I have to keep checking myself on my expectations for this experiment. Like, no, I will not come out of these four months with one clear magic answer of enoughness that is always relevant forever and ever amen. So the noticing thing you mentioned feels resonant for me as well.
YES to what if we already know enough!!!!!!! I'm an information glutton. I love knowing about things and learning about things in a theoretical sense, but I'm not good at putting that into practice - it feels easier and safer just to keep learning! Definitely going to journal this month on this topic...
I love this so very much. I really want to get to where you are in terms of investigating, exploring, excavating perspectives and experiments on what is enough and what does it mean to live on that. I know I have a lot of money mindset shifts to make before I can even begin this process, but watching you do it is incredibly inspiring and reminds me that I will be able to do this someday, too.
You know, I think perhaps you are not giving yourself enough credit. You already *are* thinking about this :) So what if you did not have to make any money mindset shifts in order to begin this process, but instead just started from exactly where you are because in reality that is all we can ever do? (saying this to myself as well, clearly!)
I am an over consumer in so many categories and am one of those people who needs to hear the real experiences of real people one million times.
You are inspiring me to reevaluate my own spending (helped by a series of very expensive life curveballs that has put a huge dent in my savings). What is enough and what is necessary? What are the things my money allows me to do that has the most impact on my life and the world (in a good way!)?
I also suffer from thoughts that my life’s purpose is to just watch it all burn down and can get lost in those feelings. Sometimes it makes me think - I don’t care - whatever - but this is probably not the healthiest thought patterns. While I can’t change the whole world, I can do things to make at least my little corner of it better.
I can't wait to follow this journey! I'm currently paying off consumer debt and thinking SO much about enoughness. What it means. What it looks like. You truly are my Katniss fighting consumerism hehe <3
I have definitely thought about this kind of living as learning a new skill that we'll need during collapse/whatever comes next. The skills to live lightly; to be unattached to material things; to repair items; to be grateful for what is present and what we do have; to not have immediate access to purchase whatever we want and get it within 24 hours; and to be resourceful generally. I think this will be an invaluable skill, one most of us aren't considering right now, and it's one I hope to practice in my own ways too, so thank you for more material on this!
Funny story - I decided to not give $ to Amazon and buy the exciting T-shirt’s my husband asked for his birthday from another business. Well - even though the mailing address is correct - the tshirts are 300 miles away and I had to cancel it. Never had that problem with Amazon 🤦🏻♀️
I am actually more intrigued by what you normally buy after reading your parameters. I grew up in a very fix it, wear clothes with holes in, don’t buy anything unnecessary family and now earn more than I knew was possible and yet I find it really hard to spend anything on non-necessities. With the ever present environmental concerns now at the forefront of my mind, I can convince myself to not buy almost anything. But I wonder if and how I’d be better off spending more.
That's the wild thing, I don't even think of myself as someone who shops that much, buys clothes very often, etc. — but of course all of it is on a very large spectrum, right, and depends on who we are comparing ourselves to.
For me, with this particular experiment, it is more about adding in these very clear layers of intentionality to avoid impulse purchases, especially via online shopping. Moving into a house last year after living in a van for years and owning very little meant that I constantly felt like I was buying things I needed (wanted?) to decorate and furnish the house, which is fine of course but also... when does "enough" become "too much"? I also tend to spend/shop for gifts a lot, which again is fine, but overall I just do not want to be recklessly consuming anything, if that makes sense?
What you said also resonates with me though, particularly with the struggle I had in my early 20s (6-ish years after my parents filed for bankruptcy and our whole family money situation changed drastically) where I felt too scared to spend any money on anything. So much of this is emotional, isn't it? And deeply rooted. Thanks for sharing a bit about your own situation :)
That's interesting, thanks for expanding! I almost feel like I need some more clearly defined parameters to allow me to buy things (even gym membership, for example) that might make it feel safer, as I would have the defined limits in advance. I think the messaging I have received is that spending is a slippery slope, and once you start that's it. But I'm not finding it to be the case! ha.
Like you I experienced a significant, yet confusing now I think about it, change in my family's finances when my Dad died when I was 14. We got life insurance money but my Mum was very stressed/felt financially scarce as my Dad had been the bread winner. So having money didn't make it feel safe (although I'm sure much better than if we hadn't had it, which doesn't bear thinking about). Like you, I've also done van-living and really taken my lifestyle down to the bare minimum in the past. If I don't need anything, no one can take anything I need away from me!
