Yesterday I got an email question, saying: “So, I started reading your blog a few months ago, and I don’t really ‘get’ the consumption diet thing.” This leads me to believe that I probably haven’t explained it fully enough.
Basically, I decided to give this “diet” a try because I got fed up with how much stuff I have, and how I keep finding ways to buy more. Every time I walked into Target, I would find many things that looked so good that they would end up in the cart, along with whatever I had actually gone into the store for. This also happened at many other shops. So after Christmas, I decided that I was burnt out. I had too much stuff, not enough space, and half of it was impulse buys that didn’t actually contribute much to my house or my happiness.
Right before Christmas, I had read an article in Good Magazine, about some friends in San Francisco who signed a compact not to buy anything for a year. Now, this seemed a bit extreme for me, but I was intrigued by one of the women’s comments about how she couldn’t even like shopping anymore. It made me wonder if I could give it up, and if I could, would I like it?
So now my experiment is over, and it felt really good to be able to stick with it. It also taught me that 90% of the time, when I think of something that I want, if I wait for a couple weeks then I won’t even want it anymore.
Almost everything in our culture is set up to buy more and more. The government, companies, and the Fed literally do everything possible to keep us buying as much as we can, going so far as to give us “free” money when the economy turns for the worse so that we won’t stop shopping. They convince consumers that in order to be happy, we need all this stuff. But, once you break the habit, you don’t even miss it.
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A history of my Consumption Diet:
i just started reading your blog, and it’s nice to see others out there like me who are interested in getting off the modern consumption patterns. over the past year or so i have weaned myself off shopping, and am now at the point where i don’t even want to go shopping. When I’m in a store, I feel guilty buying anything I don’t really need because i realize that every useless object I buy takes a toll on the environment, (not to mention my wallet). i think seeing The Story of Stuff also helped me change my attitude. It’s a really neat 20 min online video that explains the path of consumer objects – starting with our natural resources and engergy, through factories and transportations, to your store and your home. check it out 🙂 http://www.storyofstuff.com.
Julia – Thanks for the link, that movie was amazing! It really explained how I feel. I majored in economic policy in college, and often I am at a loss to explain some of this stuff in an easy manner.
[…] Why Did I Start This Consumption “Diet”? posted at Diary of a New Old-Fashioned Gal This is an interesting idea but I do very little consumer spending anyway so there wouldn’t be any point in doing it for me. […]
I think it was the president who told us to go out and shop after 9/11. And we hear how the economy is slowing because we aren’t out shopping. Oddly enough they don’t say who is making the money from all the stuff we are buying, the people who are actually making the goods. And unfortunately they aren’t in this country. We use to hear about sweatshops and people would be embarrassed, now it is no big deal. I haven’t seen that the story of stuff but plan to, and to share it with friends. And isn’t retail therapy a word commonly used now too? I am just amazed by all of the things going on. And have joined int he diet of consumption too. My hats off to all of you on it. I just found your blog, and agree with a lot of it already.
Jenni – That’s so true. For a little while, I was thinking of using the rebate check that we are getting to buy a plasma TV, mainly because ours is about 15 years old and not digital. We use rabbit ears instead of cable, and come February, it won’t work without a converter box. So I was thinking that we would never buy a nice TV since we rarely watch it, and the $1500 we are getting would be a nice splurge.
I made a commitment when I heard about the rebate that I would only use it on stuff that was made in the US, and after a bit of research, I discovered no one makes TVs here anymore. I am now planning on putting the money in the bank instead.
It’s crazy that the government is giving us each so much money to go buy more stuff from China.