Choresumption

[Yipper]

Pretty great blog post I came across recently involving the wastefulness of too much consumerism. The gist of the authors point of view is that consumerism is actually a LOT of work as well and completely exhausting.

Consumerism is Exhausting: Choresumption

Good read. I shared it with my children (late 20's, early 30's). I hope they read it.

 

[Sunset]

Now that I'm old, and slowly de-cluttering, I realize I wasted a lot of time and money buying various things.

Seems lots of folks do this, spend to acquire/collect stuff, fill a house, buy a bigger house, fill it and then fill the garage too.

Small example: I went through my pants, kept 22 pairs !! donated 10 pairs that are wrong size and threw out 6 pairs that are a bit ragged.

I'm amazed I still have 22 pairs of pants, I don't need anymore for the rest of my life.

 

[finnski1]

It all boils down to needs vs wants. I try to keep the wants in check and perspective. Sometimes however I do wants what I wants.

 

[athena53]

A wise article. I spent all of $586 on clothing (including shoes) last year. IIRC, it was a pair of sneakers, 6 T-shirts from places I'd visited (how could I NOT stand at 0.00 degrees latitude and not get the T-shirt?), and a sweater and a wrap made of baby alpaca fur. I don't know what this season's "must-have" wardrobe items are. As long as it's clean, flattering and appropriate to the surroundings, I'm good.

My friend, still working FT at age 72 (thank heaven he likes his job and it's sedentary) keeps going on cleaning binges where he tells me how many garbage bags of Stuff he threw out. He loses things in the mess so he buys more. Amazon knows just what kinds of electrical gadgets and cat paraphernalia he likes and he follows their suggestions. One click. Thank heaven I'm mostly immune to that stuff.

 

[GrayHare]

People can't believe some things I still use. "Your phone is 5 years old? How do you survive?" Then I tell them I still use a 30 year old TV. Except for clearly-more-efficient devices, "use it until it breaks" is so much better for the environment and one's pocketbook.

 

[Time2]

Now that I'm old, and slowly de-cluttering, I realize I wasted a lot of time and money buying various things.

Seems lots of folks do this, spend to acquire/collect stuff, fill a house, buy a bigger house, fill it and then fill the garage too.

Small example: I went through my pants, kept 22 pairs !! donated 10 pairs that are wrong size and threw out 6 pairs that are a bit ragged.

I'm amazed I still have 22 pairs of pants, I don't need anymore for the rest of my life.

Could you have a talk with my wife? She has over 100 pairs of pants in the closet. We aren't big on going out and she generally has her gardening clothes on. Om, om, just let it be, om. And don't get me started on the containers of shoes. She's off to the scrapyard now recycling aluminum and SS, she picked up. Why oh why, we don't spend what we have.
I should add, not one of the pants or pairs of shoes, was bought at a retail store, either yard sale or thrift store. She's great, quirks and all! I'm not sure if I'm telling you or reminding myself .

 

[HenryD]

Selling our house forced the mother of all declutterings. Not having a fixed abode restricts our ability to ramp back up.

 

[Koolau]

We've de-cluttered twice as we've successively moved to smaller places. One more to go - the one our kids will do when we die (Back up that dumpster!)

 

[Stormy Kromer]

People can't believe some things I still use. "Your phone is 5 years old? How do you survive?" Then I tell them I still use a 30 year old TV. Except for clearly-more-efficient devices, "use it until it breaks" is so much better for the environment and one's pocketbook.

They should see my Kyocera flip phone.

Hell, I grew up in a house with one party line phone, I have it made.

 

[FI_RElater]

They should see my Kyocera flip phone.

Hell, I grew up in a house with one party line phone, I have it made.

Ours was "three short"... so I know what you're talking about, but I am "older". Talk to some younger about a "party line" and they'd probably be thinking about some phone call to a rave.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I have gotten really good at not buying things that I don’t need. Moving a family of 5 yourself across the country a few times helped to hone this skill. I own 8 pairs of pants and 4 pairs of shoes.

Before I buy anything I ask myself if I will just be taking it to the thrift store in a few years. If I buy something at a thrift store or garage sale it’s no big deal to donate it once sick of it.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

Could you have a talk with my wife? She has over 100 pairs of pants in the closet. We aren't big on going out and she generally has her gardening clothes on. Om, om, just let it be, om. And don't get me started on the containers of shoes. She's off to the scrapyard now recycling aluminum and SS, she picked up. Why oh why, we don't spend what we have.
I should add, not one of the pants or pairs of shoes, was bought at a retail store, either yard sale or thrift store. She's great, quirks and all! I'm not sure if I'm telling you or reminding myself .

I own 3 pairs of pants.

One I got free off Nextdoor.

One belonged to an ex GF, but since I'm 9 inches taller than her I don't remember how that happened.

One was work issued.

All 3 unpaid for by me.

 

[GrayHare]

I just threw out a sock because it had holes. Kept its hole-free mate though for pairing with others that have similarly lost their significant other. One of these days I will begin wearing the new pair I was gifted years ago.

 

[GenXguy]

I overbought pants years ago and have many pairs I've never worn. And they were semi-casual work pants, not a style I ever wore at home, and now I'm retired.

 

[badatmath]

Ours was "three short"... so I know what you're talking about, but I am "older". Talk to some younger about a "party line" and they'd probably be thinking about some phone call to a rave.

Gosh memories. My college door had 4 rooms to one line so 8 girls OMG.

 

[badatmath]

I own 3 pairs of pants.

One I got free off Nextdoor.

One belonged to an ex GF, but since I'm 9 inches taller than her I don't remember how that happened.

One was work issued.