But as you say, it very much depends on who we are comparing ourselves to. So I guess a huge part of what matters is what it feels like to us. Hmm. Food for thought.
The “spending is a slippery slope” Messaging/feeling is super relatable to me! There is definitely familial roots for me, but I also think I absorbed it as part of the way the overculture blames lack of resources and support on the individual instead of the system. Like, “if poor people just had more self control they wouldn’t be poor!” So the more money and resources I had access to, the more I felt like I had to surveil myself to keep from spinning out of control or something.
Very grateful that I’ve had therapy and work like Nicole’s to help me engage and shift this is a lot - but still very much a work in progress! Last year I got a very significant bonus after the company I work for went through a merger and, initially, instead of feeling secure or hopeful I started to freak out and worry that I was going to “do it wrong.” It was wild!!
I’m so glad you mentioned this angle Vicky and are bringing up this topic in general Nic. This is where I am with it too. In the spirit of growth and expanding the edges of our comfort zone, I’ve actually been spending more of late.
After a lifetime of handling money “right” and “responsibly” and doing “what you’re supposed to do” with it, it’s been really confronting to lean into being “frivolous” and spending simply because it’s “fun” and spending on things that I don’t necessarily need but purely want. That’s where my edge currently is.
Even caring less about the world or consumption culture or even climate change. Not that I don’t care about them - I care deeply, to the point that I’ve let those things rule my own behaviors, almost carrying the big societal weight of them on my own shoulders. Letting myself carry less of that weight and lean into some of the pleasure of consumption culture has actually been really freeing. Not that I want to stay here forever, but it feels like a necessary swing of the pendulum to experience before I can settle out somewhere in a happier balance between the two extremes.
Yes! Love that you've shared this, Helen. I think something that often gets misunderstood about enoughness is that (as far as I am defining it) enough does not equal "as little as you can possible manage with." I'm not looking for the point at which I just *barely* have enough. Enough to me means not too little and not too much — true satisfaction (without absurd excess), needs being met (without huge struggle), joy being accessible, etc. And some of that requires spending and being part of consumption culture, for sure!!
This is such a complex topic that I am currently contemplating too. Where is the balance in what I need, want, will bring me joy, and will use, while also not having “too much”? I don’t like to get too restrictive because life needs joy but too spendy is hard too?
I'm glad I'm not the only one, thanks for replying! I too am trying to be more frivolous. One thing that I do which is the lap of luxury is buy food at service stations on road trips (rather than taking premade stuff or going hungry) - the decadence! The hot chips after 7 hours driving! The joy!
Per usual, a really intriguing Monday missive. I also am impressed with how much thought you've put into your parameters. You will no doubt squeeze maximal juice outta this no-spending orange. :) Very generous of you to share your process and it certainly is making me think. One thing that crossed my mind is my spending freezes and cut-backs have been, looking back, self punishment. Versus what you are doing which is being curious and expansive. Yeah, maybe it makes sense to cut back for practical reasons, but I love how you are deep diving the heck out of it, making it just as epoch of a journey as an eight hundred mile through hike!
I am one of those readers who wants a million angles on this!
This had me thinking all yesterday about my consumption as it relates to social media breaks (another topic I'll always want to read about.) It feels obvious that I'll want to buy less stuff if I consume less ad-driven content, but will I also feel lighter/clearer-headed? Is it not just information overload from instagram, but a consumption hamster wheel that makes it feel so bad? What are mental benefits of not shopping (as opposed to not scrolling?)
Ooo, I relate to this too Allie. I went on a big unsubscribe spree this weekend with my email. I hadn’t quite realized how many businesses I had signed up for. And I justified it because they’re all businesses I love, smaller, more local, with lots of eco-friendly, clean ingredients, more progressive values, doing good things in the world, etc - businesses I want to support when I do need to buy things. But they’re still businesses and all the emails are still part of the consumer culture. I started questioning how much of my desire for things was actually innate and rising from within me or because I was being shown things from outside that then sparked the inner wanting. I already feel calmer and clearer without all the product input.
This is so relatable! As some have pointed out below, so much of this is entangled with social media intake -- yet another thing I have to keep revisiting my relationship with. Also, in the past 2-3 years, my body has changed a bunch, and so in a sense I feel "justified" in buying more clothes that fit my current body better, but if I'm honest with myself the influence of Instagram is telling me to buy way more than I need.
