Sure, but plenty of people buy things because they want to feel wealthy. I have people in my life who buy fancy cars, holidays, and furniture on loan with bad interest. Instead of saving for an item, they pay too much for instant gratification.
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Submitted 7 hours ago by Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net to [deleted]
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Comments
West_of_West@piefed.social 7 hours ago
arrow74@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
Yes this is true, but in a world where people.are struggling more and more to buy basic necessities like groceries and pay their bills it’s a bit tone deaf.
Yes some people overspend frivolously, but many are just broke after inflation and tariffs
iamthetot@piefed.ca 5 hours ago
I agree in principle, but the article is worded in possibly the worst way to get this across. It should be more along the lines of “don’t spend beyond your means”.
pseudo@slrpnk.net 1 hour ago
The problem is many people spending beyond there means consider the way they act, the normal standard of living. They need to reduce there living standard to live within their means.
tomiant@piefed.social 3 hours ago
“Buy more stuff to be happy, more, more, MOOORE! No not like that 😡”
the_q@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
And why do you suppose that is?
Draegur@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
I’d say it’s because consumerism is a kind of brain rot all its own. The media landscape we’ve been living in for generations has sold us this ridiculous fantasy that happiness means owning (or at least temporarily renting) luxury goods.
The plurality, if not majority, of the population here has never had to adjust their expectations or really sit down and think hard about what’s actually worth acquiring. We treat desires for convenience and novelty as though they are necessities. But they aren’t.
What’s actually a necessity is having something fulfilling to occupy your time, as a counterbalance to keep you sane, and that activity does not HAVE to be of the sort that costs a lot of money. Take up art using cheap supplies–just sketch with standard number two pencils on white lined notebook paper or perhaps play music on improvised instruments made of household objects. It doesn’t have to be good in order to become meaningful and if you do it enough it’ll BECOME good. Walk outside when the weather happens to be nice. Learn to ride a bicycle again. Visit a library. Pretend to sword fight with a friend using a fallen tree branch. You don’t have to drop several grand on a resort vacation. You don’t have to go into debt for a fancy car. You don’t need to buy the latest edition of “triple a” micro transaction slop from so-called “studios” that don’t give one single solitary wet shart about actual creativity and fire all their devs immediately every time a project wraps.
Money can’t buy whimsy.
All it can do is, at best, remove obstacles from between you and being able to enjoy something. If it’s not being used to simplify your life, then it’s COMPLICATING your life: Giving you only empty distraction that does not provide your experience with any fertile ground for meaning. This is but one of the many ways we are socially “poisoned” and then told that conspicuous consumption is the antidote. It’s not. it’s just even more poison.
You know what the most enjoyable experience I had was in the past several months? Just sitting in the living room at a gathering of friends where everyone brought a little home made food and listening to their happy voices. It cost me next to nothing but turned out to be worth more than anything.
My computer is more than ten whole years old now but it handles old games i could find on sale just dandy and doesn’t need some suped-up rtx gpu to let me pirate some shows XD
I stopped mindlessly gorging myself on junk food, and now basically only eat either efficient daily maintenance nutrition OR choose to visit a small locally owned restaurant no more than once per week. I’m never spending upwards of fifteen fucking dollars on a fast food burger “meal” ever again.
Divest of tacky opulence. Defy Wall Street and its siren song of ruin disguised as prosperity. Embrace the elegance of simplicity and spontaneity. If this sprawling parasitic infestation we’ve mistaken for an *economy" can’t survive without sucking the life out of us all then maybe it deserves to collapse.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
One source of entertainment for the past three or so years was seeing on social media how terrified USians are of the prospect of living like people in other countries do.
14specks@lemmy.ml 3 hours ago
I think we are going to have another decade or two or that, with the way things are looking
fort_burp@feddit.nl 3 hours ago
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
Baby is born
Doctor: How did you like your free 9 month trial of life?
Baby: What do you mean free trial?
Doctor: It costs money to live.
