The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting, and the New Consumer by Juliet B. Schor was published in 1998, but the information seems as relevant today as it did more than a decade ago. The book is geared toward middle and upper-income families, who seem to be caught up in a never-ending cycle of keeping up with the Joneses, no matter who the Joneses are.

“The Joneses” are our first error, according to Dr. Schor. In the past, our Joneses (or reference group) would be our neighbors, who all lived in houses about like ours, drove cars similar to ours, and likely had two adults and only one income. However, Dr. Schor asserts that today, our reference group is no longer our neighbors, many of whom we do not even know. For many people, the new reference groups are our colleagues and coworkers, who may hold financially very dissimilar jobs to our own, and our media “friends” that is, the fictional people we see on TV and relate to. It’s not uncommon for someone making $50,000 to compare their financial prowess to someone making well over half a million.

Dr. Schor also discusses the brands and types of items we buy as a way that we identify ourselves and show our “place” in the complex world. In my peer group, nearly all my friends have iPhones (“regular” cell phones are no longer good enough for us) despite the fact that they cost a minimum of $70 per phone per month, in addition to the purchase price. Everyone has a laptop, including the kids, many of whom have their own iPhones, as well. (Often the model that their parents have already upgraded from.) Plenty of our friends go on overseas vacations regularly. Frankly, it’s a lot to think about keeping up with. I’ve had several conversations with my daughters reminding them that because they attend a private school, they are automatically surrounded by people with more money than is typical, and that a trip to Africa or Denmark is not something that most families take on an annual basis. (In fact, I dismissed one expensive private school, which really was out of my financial league, in part because a European school trip is mandatory for all high school students. I didn’t go to Europe until I was 33, and I’ve only been a two overseas trips total. I don’t want my child going to school where it’s thought that such an experience is a must for teens.)

Finally, Dr. Schor talks about “The Downshifter Next Door.” This chapter focuses on telling the stories of various individuals who have moved away fromconstant pressures to spend – from people are embracing voluntary simplicity to people who have made commitments to stop buying so many material goods and services. I think this is the group that most 365 Less Things readers are trying to become a member of.

The last chapter contains nine points to help turn this financial, emotional, and environmental quagmire around. They are:

1. Controlling Desire – Stay away from places where you’ll spend.
2. Creating a New Consumer Symbolism: Making Exclusivity Uncool
3. Controlling Ourselves: Voluntary Restraints on Competitive Consumption
4. Learning to Share: Both a Borrower and a Lender Be – Love this one and definitely practice it.
5. Deconstruct the Commercial System: Becoming an Educated Consumer
6. Avoid “Retail Therapy”: Spending is Addictive
7. Decommercialize the Rituals – Christmas is a religious and family holiday. Don’t let the mall tell you how it should be.
8. Making Time: Is Work and Spend Working? Cut back on your spending and maybe you can change how and where you work.
9. The Need for a Coordinated Intervention

Lastly, I’ll leave you with this discouraging thought - which to me especially embodies the politics of the state that I live in – although remember that knowledge is power:

“The intensification of competitive spending has affected more than family finances. There is also a boomerang effect on the public purse and collective consumption. As the pressures on private spending  have escalated, support for public goods, and for paying taxes, has eroded. Education, social services, public safety, recreation, and culture are being squeezed. The deterioration of public goods then adds even more pressure to spend privately. People respond to inadequate public services by enrolling their children in private schools, buying security systems, and spending their time at Discovery Zone rather than the local playgrounds. ” (p. 21)

By Cindy

Cindy’s simple solution to cords and chargers out of control and either tangled on the desk top or snarled in the drawer. A great use for the over-abundance of plastic containers wasting space in your kitchen.

Cindy's Cord Control

The Rule of Reciprocity

by Maria Lin, Real Simple, Dec. 2011 issue

About 40 years ago, Disabled American Veterans, a Kentucky-based nonprofit, had a bright idea: The charity decided to send potential donors free personalized address labels. After the labels arrived in mailboxes across the nation, contributors to the group nearly doubled – jumping from 18 percent to 35 percent of those solicited. Why was this marketing gimmick so successful (and copied by countless others)? Because of a phenomenon called the rule of reciprocity.

The concept is simple enough: When people are given something for free, they typically feel obliged to make a gesture – or even a purchase – in return, says Steve Martin, a coauthor of Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive (Free Press, $15) and director of Influence at Work UK, a consulting company in Luton, England. The principle applies even when the free item is unsolicited and inexpensive, as Cornell University psychology professor Dennis Regan learned in 1971. In his seminal study, he found that when people were offered a free soda by a student, they bought almost twice as many raffle tickets from him as did those who had received nothing. That’s why you’re so often besieged by offers of free samples, complimentary gifts with a purchase, or amenities like chocolate or bottles of water just for entering a store. The acts of generosity may seem like good, old-fashioned customer service, but they actually prompt you to lay down cash, according to Martin.

