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| The Basics | The year of spending stingily
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Judith Levine decided one frantic Christmas to stop buying anything but necessities for an entire year. It turned out to be harder than it sounds.
By Melinda Fulmer
An idea literally hit Judith Levine over the head two Decembers ago, as she was pummeled with loaded shopping bags on a busy New York street corner. What would happen if we all stopped buying all these things that we dont need?
Levine, a self-professed atheist Grinch, was no innocent. That holiday season, the writer had maxed out her credit card and was tapping the ATM like an Iraqi guerilla pulling crude from the pipeline, she writes. In two weeks, she had spent $1,000 on gifts for a holiday she didnt even claim as her own.
For my own financial and emotional health, I thought it might be good to try and live a different way. I felt a personal responsibility about this great big problem, of over-consumption and the effect it was having on the planet, Levine said in an interview.
So she and her domestic partner Paul, a political consultant, resolved to start the new year in a different way, spending only for groceries, utilities, medicine and other necessities for themselves and their diabetic cat. She chronicles the experience in her book "Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping."
Her book, published March 1, is currently generating buzz on the talk-show circuit.
Related news and commentary on MSN Money
Toilet paper yes, cosmetics no
Necessities that year were defined by joint decision.
Toilet paper was in -- Q-tips were out. Olives were okay because they were ingredients, but prepared or takeout foods were taboo. And while cosmetics were considered frivolous, Levines $55 haircut was non-negotiable.
For work, they allowed themselves one cell phone to share, and dial-up Internet service to use at their Brooklyn walk-up and the Vermont farmhouse they retreat to in winter and summer.
The intention was not to save money, Levine said, but rather to withdraw from the marketplace and observe the effects on their life, relationships and emotional health.
While she expected to be frustrated and sad, longing for things she couldnt have, she wasnt prepared for some of the other emotions her spending ban dredged up.
I felt marginalized by my nonconsumption of goods and services, she said.
There was a penalty, she said, her friends paid for hanging out with them that year. If they didnt want to endure yet another walk around the park as entertainment, they often wound up paying for coffee, meals or a movie, which made Levine uncomfortable.
Rather than put herself in these situations, many times, she said she simply stayed home.
Levine also remembered feeling humiliated when she had to ask to borrow some wax for her skis at a Vermont cross-country ski area, after leaving her kit at home.
Asking for help is an un-American behavior, she said. One of the ways we are independent is buying our way out of a predicament.
Are we what we buy?
We also buy our way out of boredom, she found. And our purchases give us hope for beauty, success, fun or happiness.
In her vacation from purchasing, Levine discovered a restlessness that she has never felt before. Later, she realized it was, as child psychologist Adam Phillips described, the wish for a desire.
But Levine said the hardest thing she dealt with in her year without shopping was the isolation. She couldnt read the same books or see the same movies and entertainment that her friends were, and so she couldnt be part of the conversation.
My identity is very much tied up with being the cutting edge, Levine said. I felt sort of stupid.
And many times, she said she felt downright shabby. Before her nieces graduation, she dragged Paul into a secondhand store so she could buy a new outfit.
She also broke the rules later that year in a much more premeditated way, purchasing a $117 pair of pants in a Vermont boutique after receiving a barrage of compliments from its chic, flirtatious saleswoman.
I identified with the clothes. They seemed to be speaking directly to me, she said. And she admired the saleswoman and hated to let her down.
Like a bar patron at the end of the night, she said, I didnt want to go home alone.
Unwilling to let go of the pants, she writes, I take out my credit card. Reader, I am fallen.
Feeling better about doing without
It was the last time she caved that year.
For much of the year, she kept up her resolve by attending meetings of people who adhere to the Voluntary Simplicity movement, a kind of support group for people who think they spend too much.
While she cultivated friends there, she didnt agree with the groups premise. In bragging about their skinflint ways and doing without, Levine thought it felt anorexic.
I dont feel good about a politic that makes people feel bad about getting pleasure. It shares a lot of values that I hate, she said.
Rather, Levine said she longs for policy changes that will make it easy for consumers to do right with their purchases, like tighter fuel emission standards for cars, or perhaps better labor standards for clothing manufacturers.
And after a year of relying on public libraries and other free community resources, she became much more aware of the need for greater public-sector spending.
The result? Impulse control
So was the adventure in nonconsumption worth it?
Sure, she said.
Not only did it allow her to pay off an almost $8,000 credit card bill, it brought her closer to her partner Paul.
It also helped the couple set some healthy, if not particularly austere, new spending habits.
While they now buy books and pay for entertainment about as much as they did before the experiment, both of us have almost vanquished the impulse buy, she said.
Levine said she mulls clothing and other purchases overnight before buying and she only buys staples when she absolutely needs them. Now, she said she knows that much of the medicine, toiletries and other items they used to buy were superfluous.
All in all, she estimates, her credit card bill is about half of what it was before.
The unintended consequence was that $8,000 taught me I could live on a lot less and still be satisfied and happy, Levine said. I had control. I could save money, give it away and still have plenty of everything I wanted.
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