I don’t usually think of myself as a wasteful person. I don’t like to think that I throw my resources away. I would like to think of myself as a person who consciously uses the things in my life.
Should I mention again that I live in the suburbs?
The suburbs are a wasteful place. It is difficult to live here without your own vehicle. Carpooling is a suburban myth – sure, you could carpool but if you wanted to share your space with other people, you would live in the city.
The suburbs are also based entirely on consumerism. Here we keep up with the Jones’. We also keep up with the Smith’s (I heard they bought a brand new car), the Johnson’s (they are remodeling their kitchen, sweetheart, when are we going to remodel our kitchen, I need granite countertops) and everyone else on the block (Honey, do something, someone might get ahead of us).
But we don’t like to say we’re “keeping up”. Mainly because “keeping up” really means “falling behind”. Instead we are “getting ahead” and “living up to our potential”. Both of those terms translate into “I can’t stop to take a vacation or I could lose all of my stuff”.
Translation: this is a wasteful life.
We waste our money on things we cannot afford. We waste our time in ridiculous commutes because we live so far away from where the jobs are located. We waste our families because we fail to instill a sense of community in our children.
We waste.
We have so much and yet we value so little of it.
We like to be trendy. We go green, rarely because we genuinely care about the world we are leaving for our children but because everyone else is going green. We don’t want to be left out.
We build a false sense of community on trends. Those trends make us feel like we are apart of something bigger than ourselves but because trends quickly pass, we are constantly looking for the next thing that will make us fill connected. And if we are the first to discover something new and trendy, it makes us feel as if we are more valuable than everyone around us.
It is shallow.
I want to change. I want to change the way suburbia lives but I have to change the way I live first.
I’m starting a savings challenge with myself today. I have to be honest: this is not the first time I’ve had a savings challenge. Usually, my challenges consist of no lattes for as long as I can bear or no new shoes or only peanut butter and jelly until I’m malnourished.
This savings challenge will be much more balanced. No wacky extremes. Just serious questions: How often do I really need to have my eyebrows waxed? How much food do we really need to buy at the grocery store? If I buy the cheaper item, will I have to replace it next month?
I’ll be sticking with it for 30 days. Wish me luck.
Kathrin said...
1Great post! I think many of us are wasteful, regardless of where we live. Also, I have come to realize that nothing highlights wastefulness like being unemployed. I look back on how I used to spend money and am shocked by how much useless stuff I used to buy. I am actually getting by relatively comfortably with unemployment. I just hope that I can “remember” these lessons when I enter the workforce again. After comps, I am on to the job search.
10/18/08 2:08 PM | Comment Link
Wasteful Spending in Suburbia said...
2[...] Go to the author’s original blog: Wasteful Spending in Suburbia [...]
10/18/08 2:09 PM | Comment Link
Todd Hiestand said...
3Fan-flippin-tastic post Dorie.
One if the things that I have learned is that I only get to knock the suburbs if I am willing to do something about it and live differently with my/my family’s life.
We all really need to ask these hard questions about our way of life. The answers will likely look different for each one of us. I don’t get my eyebrows waxed, but I do love my little computer products and gadets to support my computer products and gadgets. I don’t buy a lot of food at the grocery store, but I do stop at WaWa for a drink that I don’t need way too often.
The list could go on…
Thanks for the (somewhat) gentle reminder!
10/18/08 6:36 PM | Comment Link
Todd Hiestand » Wasteful Spending? » Missional Living in Suburban America said...
4[...] Morgan, who I am proud to call a member of our church community has written a wonderful little reflection on spending in suburbia and reminds me of how we need to continually think carefully about our way [...]
10/18/08 6:39 PM | Comment Link
Carmella said...
5Hey.
That was a challenging post. I have been thinking about what an impulsive spender I am. I am in the mood for ____, so I get it, if I can justify it (I find that I am VERY creative with that one…) I selfishly cling to my pumpkin spice latte each week, as well as little presents, and random expenditures. It’s insane.
No wonder we are in an economic downturn. We need to use other reasons to stop spending watefully though- our moral conviction of being responsible with our money and living generously.
10/20/08 9:33 AM | Comment Link
Kevin said...
6Thanks Dorie, very insightful. It is, however, difficult to be sustainable even if being aware and intentional. Carm is right, the recent economic downturn is very much a result of the collective lifestyles and choices that all Americans make uncritically, myself included.
10/20/08 10:29 AM | Comment Link
Dorie said...
