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Just don’t go shopping
By Anita |
I was going to write about FICO scores but why write about that when I can write about shopping?
I stumbled across a BlogHer post about several bloggers who are taking a hiatus from shopping. One of them is even taking a year off from it and says:
But for an entire year there will be no impulse Target buying, no new shoes for people who have feet that are no longer growing, no new t-shirts, pants, sweaters… nothing that we don’t need.
For us this isn’t an exercise in saving money, though my husband may disagree with me here.
Nor is it an effort to live a more green life, though that is also a nice benefit.
For me it is an effort to lessen the amount of stuff that comes into our house. To take a step outside of the mindless consumerism for a time and assess the real differences between what we want and what we really need. I suspect that it will be an ongoing process of negotiations, both internally and within the family. What do we really need?
I already practice a modified version of this because I’m weird. I don’t like to go shopping. Months pass between visits to Target. If a household item can’t be purchased at the grocery store then I have no interest in purchasing it. Usually, I find I can live without the item completely.
I know, I know. Everyone says paper goods and such are cheaper at Target and Walmart than they are at the grocery store so it’s worth making the special trip. It’s not worth it to me because while I’m there trying to stick to my list so many other items in the aisles are screaming to be purchased. It’s annoying. Plus, I don’t like the large cavernous stores. I don’t like department stores either. I’d much rather pop quickly into a small store. Maybe that’s one reason we go shopping 3-4 times more often than the average European; we have all these huge, time-sucking stores.
One of these bloggers used the phrase “purpose driven wardrobe.” I like that. Women that stand before their closets and say “I have nothing to wear” or take several minutes to pick out an outfit have too many clothes. If I ever had a huge walk-in closet I would use it for something else, like a work area or a reading nook, because my clothes only take up 3.5 linear feet. I always have something to wear and I like everything that I wear. It took a few years to get to the point of having a purpose driven wardrobe but it was worth it.
The BlogHer post also mention a 20 minute video called The Story of Stuff. The section on consumption talks about how we get our identities now as consumers. Sigh. Equally depressing is a quote in the video from the 1950’s that says, now that WWII is over, we should “seek our spiritual satisfaction” from “consumption.” This video is well worth watching. I’ll close by posting it below. If you have trouble viewing it here in your browser you can click here to view it:
Topics: Shopping |
January 18th, 2008 at 7:54 am
I’m weird too… I hate shopping!