I have been rereading Fumio Sasaki’s book which I found in the local library to encourage me on my journey towards looking for less. The more I live in the U.S. and am exposed to American levels of consumerism, the more it becomes difficult honestly. Also, getting more used to the comfort of living in a first-world country opened my eyes to how many consumerist solutions there are for literally almost any problem you can think of. Specialized jackets, specialized pillows, everything delivered to your house, same-day delivery – it’s so easy and comfortable to fall into the trap.
One of the most common strategies I see touted online is to give a 24h or so leeway before purchasing an item. When 24 hours is up and you still want to buy it, buy it. The problem is this doesn’t work for me. My mind has an obsessive quality to it and it won’t stop randomly thinking about something if I decide I want to buy it. It can go on for many days before I forget it, so I don’t follow this rule or else I would just be buying everything.
Two things I’m trying out now are to refrain from buying new things when other things are still in shipping, and to stop dining out during the weekdays. To be honest, this has not been a habit of mine until I lived here. I am not in a city so it is not comfortable to just walk out to a restaurant or a grocery and buy food. The grocery is around 10-15 minutes away by foot, which is fine, but going back lugging heavy groceries is not fine. However, I now have access to an Amazon Prime account so I am using their Amazon Fresh delivery services for free to try out grocery delivery. This is still more expensive than actually going to the grocery and just buying food, but it’s healthier and cheaper than dining out during the weekdays when I’m out of groceries.
The shipping thing is something I came up with when I noticed that during the holiday season (which is basically November to January because of Thanksgiving and winter break), I would always buy at least one thing every day. So in order to curb the spending a bit, I opted to start with this rule and then hopefully progress to rules like Buy Nothing Week when I’m able.
Hope you’re all keeping safe!
