No Shopping for a Year?
There’s living below your means, and then there’s living below your means. Read here about a group of people that didn’t buy anything other than food and basic health & hygiene items for an entire year.
Unfortunately, idealism trumped intelligence in this experiment. One member of the no-spending group said, “It is about being aware of the excesses of consumer culture and the fact we are drawing down our resources and making people miserable around the world.” That is like saying that you refuse to tip at a restaurant because you think the waiter is underpaid. The losers in this tiny experiment are all the people in third-world countries whose livelihood depends on Western consumerism.
Although taking a year-long shopping sabbatical is a bit extreme, it does teach an important lesson about what’s really important in life. And it turns out “stuff” is not in that category.
