Waiting to make purchases, fixing broken things, and free entertainment are ways to push back against the lure of endless buying.
A few years ago, my wife and I started giving our kids an allowance and letting them save or spend it however they wanted to. Our goal was for this to be a learning experience.
Naturally, they spend just about every dime they make and sometimes try to bargain with us to lend them money for impulse purchases of candy and toys.
Their spending behavior brings consumerism to my mind as I think about whether my relationship with money is any more sophisticated than that of our kids.
As I look back at my wife’s and my marriage, I have to admit that we’ve increased our spending just about in line with increases in our income. At each step along the way, we’ve thought about how just a little more money would make life easier or more fun.
All of this has taken place even as we have genuinely tried to be thoughtful about how we spend and intentional about how we live.
No matter how much we have, the human inclination is to want more. We often equate our well-being and happiness with the ability to afford the next tier of goodies. This is, of course, the very definition of consumerism.
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How do you overcome this infatuation with money and restore consumption to its rightful place in our hierarchy of needs? In my experience, it just doesn’t work to deny yourself—which can last only as long as your willpower holds up. You need to replace consumerism with a new identity—one in which you see life as more interesting and satisfying without instant gratification.
5 Ways to Reduce Your Consumerism
Here are a handful of ways that my wife and I have attempted to implement this idea and push back against consumerism in our lives.
1. Find Free Entertainment
“Money doesn’t buy happiness,” so it’s said, but we live as though it does. But so many of the best things in life are indeed free or have only a marginal cost. You can host a potluck dinner party for friends, walk through a park, or read a book borrowed from the library. Learning to entertain yourself without spending money is probably my No. 1 way to progress against consumerism.
2. Have Just One Car
This is context-dependent, but soon after COVID-19, my family dropped from two cars down to one, which worked out for us for about three years. And that’s with a family of six! We had the benefit of my working from home, but still, the arrangement meant carefully coordinating our schedules and occasionally having to put off a trip until another day. Even so, we thoroughly enjoyed our countercultural experiment. Our takeaway is that while convenience is, well, convenient, sometimes it’s healthy to take it away and reset your expectations.
3. Do Your Own Maintenance
Repairing and maintaining your own stuff is very much a rebellion against consumerism. The mentality of consumerism is maximum convenience—if something is broken, just throw it away and buy a new one. However, fixing things creates a stewardship-type role with your possessions, encouraging you to think of them holistically. You develop a sense of pride in taking care of things and enjoy seeing old objects kept in working condition for as long as possible.
4. Delay Purchases by 30 Days
My worst purchases tend to be impulse buys. Thanks to the glories of the internet, spending money is unbelievably easy. All it takes is one weak moment, and you’ve reinforced in your brain the idea that as soon as a “want” pops into your brain, there’s an instant way to scratch that itch.
To deter the click-and-spend tendency in our family, we temporarily freeze all nonessential purchases from the moment we think of them. Write the items down somewhere, and if in 30 days you still want or need them, you can seriously consider the purchase. I’ll give you a hint—the vast majority were passing urges that never returned.
5. Give Your Money Away
Another powerful way to break the spell of consumerism is to give your money to a cause or individual who needs it more than you. Nothing helps loosen the grip of consumerism like being generous—it reminds you that money can serve a purpose beyond accumulating more luxuries.
When you give money away, you’re treating each dollar as a vote for the kind of world you want to see. My wife and I don’t like to talk publicly about our giving, but it’s undoubtedly brought us more joy than any purchase we could have made.
As an aspiring minimalist, I believe that these efforts are worthwhile because they clear away mental and physical clutter. When left unchecked, that clutter distracts me from the life I truly value and from focusing on what really matters. I hope that you’ll experiment with your own spending and consider if consumerism has really delivered on its promises.
