{"id":542,"date":"2010-11-26T12:30:37","date_gmt":"2010-11-26T17:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/?p=542"},"modified":"2023-10-07T11:34:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T15:34:31","slug":"lets-celebrate-buy-nothing-friday-instead-of-black-friday-dont-we-have-enough-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/2010\/11\/lets-celebrate-buy-nothing-friday-instead-of-black-friday-dont-we-have-enough-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Celebrate BUY NOTHING Friday, Instead of Black Friday, Don’t We Have Enough Stuff?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"I<\/a>

Tagline for modern society: I shop therefore I am<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s all gotten a little ridiculous hasn’t it. Buy, buy, buy – don’t think just BUY! No money?- use credit! You don’t have enough stuff – you need more stuff; get a bigger house to store it all or rent a cubby at U-Store-It. That’s the new mantra of our hyper-consumeristic society. Well, it isn’t really new, to be honest, but has it ever gotten out of hand.<\/p>\n

You wonder why now, when typically there are two ‘bread-winners’ for each household, we have way less savings and owe way more to dept than we did in the 1950’s and 60’s – when typically only the man used to work? It isn’t because of inflation, or higher taxes, or even a government conspiracy. The truth is, we are spending all our money (and money we borrow on credit too of course) buying ‘stuff’. And I know, we have always bought ‘stuff’, but not like we do now. Think about it. Think about all the ‘stuff’ you have at your house. Probably 2+ vehicles (everyone needs their own – even the 18 year-olds), a plethora of TV’s (flat-panel of course; the working tube TV’s just tossed aside), an Xbox\/PS3 and a Wii (with Wii-Fit and Guitar Hero), a few different generations of iPods, a dozen or so ‘old’ cellphones – plus the shinny new smart-phone you use now, a PC and a laptop and maybe even a MAC just for fun … snow-ski’s and a snowboard and all the associated gear …\u00a0 a closet stacked high with shoes … a full home gym used now to hang your clothes on … that pile of useless ‘info-mercial’ purchases … basement & garage packed to the rafters with miscellaneous odds and ends ……….. well I can go on and on, the point is we all have way too much ‘stuff’. Everyone of us. That’s where our money went. That’s why now, even with a second income, most households struggle to keep their heads above water. And savings, who has any extra money for that?<\/p>\n

We just recently started living like this. People never used to have this much ‘stuff’, every person didn’t need everything. They weren’t obsessed with their things like we are today. “Our materialistic, consumeristic society serves some good though, we are happier right?”<\/em> Nope. We aren’t happier. How can we be, no matter how much ‘stuff’ we buy, there is always something coming out that is ‘better’, ‘shinier’, ‘faster’ – leaving us always wanting. At a time when our savings are becoming scarce – as well as the planet’s resources – buying more ‘stuff’ is not the answer. So why does the consumerist in me disagree? It’s all in the message I’ve been spoon-fed since before I could walk or talk. I am 34 now, and for my entire life the message has been clearly and oh-so-precisely delivered through the greatest marketing tool ever imagined – the TV. The internet is up there too, now, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the TV. We mindlessly stare at our fancy big screen absorbing the message day in and day out, from birth to grave; buy buy buy. We are led to believe that more ‘stuff’ is better, and the ‘stuff’ we have is old and outdated. Day in and day out the advertising juggernaut is pumping it’s well funded message into our psyche. And it worked. We carelessly spend all our hard earned money on things we don’t truly need in our insatiable appetite to own one of everything.\u00a0 If you are over 50 you might remember a time before TV and our crazy new way of life, and for that, you are one of the lucky ones. You have a grasp on how we used to live and consume. Funny, the ‘good-old days’ are real after all.<\/p>\n

Let’s find a way to stop the madness. I don’t have any great revelations on how to do this other than to tell you what I try<\/em> to do: think before I buy. If I see something I want I will mark it down and wait a few weeks to see if I really need it or if I just felt I needed it at the time. I try to do this for most things, not just big ticket items. The small things like the daily $4 latte’s are important too so pay close attention. Hyper-consumerism is now a way of life, but it hasn’t made us happier, has made us poorer, has seriously increased our dept load and has harmed our environment. It’s time to find a new path for ourselves, a smarter path, where we buy less, save more and live happier. Start today, Nov 26 2010, on Black Friday, by re-evaluating your planned purchases and decide whether you really, truly, need them. Then do it again tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s all gotten a little ridiculous hasn’t it. Buy, buy, buy – don’t think just BUY! No money?- use credit! You don’t have enough stuff – you need more stuff; get a bigger house to store it all or rent a cubby at U-Store-It. That’s the new mantra of our hyper-consumeristic society. Well, it isn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[178,381],"tags":[207,205,204,203,197,210,198,209,201,202,208,206,200,199],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":973,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}