Consumer Week: Reader, I Didn't Buy It

Since Judith Levine's NOT BUYING IT is written in diary form, here's my favorite diary entry of hers. It's short, but it speaks volumes:

September 21
I clean out the third and last jar of hoisin sauce. If we had a bigger refrigerator we could have stocked up and made it through the year.

Here's a luxury according to the rules in Levine's game, but one she finds so crucial to her happiness that she had previously stocked up on enough jars to last 9 months. And what does she think when she finishes the jar? Not "How delicious!" but "I need a bigger fridge." I'm sure Levine sees the irony of her situation, but the entry epitomizes our attitudes of shopping, from my fellow city dwellers pining after suburban Costcos to the desire to pick up just a little extra of what you need. (My own family is certainly not immune to this; if you opened our freezer -- yes, we have a stand-alone freezer in addition to the fridge -- you would probably find a huge cache of last year's Girl Scout cookies, waiting to be eaten. Are Thin Mints a necessity?)

It also epitomizes both what frustrated me and what I liked about the book. Of course, giving up buying everything is an extreme experiment, something that the best of us may aspire to but realistically could not (or would not) be able to carry out. At the same time, Levine presents not only herself as a fallible consumer, but even ropes good ol' Thoreau in with her. (Apparently, Thoreau's WALDEN proclamations were backed up by a potentially irritating habit for visiting others' houses around dinner time. I'm sure were he alive, he would be happy to leave a comment defending this habit.)

Levine says at the end of the book that she plans to be more mindful in how she buys since completing the experiment, and it would be interesting to find out if she actually does that. It definitely made me want to try harder, if not to stop buying everything, to make the purchases I do make more meaningful. Since as I mentioned in the first part the book was written in an election year, Levine struggles with the idea of political participant as consumer (as she donates to political nonprofits ahead of the 2004 election). But she also regrets that her friend's store, which sells objets purchased directly from African craftsmen, would suffer in the absence of her buying power. She gives in and buys a new outfit on vacation, but she also visits several stores to find the V-neck shirts she wants to pack for her dad as he heads to a nursing home. The act of buying doesn't have to be an empty gesture, as long as we recognize that it's a gesture. And I recommend this book even if you recognize that already.

Check back this weekend for my review of AFFLUENZA, the third and final book in my consumer series.

Consumer Week: The Luxe-less

I haven't finished Judith Levine's NOT BUYING IT: MY YEAR WITHOUT SHOPPING yet, but already I'm finding it more thought-provoking than yesterday's book. Like other "I did this, then wrote about it" books (THE KNOW-IT-ALL and A YEAR AT THE MOVIES are two of my favorites), Levine decided not to buy anything in the year 2004 that was not a necessity. Her reasons are similar to those anyone might use to make a budget or cut back on spending: With holiday bills, credit-card debt and aspirations towards a simple life taken into account, Levine believes she could benefit from giving up shopping without having to change her life completely.

Of course, not shopping does change her life, but not in the ways she expects. It's not the big stuff that Levine misses first, the flat-screen TVs or trips to the Caribbean; rather, it's the pair of SmartWool socks that keep her warm in winter or a bounty of cheap purses in Chinatown. When a friend gives her tickets to a dance concert, she's reminded of all the shows she's missed because she wouldn't buy tickets to them. At the same time, she's tempted to perhaps redefine "luxury" for the terms of the experiment -- her partner, Paul, who joins in with the year without shopping, considers wine a necessity, and after everyone else she knows has seen "Fahrenheit 9/11," Levine considers whether documentaries would really count as a luxury. (One non-luxury item: Reruns of "Law & Order" she rushes home to watch.)

This book isn't outwardly service-y (thanks, Anna) but Levine does a great job of explaining how her day-to-day life is affected by this edict which, while extreme, mirrors advice commonly given to people trying to save money. Of course, as this funny-send up points out, how much you have to cut out depends on how much you're spending in the first place. In other words, it's fine if your budget already "laces in the fat" as my mother used to say, but how about when all the fat is gone?

The tone of the book is more kvetch-y than New Agey so far. Levine feels her own small moments of triumph, but she doesn't declare how much easier her life has gotten since she stopped shopping -- although she pays off almost $8,000 in credit-card debt by the summer, which is impressive especially given that Levine and her partner live in New York City half the year. In fact, the decision comes with a raft of practical and ethical problems, such as: Shouldn't a writer continue to buy books as a means of contributing to her industry? (She compromises on buying just the ones she needs for research and can't find at the library.) All of this makes her very relatable as a narrator.

So readers, Paul has wine; what's your last, dearest-held luxury item? Mine would be coffee (not take-out lattes, but ground coffee and the fixings). I could give it up, and it would probably be healthier to do so, but coffee makes the world go 'round! And unlike books, you cannot borrow coffee and then give it back.

Tomorrow: a full review of Judith Levine's NOT BUYING IT.

Consumer Week: The perils of wanting.

As I mentioned, it's Consumerism Week on Wormbook, a time when I will be reviewing a few books about buying, spending and materialism. I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing it for me, but I would love to hear your comments (as always). Let's kick it off with psychology professor Tim Kasser and his brief book THE HIGH PRICE OF MATERIALISM.

Kasser's book puts forth and supports two theories: First, materialism makes our lives harder because it's always driving us towards more stuff, instead of things we need like human relationships. And second, materialism feeds and nourishes our own insecurities in such a way that it will never make us feel better. Instead, the more you value "keeping up with the Joneses," the more you perceive a discrepancy between what you value and what you actually have.

And a lot of this psychological work is done unconsciously, as Kasser shows in analyzing his own studies (where, for example, he had people rank certain values in their own lives) and many others from other labs. Because of these studies, literally hundreds of which are mentioned, I found this book extremely informative but also somewhat dry. It's not until the last chapter that he offers tips like "Get off the materialistic treadmill" and even recommends therapy if you have an extreme case of what the Berenstain Bears would call "the gimmes." He also makes some social suggestions which are reasonable (regulating marketing to kids, the most vulnerable to materialistic messages) and some which are a little fanciful (banning ads on public roads and public transit, asking to trade your next raise for a week of vacation). If you're interested in the sociology of buying or in scientific studies on consumerism, you'll like this book; otherwise, it's a better reference than a read.

Tomorrow: Judith Levine's NOT BUYING IT.