All that said, I've taken up mending my favorite clothes over the past few years over buying new ones when appropriate, and it's something I enjoy doing, and feel like I improve at the more I do it. Happy to be a somewhat local (MA-based) resource for you if that's something you'd like guidance on!
Oh totally — my body has changed in the past few years as well, and we deserve right-fit clothes for our right-now bodies. So then I need to remind myself that enoughness for me is about buying what I need, what I truly love, and what I will actually wear, but then stopping instead of just adding more more more.
"In all seriousness though, I have been struggling to find the words to discuss this with the necessary nuance, particularly because I am not an expert in anything collapse related. But if regular people are not talking about this imperfectly, will anything ever change?" WOOF
Love getting the gritty details!! Thank you for sharing. Curious how your experience will influence my thinking and changes I’d like to make.
Also, someone prob already mentioned this - but there is an in between step of “sharpen scissors yourself” and “new scissors”. You can usually get scissors sharpened by a knife sharpening person. We used to have a guy every few weeks at the local grocery co-op. Finding people who have the skills we need and paying them is another useful way to make the economy/community go round. And then also buying used at the thrift store and repairing them. Ex: I will pay my SIL to hem my daughter’s skirt, instead of learning to sew
Also, so much about this for me is appreciating what I have! Re:scissors - I’m pretty sure we have 5 different pairs in our house rn! I have tons of candles, sweaters, knives, musical instruments, paper products (notebooks, pens, cards, etc), books unread or read a long time ago, streaming services, Nintendo games, board games, etc etc. online courses! Asking myself “do I already own something like this?” had been SO helpful when curbing my shopping bc yknow what? I prob do!
I have to keep checking myself on my expectations for this experiment. Like, no, I will not come out of these four months with one clear magic answer of enoughness that is always relevant forever and ever amen. So the noticing thing you mentioned feels resonant for me as well.
YES to what if we already know enough!!!!!!! I'm an information glutton. I love knowing about things and learning about things in a theoretical sense, but I'm not good at putting that into practice - it feels easier and safer just to keep learning! Definitely going to journal this month on this topic...
Deeply relatable! Gimme allllll the books to read with none of the action to take 😂
I love this so very much. I really want to get to where you are in terms of investigating, exploring, excavating perspectives and experiments on what is enough and what does it mean to live on that. I know I have a lot of money mindset shifts to make before I can even begin this process, but watching you do it is incredibly inspiring and reminds me that I will be able to do this someday, too.
You know, I think perhaps you are not giving yourself enough credit. You already *are* thinking about this :) So what if you did not have to make any money mindset shifts in order to begin this process, but instead just started from exactly where you are because in reality that is all we can ever do? (saying this to myself as well, clearly!)
Oh Nicole. You seem to always have the right words. Thank you for being you!
Amen to this. Love how well-defined the parameters of your shopping band is. <3
Really trying to protect Future Me who will want to find any and all loopholes lol
I am an over consumer in so many categories and am one of those people who needs to hear the real experiences of real people one million times.
You are inspiring me to reevaluate my own spending (helped by a series of very expensive life curveballs that has put a huge dent in my savings). What is enough and what is necessary? What are the things my money allows me to do that has the most impact on my life and the world (in a good way!)?
I also suffer from thoughts that my life’s purpose is to just watch it all burn down and can get lost in those feelings. Sometimes it makes me think - I don’t care - whatever - but this is probably not the healthiest thought patterns. While I can’t change the whole world, I can do things to make at least my little corner of it better.
Look forward to your experience.
I can't wait to follow this journey! I'm currently paying off consumer debt and thinking SO much about enoughness. What it means. What it looks like. You truly are my Katniss fighting consumerism hehe <3
I was just about to be like "okay so do I need to buy a costume" before remembering I CANNOT BUY A COSTUME lolololol
You need to *make* the costume!
I have definitely thought about this kind of living as learning a new skill that we'll need during collapse/whatever comes next. The skills to live lightly; to be unattached to material things; to repair items; to be grateful for what is present and what we do have; to not have immediate access to purchase whatever we want and get it within 24 hours; and to be resourceful generally. I think this will be an invaluable skill, one most of us aren't considering right now, and it's one I hope to practice in my own ways too, so thank you for more material on this!