Baby: Frantically tries to climb back into the womb.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 57 minutes ago
That’s pretty much my littlest one. He got forced out into the world and he’s been pissed about it ever since.
tomiant@piefed.social 3 hours ago
“Acceptance. Gratitude. Mindfulness. These are the things you can do instead of rising up and tearing down the tyranny of capitalism.”
realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 4 hours ago
To be fair, that isn’t an entirely bad suggestion. I’ve seen so many people who take out loans to travel to like super expensive places. Or people who take one of those borderline scam phone contracts where you get the newest iPhone 213 XLLXQ for “free” but oh wait the phone contract costs 160€/month and 2 year minimum duration.
Some people really are bad with money and thing they can live in a world they clearly can’t afford.
tropicoolgoth@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Kind of agreeing with you here, although there are people who literally can’t make end meet
I have a step sister, married with 4 kids, and they don’t make much money and live on assistance. One year they sent out a fucking Santa’s gift list to everyone asking for liked $1000 from everyone because they wanted to go to Germany for Xmas.
West_of_West@piefed.social 4 hours ago
Years ago I had a coworker ask how I was able to travel so much because we made the same wage.
I was just like I don’t do drugs or buy drinks at a bar. I don’t own a car and my phone is cheap and paid off. I kept my expenses as low as possible to do what I liked.
Given how expensive renting is now I don’t think my frugality would have helped as much as it used to.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I think you raise a good point. There was a time when frugality seemed to stretch a lot further, like trips instead of just surviving. I toned down my drinking and eating out habits about three years ago, and boy am I glad, because I make pretty much the same amount of money. So I live about the same as I used to, without some extravagance that I was already doing away with.
I just need to choose some more extravagance to get rid of to future-prood myself, like heat in the winter, AC in the summer, and new shoes.
Draegur@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
I’ve been losing weight, which has been good for me. But someday … I’m going to run out of stored calories. For the very first time in my life, it has crossed my mind to wonder if I might starve someday ._.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
You spend too much money in electricity. Have you thought about just freezing to death?
Draegur@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
Blankets are great because you only have to pay for them once, and now that you have them, they can keep you warm basically forever.
Now, when it’s HOT weather, fuck it I’m using electricity for air conditioning; it’s getting legitimately dangerously hot lately and THAT SHIT is what will kill me if I don’t pay up x.x
arrow74@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
Legitimately, keep having to set the heat lower and lower
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 hours ago
Also this is pretty stupid to say because it basically just means spend less money. Yeah, no shit.
Pacattack57@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I mean it’s a little more nuanced than that. There’s a lot of ways to reduce costs. For me, not eating out is the biggest saver of money.
twinnie@feddit.uk 7 hours ago
I get what they’re trying to say though. So many people think they need to keep up with other by having a constant supply of new clothes and a modern luxury car, etc. people will take credit to breaking point just to keep up with other people who are doing the same thing. I’ve done it myself and it took years to dig myself out. Now I take comfort in knowing that I’m not scared to open the mail because I have enough saved to handle any surprise bills. Some things Mee me awake at night but it’s not bills, and I don’t care that phone’s 5 years old and my car’s 15 years old.
TheAgeOfSuperboredom@lemmy.ca 6 hours ago
When I was growing up I was told capitalism was great because we all get a high standard of living and had lots of inexpensive stuff to buy. Look at how poor Russians were during the Soviet era!
Now I’m being told that to sustain capitalism I need to live like a Soviet era Russian.
balsoft@lemmy.ml 3 hours ago
A soviet era russian also had access to free healthcare, free childcare, free higher education, cheap (sometimes free) housing, excellent (for the time) public transit, and a safety net for unemployment or old age. Oh and there was ample opportunities to build community ties so that if something did go horribly wrong and you needed that help. Capitalism in decline will give you none of that.
Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
It didn’t last. Surely there’s something in the middle that can both lift up the potential floor for standard of living through social safety net and also be sustained long term.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 hours ago
Tbf you need to live like a Soviet era Russian to break free of the shackles of capitalism. If you want to sustain capitalism, but as much as you can, and the capitalists are being sustained lol
Derpenheim@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
I get the sentiment, but I assume that what the article is saying is that people regularly buy things that are way outside of sustainability.
Yes, many are in poverty, but that doesn’t mean you should eat out every single day. Or if you are somehow out of poverty, you shouldn’t be looking to buy a house at the top of your budget just because you really want one.
forrgott@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
No. The entire premise is a stinking pile of dung, and always has been.
