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Woman doesn't spend (as much) for a year

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 2:19 am
by Did

Re: Woman doesn't spend (as much) for a year

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 8:28 am
by cmonkey
Funny enough, this isn't very impressive around here. ;)

Reading through it, it wasn't a 'buy nothing' year. As expected it was a 'buy only what I need' year. It shows how well off we are that what we need constitutes such a small amount of our income.

Re: Woman doesn't spend (as much) for a year

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 8:39 am
by Farm_or
What an epiphany? We can live a year without junk that ends up in a landfill. I suppose for most of society it is a surprise?

Re: Woman doesn't spend (as much) for a year

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 6:19 pm
by jacob
Looks like the key here was minimalism. I'd say whatever motivation it takes, it's all good.

Also, everything is hard the first time before it becomes routine. If shopping/consuming is a large part of one's identity or if it's used to "medicate" against boredom or serves as meaning in one's life, giving it up cold-turkey is hard. There are a couple of books and a bunch of blogs describing this process as it plays out psychologically, i.e. after the initial excitement (month 1-3), loss of prior meaning (3-5), followed discovery of new meaning (6-8), and then habit (9+ ...). Conversely, if shopping lends no purpose to one's life or if it even lends some kind of anti-purpose (which is probably moreso the case here), not buying anything for months can be quite routine.

Re: Woman doesn't spend (as much) for a year

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 6:52 pm
by OTCW
I'm impressed. It's not easy to go against the norm even in small ways. However you look at it, this was a pretty drastic change for the woman.