Funny story - I decided to not give $ to Amazon and buy the exciting T-shirt’s my husband asked for his birthday from another business. Well - even though the mailing address is correct - the tshirts are 300 miles away and I had to cancel it. Never had that problem with Amazon 🤦🏻♀️
I am actually more intrigued by what you normally buy after reading your parameters. I grew up in a very fix it, wear clothes with holes in, don’t buy anything unnecessary family and now earn more than I knew was possible and yet I find it really hard to spend anything on non-necessities. With the ever present environmental concerns now at the forefront of my mind, I can convince myself to not buy almost anything. But I wonder if and how I’d be better off spending more.
That's the wild thing, I don't even think of myself as someone who shops that much, buys clothes very often, etc. — but of course all of it is on a very large spectrum, right, and depends on who we are comparing ourselves to.
For me, with this particular experiment, it is more about adding in these very clear layers of intentionality to avoid impulse purchases, especially via online shopping. Moving into a house last year after living in a van for years and owning very little meant that I constantly felt like I was buying things I needed (wanted?) to decorate and furnish the house, which is fine of course but also... when does "enough" become "too much"? I also tend to spend/shop for gifts a lot, which again is fine, but overall I just do not want to be recklessly consuming anything, if that makes sense?
What you said also resonates with me though, particularly with the struggle I had in my early 20s (6-ish years after my parents filed for bankruptcy and our whole family money situation changed drastically) where I felt too scared to spend any money on anything. So much of this is emotional, isn't it? And deeply rooted. Thanks for sharing a bit about your own situation :)
That's interesting, thanks for expanding! I almost feel like I need some more clearly defined parameters to allow me to buy things (even gym membership, for example) that might make it feel safer, as I would have the defined limits in advance. I think the messaging I have received is that spending is a slippery slope, and once you start that's it. But I'm not finding it to be the case! ha.
Like you I experienced a significant, yet confusing now I think about it, change in my family's finances when my Dad died when I was 14. We got life insurance money but my Mum was very stressed/felt financially scarce as my Dad had been the bread winner. So having money didn't make it feel safe (although I'm sure much better than if we hadn't had it, which doesn't bear thinking about). Like you, I've also done van-living and really taken my lifestyle down to the bare minimum in the past. If I don't need anything, no one can take anything I need away from me!
But as you say, it very much depends on who we are comparing ourselves to. So I guess a huge part of what matters is what it feels like to us. Hmm. Food for thought.
"If I don't need anything, no one can take anything I need away from me!" The anthem of at least a decade of my life.
The “spending is a slippery slope” Messaging/feeling is super relatable to me! There is definitely familial roots for me, but I also think I absorbed it as part of the way the overculture blames lack of resources and support on the individual instead of the system. Like, “if poor people just had more self control they wouldn’t be poor!” So the more money and resources I had access to, the more I felt like I had to surveil myself to keep from spinning out of control or something.
Very grateful that I’ve had therapy and work like Nicole’s to help me engage and shift this is a lot - but still very much a work in progress! Last year I got a very significant bonus after the company I work for went through a merger and, initially, instead of feeling secure or hopeful I started to freak out and worry that I was going to “do it wrong.” It was wild!!
I’m so glad you mentioned this angle Vicky and are bringing up this topic in general Nic. This is where I am with it too. In the spirit of growth and expanding the edges of our comfort zone, I’ve actually been spending more of late.
After a lifetime of handling money “right” and “responsibly” and doing “what you’re supposed to do” with it, it’s been really confronting to lean into being “frivolous” and spending simply because it’s “fun” and spending on things that I don’t necessarily need but purely want. That’s where my edge currently is.
Even caring less about the world or consumption culture or even climate change. Not that I don’t care about them - I care deeply, to the point that I’ve let those things rule my own behaviors, almost carrying the big societal weight of them on my own shoulders. Letting myself carry less of that weight and lean into some of the pleasure of consumption culture has actually been really freeing. Not that I want to stay here forever, but it feels like a necessary swing of the pendulum to experience before I can settle out somewhere in a happier balance between the two extremes.
Yes! Love that you've shared this, Helen. I think something that often gets misunderstood about enoughness is that (as far as I am defining it) enough does not equal "as little as you can possible manage with." I'm not looking for the point at which I just *barely* have enough. Enough to me means not too little and not too much — true satisfaction (without absurd excess), needs being met (without huge struggle), joy being accessible, etc. And some of that requires spending and being part of consumption culture, for sure!!
