Day Two: The Urge to Spend

I've realized that some of my urge to spend comes out of laziness. For instance, this morning I was running a little late getting out of the house (Peyton was up five different times during the night because he's cutting some teeth), and I thought, "I'll just stop and pick something up on the way into work." And then I remembered that I couldn't do that because we weren't spending money this week. So what did I do? I went into the pantry and looked at the variety of cereals and oatmeal located there and sat down at the table and ate what I had. Didn't I buy this stuff for the purpose of eating it?!! Then why was I so anxious to buy something else? Laziness. I'm sure it would have taken even longer to stop and wait at a drive-through, but the idea of "eating out" appealed to me.

I'm also learning that even though we are doing this "no spending" thing, I still have to catch myself from spending. I still forget--even though this is only day two. It's so ingrained in me to "buy" and purchase things that even when I consciously know we aren't spending, I STILL WANT TO SPEND. Weird. That strikes me as shocking, actually. I consider myself very budget-conscious, but even still, I think about purchasing things all the time. In fact, almost all the emails I get in one of my email accounts are about spending and buying things (Kohls, Old Navy, Land's End, Toys 'R Us, and on and on. Even the coupons I get through the computer still require me to spend the money (the argument is that you're SAVING, but in reality, you're still SPENDING). We all know this, but it helps when I know I can't spend any money because then my thinking doesn't get turned around that "Hey, at least I saved 5 bucks." when in reality I spent $50 on the other stuff. Yesterday I sat down to read the Sunday paper and because of this thing we're doing I didn't have to read the dozens of ads and inserts. Whew. I didn't realize how much time it took to look through those things and see what's on sale and write down the stores I needed to visit this week to buy the products at their cheapest. Not only did recycling the ads instead of reading them save me about 1/2 an hour at the time, but it also saved me money and time in the future because I didn't go to the store. Wow. There's 3 hours where I can do something else. I've been looking for how I can spend more time with the kids. Presto!

Another part of my urge to spend comes from the advertisements (and emails I mentioned above) that I am constantly bombarded with as I proceed throughout the day. Television commercials, billboards, magazines, posters, emails, notifications, mail, etc....the list goes on and on. In America, you can't think about NOT spending. The powers-at-be (whoever they are) don't want you to think about NOT spending; better yet, they want you to think about how you save money when you spend. That's the lie we're told. That's the myth we all buy into. Maybe this week will make me more conscious of the money I do spend and how when I spend money on X item, then something else does not get that money.

Are any of you familiar with Shane Claiborne and The Simple Way Community? It's radical, and it's impressive. Check out his site at: http://www.thesimpleway.org/. I strongly encourage you to read the books, though. Wow.

Consumerism

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Alexander family’s spend-free week. We are going to go Monday through Friday without spending any money. We won’t buy groceries. We won’t be eating out. We won’t go to Target or Wal-Mart or Sam’s or Lowe’s or the mall or anywhere that requires spending any money. We won’t buy one single thing. Not clothes or toys for the kids or things for our house.

You may ask why we are doing this? Well, there are a lot of reasons. To save money. To use what we already have. To think about what we are spending our money on. To think about others who don’t have money to spend. To reflect on whether we really need to buy something. To consider “consumerism” in America and how what we buy has implications around the world. On those who make the products. On those who trade the products. On those who sell the products. And even on us who buy the products. Our family is going to focus this week on NOT consuming. I don’t know if we can do it. We’ll see. But I do think God calls us to think about things like this. To consider those less fortunate than us. To consider how rich we are. To become less materialistic. We’ll see what happens and what change comes over us. Over me.

The urge to do something like this is the result of a long personal journey towards thinking more about creation, our world, the environment, capitalism, money, and God. I should have blogged about this journey throughout, but I didn’t really know I was embarking on a journey at the time. I only realize now, in looking back, how much my thinking and my actions have changed over the course of a year. I hope to write about these things in the coming days and weeks.