Some Questions Before a Purchase…
- Is there actually a problem this product can solve, or is that “problem” just a slight inconvenience?
- Is there a way to solve my problem with something I already own?
- Do I already have something that more-or-less serves the same purpose (e.g. I don’t need a seventh white blouse).
- (for lower cost items) Have I wanted this item for more than 3+ weeks?
- (for higher cost items) Have I wanted this item for more than 3-6+ months?
- (for discounted items) Would I still buy it for full price?
- Is this something I can get off my dimply butt to go buy from my local hardware store, pharmacy, grocer, or other small business?
As always, these sorts of things are far easier said than done. This is about practicing deliberate choice in contested environments rather than removing my choice altogether.
For Love of Time (and Pretty Things)
While the items in my home serve me–even if just to make me feel powerful–they have needs in return. Despite living on my own for years now, for some reason I still find myself surprised how much time and energy it takes to clean, repair, and generally maintain all my possessions. All the washing, drying, steaming, folding, dusting, scrubbing, refilling–the getting oil changes, refilling gas, replacing watch batteries and straps, scrubbing my shower liner, sorting my food between those still edible and those that may now try to poison me.
I know many of you (especially those responsible for the household chores) are thinking, “yeah, no duh!” I swear I never doubted you, but I don’t even have kids and my pets are plants. And still.
The amount of waking hours I spent last year online shopping alone–researching, comparing, purchasing, tracking, sometimes returning, and breaking down the cardboard boxes?! Actually maybe I don’t want to know. My point is, even shopping is incredibly time consuming. That’s why Henry Ford gave his employees an entire day off every week to do it.
Although these items serve a purpose and often fill me with joy (yes, my gal Marie Kondo speaks to me), boy do they demand a lot of time and care in return. Frankly, it’s hard to devout that kind of time to maintaining those items if I didn’t love them.
But I think that’s exactly what some businesses are counting on–that as soon as the problem-solving product expects anything in return, we’ll simply replace it with something “less needy.” The more frequently we decide (are forced?) to replace that product, the more opportunties for that business to sell us their solution.
We’re probably all familiar with the troupe: “rich” people spend less money overall on every day items than “poor” people, because the rich person can afford to buy the $250 pair of boots that lasts ten years while the poor person can only afford the $50 boots that must be replaced annually, thus spending $500 over ten years to solve the same problem.
A footnote: those $250 boots won’t last ten years without your care and support.
Money is a Tool
Businesses are born to solve everyday problems of people. Businesses die when those problems no longer exist and those businesses can’t learn to solve a different problem. This is why the whole idea of “[insert generation of people] is killing [insert industry]” is so hilarious. In a capitalist construct, businesses don’t get to exist just because they want to. They must be able to solve a problem.
So, this sabbatical I’m trying to be more mindful about who actually is deciding I have that problem in need of a solution. Am I also being sold the problem?
This is a little bit an exercise in raw discipline–things are always more satisfying when they’re not readily accessible.
This is a bit about regrowing that internal sense of pride–we are reflection of the way we treat others (including objects).
This is a little about practicing gratitude (I say practicing because it is a learnable skill that requires repetition to stay proficient) for all my past beautiful gifts I gave myself.
Perhaps more than anything, it’s about redirecting that precious, finite time, once spent acquiring, to literally anything else.
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