I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been much of a good consumer as that designation has come to signify in and out of recessions in this capitalist-based economy. I don’t “shop ’til I drop,” I don’t buy much of anything new, and whenever friends or sisters try to talk me into tagging along for a bout of binge buying at the mall I come up with every excuse in the book to beg out of it.
And now that I live on a mountain rather far from town (and any sort of mall), I’ve managed to keep from making friends who believe that frivolous spending of vast amounts of money is a competitive sport. I like that about the people here in the southern Appalachians – they’re not nearly so concerned conspicuous consumption as they are concerned about the quality of their natural habitats. Perhaps that’s true of rural areas all over the country, where people are simply not accustomed to spending money as an ingrained habit or mere way to pass the time of one’s life. When we lived in a city of a million-plus people in Florida, there seemed to be at least one strip mall for every household, and they were all making a living!
My little sisters were both given credit cards when my parents divorced, and never seemed to figure out that the money wasn’t free. When cleaning out one sister’s after she died last spring, I couldn’t count the number of shopping bags and boxes full of ‘stuff’ (basic junk) she’d bought at some point over the last decade and never even bothered to unpack once she got home. I’m convinced it’s a sickness, a symptom of how empty lives can be in our overcrowded, materialistically-minded cities. I couldn’t back out of going appliance shopping with my big sister a couple of years ago after her new lake house retirement home was built. I managed not to drop a dime, while she ended up spending nearly $16,000 in just 3 hours’ time – it was the most money I’d ever seen anybody spend in one outing that wasn’t a formal mortgage-signing! I could have lived pretty well for a year on that much.
Thus the first line of defense against peer pressure to go shopping for junk and stuff you don’t really want or need is to not live in an environment that supports the idea that this is a good thing. The second line of defense is to avoid hanging out with people who are shopaholics. And the third line of defense when you can’t avoid the pressure (because you’re related to the shopaholic) is to develop a convenient headache or offer to watch the kids while she does the shopping for herself.
I know the friend ‘filter’ sounds sort of callous, but once you’re into thrifting you’ll find other friends who are as into it as you are. Those shopping trips can be much more fun and exciting than any day at the mall, and more rewarding too. Thrifters tend to be crafty and creative, or they wouldn’t have developed an eye for bargains they can turn into income or wonderful gifts. Generally cooler people, for my own experience.
Lana Goodrich over at Wise Bread blog has a post outlining 5 Ways To Dodge Peer Pressure To Spend. It’s definitely worth a read, but I’ll go ahead and disagree here with her tip #3, which is Blame it on your values. I disagree because I don’t find it difficult in the least to just say “I can’t go because I don’t have the money.” She suggests a fib I don’t believe is necessary in most instances – though it might work well with in-laws or other family members whom you don’t wish to share your financial status with.
It’s not all that difficult to avoid spending money frivolously, especially if you’ve made a commitment in your own mind to living a certain way for all the right reasons. Recycling of anything – be it leftovers, cars, houses or knick-knacks – is an environmentally responsible commitment. Making money doing something you really like, for yourself, is very satisfying. Not spending money on things you don’t need is a moral commitment to avoid the notorious pitfalls of materialism and the dangers of a wasteful life. Thrifting for food – by gardening, joining a home gardening cooperative or buying crop shares in a farm, buying commodities in bulk at the regional farmer’s market, maybe even working trades with farmers in your area is a commitment to a healthier diet, non-support of factory farming cruelty, and a way of living much closer to nature and appreciating what it really takes to sustain a human being in this world.
I believe these are all good moral commitments to make, and more Americans should try it. It’s not as hard as quitting smoking, after all! Living in awareness of our footprints on the earth is good for us. If enough people were to choose to live that way the world situation wouldn’t be as desperate as it usually is. Our lives will be better for it, so there’s nothing to be ashamed of. There’s more to life than shopping!