This is such a complex topic that I am currently contemplating too. Where is the balance in what I need, want, will bring me joy, and will use, while also not having “too much”? I don’t like to get too restrictive because life needs joy but too spendy is hard too?
I'm glad I'm not the only one, thanks for replying! I too am trying to be more frivolous. One thing that I do which is the lap of luxury is buy food at service stations on road trips (rather than taking premade stuff or going hungry) - the decadence! The hot chips after 7 hours driving! The joy!
Per usual, a really intriguing Monday missive. I also am impressed with how much thought you've put into your parameters. You will no doubt squeeze maximal juice outta this no-spending orange. :) Very generous of you to share your process and it certainly is making me think. One thing that crossed my mind is my spending freezes and cut-backs have been, looking back, self punishment. Versus what you are doing which is being curious and expansive. Yeah, maybe it makes sense to cut back for practical reasons, but I love how you are deep diving the heck out of it, making it just as epoch of a journey as an eight hundred mile through hike!
I am one of those readers who wants a million angles on this!
This had me thinking all yesterday about my consumption as it relates to social media breaks (another topic I'll always want to read about.) It feels obvious that I'll want to buy less stuff if I consume less ad-driven content, but will I also feel lighter/clearer-headed? Is it not just information overload from instagram, but a consumption hamster wheel that makes it feel so bad? What are mental benefits of not shopping (as opposed to not scrolling?)
Later today I'll be putting up a static 9-grid on Instagram and then quitting social media for good, so... I HEAR YOU lol
Hell yeah!
Ooo, I relate to this too Allie. I went on a big unsubscribe spree this weekend with my email. I hadn’t quite realized how many businesses I had signed up for. And I justified it because they’re all businesses I love, smaller, more local, with lots of eco-friendly, clean ingredients, more progressive values, doing good things in the world, etc - businesses I want to support when I do need to buy things. But they’re still businesses and all the emails are still part of the consumer culture. I started questioning how much of my desire for things was actually innate and rising from within me or because I was being shown things from outside that then sparked the inner wanting. I already feel calmer and clearer without all the product input.
This is so relatable! As some have pointed out below, so much of this is entangled with social media intake -- yet another thing I have to keep revisiting my relationship with. Also, in the past 2-3 years, my body has changed a bunch, and so in a sense I feel "justified" in buying more clothes that fit my current body better, but if I'm honest with myself the influence of Instagram is telling me to buy way more than I need.
All that said, I've taken up mending my favorite clothes over the past few years over buying new ones when appropriate, and it's something I enjoy doing, and feel like I improve at the more I do it. Happy to be a somewhat local (MA-based) resource for you if that's something you'd like guidance on!
Oh totally — my body has changed in the past few years as well, and we deserve right-fit clothes for our right-now bodies. So then I need to remind myself that enoughness for me is about buying what I need, what I truly love, and what I will actually wear, but then stopping instead of just adding more more more.
"would calmly take the scissors apart" - the calmly part! Because that's the impressive part, is he's not furiously sharpening them lol.
His endless task-related patience, I swear to god!
"In all seriousness though, I have been struggling to find the words to discuss this with the necessary nuance, particularly because I am not an expert in anything collapse related. But if regular people are not talking about this imperfectly, will anything ever change?" WOOF
Just lemme know when you want to schedule a zoom tea date to talk about collapse lol 😂
I'm really fun at parties!
Love getting the gritty details!! Thank you for sharing. Curious how your experience will influence my thinking and changes I’d like to make.
Also, someone prob already mentioned this - but there is an in between step of “sharpen scissors yourself” and “new scissors”. You can usually get scissors sharpened by a knife sharpening person. We used to have a guy every few weeks at the local grocery co-op. Finding people who have the skills we need and paying them is another useful way to make the economy/community go round. And then also buying used at the thrift store and repairing them. Ex: I will pay my SIL to hem my daughter’s skirt, instead of learning to sew
Absolutely yes! I have an ongoing list in my notebook that is essentially two columns: skills I want to try and learn and ones I definitely do not.
Also, so much about this for me is appreciating what I have! Re:scissors - I’m pretty sure we have 5 different pairs in our house rn! I have tons of candles, sweaters, knives, musical instruments, paper products (notebooks, pens, cards, etc), books unread or read a long time ago, streaming services, Nintendo games, board games, etc etc. online courses! Asking myself “do I already own something like this?” had been SO helpful when curbing my shopping bc yknow what? I prob do!
This forever