People do not choose to live in poverty. Like, seriously, this a classist myth that has never fucking been true. If people did, they could just choose to stop being poo!! But anybody with a functioning brain knows that billionaires choose for the workers to be destitute. So this entire “if you’re poor you shouldn’t [x]” needs to just fucking die already.
Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
I don’t think the target audience here is people struggling with groceries.
There are a surprising number of households where both people pull in six figures in low or moderate cost of living areas, and they live paycheck to paycheck because they way overspend. It’s not groceries or the heating bill, it’s the extravagant vacations, the horseback riding lessons, the huge wardrobes for growing kids that need everything replaced in six months. These are all nice things, but if you can’t afford them, it’s OK to do without.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Overconsumption is off the fucking charts too. We purged yearly, and it’s amazing the crap we accumulate and never use. Now we just try to collect money in our accounts to survive.
Amazon is killing some families on impulse control issues.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 hours ago
Amazon’s too expensive for me to get any serious impulse control issues on, I get my impulse purchases off AliExpress
Impact wrench arrived this week, now I’m waiting for my drill and angle grinder. All fake Makita tools lol
deranger@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
This is called “lifestyle creep” where you get a raise or promotion and instead of saving the extra money you get, you buy nicer stuff and your raise basically disappears.
BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
If the trend continues this article will be about those big wigs with a bed, running water and porcelain commodes.
D_C@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
This worked for me. I used to have no money but since I stopped eating and turned off the electricity and heating I now have millions… MILLIONS!
blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
Why not just say
“Stop buying shit you don’t need”
parody@lemmings.world 5 hours ago
It’s like they wanted to phrase a basic economics reality as divisively as possible
Perhaps non-native speaker written
Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
Or AI
betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
The advertisers might get upset if it’s stated that plainly.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 hours ago
I’ve thought about it a lot, because it is likely to happen.
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
🎶Lowered Expectations🎶
Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
Like, if youre going to just sit there and frame everything as the worst possible interpretation, sure, everyone’s an asshole. Its just not as funny as you think.
kamen@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
That’s very much in the spirit of “Stop being poor”.
scytale@piefed.zip 6 hours ago
Would’ve sounded better if they said “live below your means” instead.
smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Or even just within them.
silver_wings_of_morning@feddit.dk 6 hours ago
True and good advice
phx@lemmy.world 55 minutes ago
I mean, I do get it. Some people take on debt as a way to live beyond their means when they could still live a “comfortable” life without the glamour or “keeping up with the Jones”. The $80k+ gas guzzling truck bought on credit - that’s only used for driving to work and grocery trips - is a good example of this.
But a better way of saying this is “live within your means”, but it’s becoming increasingly impossible to do this and have a standard of living that’s just “decent shelter and healthy food” (or even, “enough food”) which should be a bare minimum
kameecoding@lemmy.world 34 minutes ago
It’s a double edged sword in that for some people this is meaningless bullshit, in that they are struggling to pay for groceries, there is nowhere to lower their standards to.
On the other hand I have watched quite a bit of financial audit videos by caleb hammer, and have seen plenty of statistics that shows that simply put lots of people especially Americans are caught up in consumerism and live beyond their means for either status, or because that’s where they get their gratification from.
The solution is to accept that no matter what you buy you will be only happy for a fleeting moment, better to embrace minimalism and fuck consumerism, it’s also better for the planet, not just your wallet.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 18 minutes ago
I have basically rejected this world. I focus only on maintenance. I maintain friendships I have, don’t make new ones. I’m not buying new devices anymore, I will maybe buy accessories or upgrades to keep them going, buy repairs, but the goal is to purchase as little as possible from this unworthy species.
Phase 2 is to create a self-reliance kit, focused on maximizing independence (amount of time you can go without purchasing anything, just relying on yourself, and maybe a small community). Once I perfect that, my goal is to spread it.
Once we eliminate exploitation, once most of the power disbalance is gone, THEN humans will be worthy of living n this planet again. THEN, we can have a real society.
Leaving yourself under another’s power should be a mortal sin.