Comments on: Wasteful Spending in Suburbia

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[...] and depending on your budget, it may not make the most financial sense. You may need to re-think the vanity of cruising around in your own wheels and stick with the bus for a couple of years. Photo credit: High speed racer car by Uwe [...]

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By: Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up » Wasteful Spending in Suburbia » Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life | //Godfidence.org

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:02:28 +0000

[...] Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up » Wasteful Spending in Suburbia » Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban … [...]

By: Dorie

Dorie — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:41:34 +0000

@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.

By: Dorie

Dorie — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:38:58 +0000

@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.

By: Dorie

Dorie — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:30:42 +0000

@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.

By: Kathrin

Kathrin — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:38:26 +0000

@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.

By: Jaclyn

Jaclyn — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:28:00 +0000

Such 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?

By: jeffbrownlee

jeffbrownlee — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:17:39 +0000

Great 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”.