17
2008
Obsessive Consumers – We are Addicts
An article by 
Allow me to make a confession – I have come to the realisation that I am an obsessive consumer. The sad thing is that in my world consuming is so normal, encouraged and needed for the survival of the economy in which I exist that I, like many other such addicts, have been mostly blind to my addictive compulsion. It’s placated so often without question that I’ve never been subject to the withdrawals and tendencies that drive my addiction to buy and consume.
Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not spending thousands of dollars a week or anything crazy that would get my family into financial trouble, we’re doing well on a modest income, in fact I would probably be considered a fairly average consumer – but I’ve been trying to reduce my spending and because of this, I’ve started noticing a compulsion I never noticed before because up until recently I would just act on it – now I’m trying to fight it. The scary thing is, I wonder how many others have this addiction but have never noticed it because at many levels it is socially sanctioned and deemed ok.
I stopped and thought about this a little while ago and asked myself the question “how many days do I actually not spend anything, nothing, nadda, not a cent?” The answer was not many at all. The purchases might only be small, but most days there is a spend of some sort. It might just be a soft drink or juice at a local shop, a magazine at a bookstore, chewing gum, a filled roll… something, anything, but most days the spend was there. Most days I expend spending energy, even if it is only a tiny spend.
In my quest to not spend I’ve discovered the little monster inside that has been driving that regular spend and that little monster feels suspiciously like an addiction. It’s a small niggling compulsion that I have never noticed before because I just acted on it before it would have a chance to grow into anything noticeable. It causes a fight within and has sometimes been leading me to spend small amounts even when my mind is telling me I don’t need to or shouldn’t. Like an addict I create justifications for any spend even in the face of knowing that I shouldn’t or don’t need to.
I can feel the process happening. It begins with a thought – “hmmmmm, I feel like a…” Presently I try to ignore that little thought. It’s that little thought I would have acted on with little to no qualms about doing so as I’m sure many people do. But now I don’t want to just act on each compulsion to spend. I have a problem though, when I ignore that compulsion I start to get agitated and fidgety. I consciously look for ways to distract myself from that desire to spend something. More and more I am becoming successful, though I have a long way to go.
It’s interesting holding this obsessive consumerism at a distance and examining what may have been feeding this addiction. I take full responsibility for it, but I can’t help but look around my world and see a system formulated to create obsessive consumers. Our current economic system needs obsessive consumers to survive. Consumption and buying have become so normal that I wonder if the non-addicts in relation to this are actually a rarity. The scary thing is that I look around and I think my addiction might actually be quite normal and I wonder how many others are actually aware that many of us have been shaped into obsessive consumers. How many of us see our niggling desires to spend and the many justifications that go along with that as a problem?
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About the Author: Frank Ritchie
Frank is the Education and Advocacy Manager for TEAR Fund NZ. Frank is a licensed Minister in the Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand and has a keen interest in biblical perspectives of Justice and how this connects to service to, with and for the poor, disadvantaged and marginalized people of the world.
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Totally understand this. I have always been a thrifty person myself so probably struggle a bit less.
But I have been cutting down on things I don’t really need.
What about when we have an employment shortage for aid agencies because too many people are giving haha
I’m glad to hear you’re a thrifty person, Benjamin.
I don’t see giving to aid agencies as the same thing as purchasing… one is about getting stuff for one’s self, the other is working towards helping others.
This isn’t about the broad topic of simply using money, it’s about consuming and using money to that end.
From a previous conversation:
Really, try it sometime. It’s a great way of circumventing that all-too-human shortsighted lust for goods.
Dale’s admission: It is a lot easier to rant and rave about over consumption than to actually spend less on things you don’t need. I take no small amount of pride in the fact that I buy mostly (probably 90% or more?) used clothes, and that Di and I don’t feel the need to have nice/new this-and-that; but I conveniently forget how often I eat out at cafe’s & how many coffee’s I get…
Damian, great to hear from you.
I’ve got no issue when it come to refraining from spending on gadgets… and yes, the laptop is as useful as I thought it would be… though I don’t have the Mac.
I’m using it at work at the moment since my desktop gave up the ghost… they haven’t been able to replace it yet.
Apart from the laptop, I haven’t acquired a gadget or big ticket item in a long time. I don’t have any compulsion around big spends.
My issue is more the day to day spend on small things – that daily feeding of obsessive consumption as opposed to the intermittent desire for expensive items.
That’s good. One unnecessary PS3 will undo abstaining from 250 unnecessary coffees!
My problem is with the big things. I’m pretty tight on treats but have strong urges to shell out $26k for a not-really-necessary new car. I have to rationalise to stop these kinds of purchases. Not carrying around cash helps me with the small items.
Also, (and this probably sounds really anally retentive) my wife and I give ourselves a weekly allowance that has to cover clothing, beer, golf membership, etc, etc. That helps reign in the spending a bit.
We do the weekly allowance as well… the problem is, I keep going into negatives… and it’s just an accumulation of lots of little spends. Using cash would actually help me as it would impose a limit.
I can see how your rating system would work for you and it’s one I’ll certainly use when looking at larger items.
I’m struggling big time with this at the moment. After taking a substantial pay cut and losing the luxury of a company car, not adjusting my budget meant my debt was quickly increasing. All the little purchases (lunch usually, the odd decaf soy latte) I make have added up to a substantial amount of debt, and I didn’t even notice. Now that I’m trying to reign things in I’ve realised just how much of an addiction it is. I spend to feel better. I spend when I’m bored. I spend if life’s not going my way. I spend if I’m happy & celebrating. The really scary thing is, it’s proving more difficult to quit spending than it was to quit cigarettes.
Yeah I know where you are coming from on that. I went from being a single teacher on a good income living at home( admittedly I did save a heap of money )who travelled to Europe and Canada and didn’t think too hard about spending the money on that to a married lady with a mortgage – talk about a reality check!! I’m not complaining cos my hubby and I are buying our house which is really exciting and a tangible reward for our saving, but it did require a major attitude shift for me. I must say I am enjoying op shop hunts now for little things we might need – eg clothes etc…a toothbrush holder for 99cents!! What a bargain. I find myself reliving my student days of opshop clothing and frugal living and find I don’t really mind that much. Darrien and I also have our “funny money” that we get to spend each week which I take out in cash and once it is gone it is GONE!! That really does help to reign in the little spends that can add up and is helping us to achieve our long term goal of paying our mortgage off faster that the set term. YAY!! It is really hard though when we get bombarded with messages to spend and that this equates with happiness. I find that buying “things” and “stuff” does not really make me happy in the long term but it does seem we are wired to get that fix from time to time….
Flendolyn and Melwyn,
What you’ve shown is that it’s a problem that is only obvious to us (usually) when we have a crisis or change of situation that removes the ability to immediately feed that little monster that wants us to spend.
My guess is that there are way more addicts out there, it’s just that they don’t know it because they’ve never faced a situation where they’ve had to actually face the little monster.
Flendolyn, it doesn’t suprise me that it’s harder to give up than smoking. Smoking is largely an internal fight for many now, as opposed to the spending addiction which is simply a part of our culture. We’re bombarded with messages to buy all the time. Our culture necessitates the use of money through purchases both big and small. To be western is to consume… we’re raised to do it right from the word “go”. It’s wired into us through messages before we can even talk, whereas things like smoking and other addictive substances are generally introduced later in life.
By fighting the spend, we’re fighting something that is part of the western citizens cultural hard-wiring. That’s a tough fight.