I try to live by the no-crap rule, and my husband is mostly on board, so “presents” for us usually equates to going to the theatre, or purchasing items we really need anyway, but his mother, sisters, and brother-in-law care more about giving and receiving materials gifts (mostly because they all love to shop), so I have been gradually trying to sneak in “my” type of gift – experiences, donations, and re-gifts – without offending or causing a fuss. I’m always worried about how they’ll be received when compared to the “store-bought” stuff everyone else is opening, but so far they have all been a success – and the gifts-in-a-jar were probably the most popular.

I don’t think they would be seen as generic – I gave all the boys Oatmeal Cookies in a Jar (who doesn’t love cookies??), and all the girls got Spa in a Jar (I bought bath oil balls, shower gel, little candles, and little chocolates at the dollar store, and layered them on top of lavender-scented epsom salts in the jar). Everyone thought they were great, and appreciated the effort I’d put into them.

The “artificial economy” created by ” fashion and style” is what drives the consumer to spend. The “newer” phone. This years model (of whatever), these new clothes, this style of furniture, these new home decor ideas…doesn’t matter….if it involves annual or seasonal “style”, it is CRAP.

Be yourself…follow your own idea…wear it till it is worn out, use it till it is no longer useful, repair it or get it repaired,if economically sound to do so.
Otherwise…YOU have fallen into the consumerism world of crapology!

It would be easy to live as you describe although somebody would have to adopt my children first.

but anyways, yeah, this article really hit home for me because I am proud to have caught on to this addiction to crap in today’s ‘society’ early on. I haven’t even left home yet and I’m still in school (granted it’s college, but still…) and I have realized everything you have said here. Can’t do much about the food or diet around the house because I don’t do the groceries OR the cooking, but in all the other areas, I excel I don’t NEED to buy crap to fill that void, I have learned to be happy with what I already have. in fact, I rarely buy ANYthing. when I do, it’s a bag of chips, or something small, but I have it hammered in my head that every dollar I have is to go to school so I feel super guilty if I spend more than a couple dollars on something unrelated to school. And of course I was one of those suckers that got stuck with a potentially very expensive hobby: Computers. I make the occasional upgrade here and there, but that’s about it. still running on the first computer I ever built. would love to have the expendable money to just build them left and right, but a single, powerful CPU costs hundreds of dollars (like 3-hundreds or dollars, eek!), and that’s just ONE piece of a complex puzzle!

anyways, my point is, just learn to be happy with and focus on what you already have rather than what you don’t, because you never have nothing! if you can read that sentence, you have something already. the obvious answer is a computer or at least computer access, but I’m thinking even simpler. the ability to READ! or even further, just having vision in general is huge. feeling sorry for yourself, or buying tons of ‘crap’ to make yourself feel better is just being greedy! you already have the world at your fingertips. learn a real skill like survival to cover those ‘high priority costs’ like food, rent (a.k.a. shelter), etc, and you can do away with money completely! (or just have more for fun spending at no risk because even if you went bankrupt, you know how to live without money anyways ) that’s a bit extreme, but it’s definitely significant (even on a smaller scale, where it just supplements your budget is a big help) and on my to do list at some point in my life

I had one of those epiphany moments about four months ago as I realized I’d just watched a TV program I didn’t like, because I was tired, and couldn’t remember anything of what I’d watched. Next day the cable tv was turned off, and within a couple of weeks the TV was gone via craigslist. I dug into some “voluntary simplicity” books & websites and have been systematically culling knickknacks, old books, old crap and random junk I was “saving”. The house is starting to look a little bare, but I can also find the things that I actually use regularly, and it’s easier to keep clean! Life is a lot easier when you’re not looking after all your crap!

i admire you.