7@Carmella – I’m trying to turn the grocery store into my impulse spending option. Not in the filling my house with magazines and junk sort of way but in the getting really excited to buy whole wheat penne and organic tomato sauce sort of way. And you know me, I usually indulge with coffee as well but now I’m trying to buy 2.5lbs bags of Bucks County Coffee Co. at Sam’s Club – its way cheaper than Starbucks and locally roasted too.
10/20/08 11:00 AM | Comment Link
Dorie said...
8@Kevin – I think what this come down to for me is making changes one choice at a time. I truly believe I can change the suburbs we live in but before I can criticize the wasteful spending of township tax dollars, I need to criticize my spending.
10/20/08 11:03 AM | Comment Link
Dorie said...
9@Kathrin – So what do you do with that useless stuff now? Is it cluttering your apartment or did you sell/donate it?
10/20/08 11:04 AM | Comment Link
Dorie said...
10@Todd – Thanks for calling it a “(somewhat) gentle reminder”. I certainly wasn’t gentle with myself as I hammered out my ideas for the post. Fortunately, I kept most of the violent hammering in my own head!
10/20/08 11:05 AM | Comment Link
Kathrin said...
11@Dorie
I sold and donated a lot of things when I sold my house this past June. I had a fully furnished three bedroom house and moved into a one bedroom apartment. So, I sold a lot of extra furniture. What I could not sell, I donated to a charity that funds orphanages in the Congo.
I still have more stuff than I actually don’t need, but I don’t spend the way I used to – out of necessity.
The one thing I do still spend money on is candles. I love candles of all shapes and sizes.
10/20/08 11:23 AM | Comment Link
jeffbrownlee said...
12Great post. There’s a lot in there that makes me realize just how wasteful I can be at times.
However, I think you really should give a more specific definition to your savings challenge. Maybe it’s just me, but I find that I get a lot more benefit out of specific goals (e.g., spend 20% less on food for a month and see how it changes my life) than I do from more general goals (e.g., try to spend less on food).
I do wish you luck in your 30-day endeavor, but how do you know you accomplished anything if your goal is really just to think harder about being wasteful? It doesn’t seem like much of a “challenge”.
10/21/08 2:17 PM | Comment Link
Jaclyn said...
13Such a great post!!!
I have to ask, if this is something you value so much, why don’t you just live in a more urban area?
10/21/08 4:28 PM | Comment Link
Kathrin said...
14@Jaclyn
Is moving to an urban area a real solution for wasteful suburban spending? Isn’t it just running way from the problem? Or, running to other problems, depending on how you look at it?
We need to work towards changing the way we conceptualize life in the suburbs, as well as how we behave as consumers. I am also not sure if changing the scenery makes us less wasteful. Urban life comes with its own set of unnecessary consumer behaviors.
I’ve lived in urban Philadelphia when I first moved here. I now live on the cusp of urban and suburban Philadelphia. Wasteful spending exists in both. It just manifests itself in different ways.
10/21/08 4:38 PM | Comment Link
Dorie said...
15@jeffbrownlee – I’m usually fairly restrictive on myself (and Brian) when I do these challenges. I wanted to try something different this time and I also need to be fair to my husband (who is often just along for the ride). I might surprise myself in a good way or I might be disappointed by the end. But the results from the first thirty days will dictate what the next set of thirty days will look like.
10/21/08 6:30 PM | Comment Link
Dorie said...
16@Jaclyn – I live outside Philadelphia in Bristol, PA where my husband I just bought a house that was built around 1918. The neighborhood we live in was historically Irish or Italian with a recent influx in African American and Latino populations (due to low income housing built across the street).
Our house is a row home and the neighborhood has a very strong sense of community. I love the history of the town. Schools are good and our church community (where Brian and I met) is nearby.
So staying in the suburbs is mostly an emotional issue for me. Brian’s contracting business completes about 95% of their construction in suburban Philadelphia. It wouldn’t make sense for him to be based out of the city.
With all that said, suburbs are strongly influenced by the city they are built to surround. Philadelphia is a very different place than it was when Levittown was first constructed. In order for suburbs to continue to hold value in a region, they must continue to grow and change with the cities they support.
10/21/08 6:38 PM | Comment Link
Dorie said...
17@Kathrin – Such a great point! If we all just packed up and moved our lives to new locations, our behaviors would change but in a temporary manner. Once we adjusted to our “new” lives, we would slip right back into our old pattern of behavior and thought.
10/21/08 6:41 PM | Comment Link
Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up » Wasteful Spending in Suburbia » Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life | //Godfidence.org said...
18[...] Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up » Wasteful Spending in Suburbia » Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban … [...]
10/23/08 8:02 AM | Comment Link
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