How did the housewives of old keep their house constantly tidy? Sure, they had more time then we do now, but so much of what they had to do was significantly more time consuming. As I said yesterday, one of the ways they did it was because they had to. Friends would drop by without any warning, so there was more of an incentive to stay neat. The other reason, as far as I can figure, is that they had a lot less stuff than we do today.
Things that we take for granted today would have been prohibitably expensive for all but the wealthiest of people. Women would only have a couple dresses and a few accessories, children had a doll or a toy gun and not too much else, and the kitchen had far fewer gizmos and gadgets to get the job done.
I am not advocating that we give up all our stuff, just being more thoughtful before we add it to our collection. Do our purchases really make sense? Yes, the $10.00 teeshirt at Target is cute, but is it going to last or is it going to shrink in the wash and live out a long existence cluttering up your closet?
If we were all more cognizant of the quality vs. quantity of what we buy, I believe that we would have far fewer problems with over-stuffed homes, not to mention a better handle on debt. We have collectively been going on a shopping binge for a couple decades with cheap imports from Asia. Often, I will buy something at Target, and it rarely ends up being used, but at the time I thought that I had to have it. I get the rush of buying something pretty or fun, and it is cheap so I don’t feel bad, but in the end it is just an energy suck in my home. Buyer’s remorse then sets in, but it is too late.
So one New Year’s resolution that I have this year is to think before I buy (preferably for at least 48 hours). To get into this habit, I have declared January a “consumption diet” month. I am only purchasing food and toiletries. Everything else can stay on the store’s shelf until February, to make me think about whether I truly need it.
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Great post!
I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. One thing I have been noticing in the past few years is that our country’s obsession with purchasing things at lower and lower prices seems to be causing quality to diminish for all types of consumer goods. When I need something, I tend to research it as much as I can before I purchase and I am often willing to spend a little more for a quality item, but it is getting harder and harder to find the quality I want.
The other thing that drives me nuts, and I hope I am not going off topic, is how certain things, i.e. electronics seem to have a forced obsolescence built into it so that you are forced to upgrade to keep things working.
Mimi,
I totally agree! We have become crazed with deals, but often those deals are on junk. It’s hard (at least for me) not to get pulled into the manipulation to buy more and more.
The technology thing can be especially hard for me, because I can be kind of a geek, so I am a sitting duck for the newest, smallest gadgets. So far, I have been pretty good at resisting the urge, but if I had unlimited money, I think that I would be sucked in;)
I just remembered an interesting article I read in mid December. If you are interested go to the economist.com web site and search on “the new improved gilded age”. I don’t want to link to it because I think your SPAM filter will kick me out.
The gist of the article was that in the old days, a rich person would own a car and a refrigerator. The rest of us would have to walk where we needed to go and use a block of ice to keep our food cold. Now we can all afford a car and a fridge but we have different quality levels between what the rich and the rest of us can afford to buy.
Interesting. We can all have the same things now, so everyone’s standard of living is going way up but the quality of what we have may be low because things are made for the masses.
Perhaps we have been going towards this for generations now? As we have become more industrialized and beyond, people of all economic strata can have more things.
I am interested to see what happens as the industrial revolutions of places like China and India march forward. It will be quite a different world indeed!
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