All 3 unpaid for by me.

It would help a lot if I stayed the same size. I had w*rk pants I outgrew and saved in case I needed them "someday". Well now I don't w*rk at all and I have shrank smaller than them and I still "save" them. . . .

I did throw out a whole ton of clothes over the weekend though and will go back through again soon. It makes me sort of tired to mess with the clothes more than other junk for some reason. I think because my size never feels super stable. I only have gone up or down one from the "main" size but still it gets to me.

 

[athena53]

It would help a lot if I stayed the same size.

I HAVE pretty much stayed the same size. That's why I have so many clothes! Sometimes I won't wear something for years and then I'll dig it out of the back of my closet and put it into circulation again. I have a massive collection of T-shorts from corporate and athletic events and my travels. That's what I wear every day if I don't need to dress up; in colder weather I throw a sweater over it. Yesterday's T-shirt was from a company I left in 1995.

 

[skyking1]

A switch has flipped in my head. I remember looking at the black Friday sales advertisements and the web pages devoted to the deals on everything.
Now I don't do any of it. I was that guy looking for the latest gadget or deal, and then it was over.
WHEW!

 

[Midpack]

People can't believe some things I still use. "Your phone is 5 years old? How do you survive?" Then I tell them I still use a 30 year old TV. Except for clearly-more-efficient devices, "use it until it breaks" is so much better for the environment and one's pocketbook.

For the most part we buy and keep things until the don't work anymore as well, best for the environment and LBYM. We do have moments of weakness, but fortunately they are very few and far between...

We decluttered over a period of years over 15 years ago. Liberating and mildly profitable (about $9K on eBay). DW and I had many moments of

• 'why did we buy this',
• 'I didn't even know we still had this,' and
• Q: 'should we keep it? Q:when was the last time we used it? A: I can't remember - and it was then sold, donated or trashed.

 

[Sunset]

Ours was "three short"... so I know what you're talking about, but I am "older". Talk to some younger about a "party line" and they'd probably be thinking about some phone call to a rave.

Ours was 1 long and 2 short.

 

[pacergal]

We work on decluttering once a year, try to focus on one space each time.

But we now have two sheds and a garage that still have "stuff", some of it our kids. They are not crammed and we can get our cars in the garage and move around in the sheds, one of which has much of our "emergency supplies" in it for the earthquake preparedness!

Much of our clothing has been down sized and donated, and I have cleared out a lot of kitchen stuff and tons of books/CDs/Movies. Still seems like we have too much!
But we keep at it all the time, one car load to Goodwill or the dump each trip.

We certainly don't buy "stuff" anymore, it is eye-opening when de cluttering, realizing what we did purchase.

 

[Music Lover]

People can't believe some things I still use. "Your phone is 5 years old? How do you survive?" Then I tell them I still use a 30 year old TV. Except for clearly-more-efficient devices, "use it until it breaks" is so much better for the environment and one's pocketbook.

I usually keep my cell phones 2 or 3 years, but then hand them down to my parents. So they get used for 5 or 6 years, sometimes longer.

I'm pretty sure a new TV uses far less energy than a 30-year old one, in addition, the picture quality is superior. We don't watch a lot of TV but when we do we don't feel like depriving ourselves with a small screen and inferior picture.

Most of my life I never made a lot of money and acquiring things was never a priority so we have a lot less than most people to begin with.

 

[jollystomper]

The article the OP linked to just struck me as a "gig economy" type article. I do not disagree with the article, but its points could have been explained in a paragraph - people spend too much on things they do not need, and in some cases things they really cannot afford.

However, this "choresumption" I believe is one symptom of the gig economy. Most gigs require you to market something that you want people to buy - either directly via your "gig", or indirectly via the advertising required to support one's "gig". This requires one to be all over social media. A big subset of "gigs" are "influencers' - again, primarily to promote something to cause one to spend one's money to be considered "cool" or "with it" in some way, shape or form.

In addition there are blind spots. The article mentions clothes as an example, but what about iPhones? Is not having a iPhone part of that "choresumption" mentality, particularly the continual rush and hype to get the latest and greatest, when a phone costing hundreds less will essentially do the same productive tasks (as many of the iPhone enhancements can be looked at as driving more choresumption)? But, you will never see iPhones mentioned in articles like these .

 

[rk911]

Now that I'm old, and slowly de-cluttering, I realize I wasted a lot of time and money buying various things.

Seems lots of folks do this, spend to acquire/collect stuff, fill a house, buy a bigger house, fill it and then fill the garage too.

Small example: I went through my pants, kept 22 pairs !! donated 10 pairs that are wrong size and threw out 6 pairs that are a bit ragged.

I'm amazed I still have 22 pairs of pants, I don't need anymore for the rest of my life.

When I retired I kept one pair of dress slacks, one short-sleve and one long-sleeve dress shirt, two ties and one sport coat. Weddings and funerals. For 99.99999% of the time I have a ~ 20 t-shirts, 3 pair of jeans, 3 pair of shorts and three pair of SAS soft shoes. Oh, and 3 polo shirts for 'dressy' occasions.

 

[BigNick]

Pretty great blog post I came across recently involving the wastefulness of too much consumerism. The gist of the authors point of view is that consumerism is actually a LOT of work as well and completely exhausting.

Consumerism is Exhausting: Choresumption

Good read. I shared it with my children (late 20's, early 30's). I hope they read it.

Maybe it's a US/Europe thing, but I was totally unable to relate to the author of that piece. If I need something, or at least think that I do, then I buy it. If I don't need anything, I don't go to stores or on Amazon for diversion or entertainment. That just seems nuts, even though in most cases I probably could afford it.