So remember this counterintuitive piece of advice the next time you’re at the mall or the grocery store: If you want to stay on budget, say no to free stuff.

This Simple Saturday post was contributed by Cindy as was the amusing cartoon below.

A Mallard Fillmore Cartoon

I wrote about bookshelf organization for Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom this week, and I showed my friend Corinna’s living room book shelf. Here are photos of her ninth grade daughter Audrey’s color coordinated shelves, along with the letter Corinna emailed me explaining the hows and whys of the color coordinated books.

The color book order is only about looks.  We’ve just retrained our brains to visualize what a book looks like, and therefore what color it is, when we want to find a book.  That’s actually easier than it sounds.  It also reacquainted me with a lot of books I hadn’t looked at in a long time and helped me decide which ones to donate.

How we came to display our books like this is fairly involved: The girls used to share a bedroom and our other bedroom was an office/guest room.  When it was time for them to each get their own room, we had to incorporate a computer/desk area into our living room.  I tried to do this in an attractive way by hiring a cabinetmaker to create the cabinetry and the floating shelves.  And when those new shelves were installed, I just couldn’t put all our books up there without trying to do justice to the beauty of the shelves.  The color thing was on a lot of design blogs like Apartment Therapy at the time.

I also have books on another bookcase next to the TV.  The color-ordered ones are mostly fiction, while non-fiction is in the other case. In terms of decluttering, I would say that color-ordering of books is only helpful in that it makes how the books look a priority, which can help in reducing the number. I have to edit the books every so often, because when new ones come in, old ones have to go out.

I hope this is helpful – love the blog, btw!

Love the last line. Thanks Corinna!

Today for Simple Saturday I want to share two things with you.

Firstly I have been creative and come up with my new Christmas tree design. I thought I would run it past you to see what you think. It is minimal, inexpensive (I picked it up off the side of the road) and fits better in my home than the the big 6½ ft fake pine tree. If I decide I will continue with this tree tradition I will throw away the branches at the end of the season and pick up some new ones the next year. That way I don’t have to store it and each year it will be that little bit different to the last.

I could put this tree up for the forth of July, it is so American. There is a Starbucks decoration, two Seattle Mariner ones, a Seattle bauble, an American flag bauble, an Uncle Sam looking figure and another baseball character among the selection. Oh well they are all fond memories for us so why not. Perhaps I need to acquire at least one Australia themed decoration to even things out a bit. 😆

The second thing I want to share with you is a video from an Australian comedy show called Gruen Planet. Each week they set a new challenge for two advertising companies to come up with an add campaign to sell the unsellable. This week’s campaign brief was this ~ Christmas has become the holy day of consumerism, a day in which our rampant spending contributes to the rape of the planet. We need a campaign to stop this orgy of expense, to give Christmas the flick.

Both companies did an admirable job and even though it is meant to be all in good humour there is a whole lot of stark reality in both campaigns.

WARNING: Please do not play this video while children are present.

Link to video http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruenplanet/pages/s3367882.htm

My husband had a hair brush when we were first married, he used no other. Around about the 12th year of our marriage the brush started to fall apart with age. I was searching for a brush to replace it that had the same characteristics without success. Somehow a friend and I got talking about hair and the story of this brush came up in the conversation. I described the brush to her and she said she thought she might have the exact same brush at her home that wasn’t being used. She checked and amazingly she was correct it was the exact same brush in almost new condition and she generously gave it to me for my husband. He is still using it to this day.

She was pleased to declutter the brush from her home because it wasn’t and had hardly ever been used and my husband was more than pleased to receive it.

It proves the old saying ~ One man’s trash is another mans treasure. So never underestimate how much something you don’t use could be useful and appreciated by someone else.

Hi folks, for Simple Saturday this week Cindy suggested that we give you an up date on how we are going with our pledges to Buy Nothing New in October. i believe even Alice Cooper is on board with this initiative

Cindy’s Update

Besides groceries, household consumables such as laundry soap, and medicines, I have purchased two new books for the children that were preordered in August but not published until this month, as well as two other new books for myself. My daughters have been to the fabric store with their grandmother and purchased fabric for their Halloween costumes. I do not believe my husband has purchased anything. In addition, I have purchased two used books and four used shirts for myself.

Colleen’s Update

So far I have managed to buy nothing new. I did have to exchange a pack of socks for my son because the first set kept falling down. I don’t consider this buying something new because the original purchase was made in September. I am afraid that by the end of the month I am going to have to relent and buy him a new pair of skate shoes because the current pair have developed holes in the side. This is an inherent problem with skaters, they wear holes in the expensive shoes doing tricks. I will try to convince him to hold off for two weeks. Like Cindy the only things I have bought are grocery, everyday household items like washing powder and the like and of course the odd coffee and cake but that is within the rules. A girl’s got to stay sane somehow, right!

So how is everyone else doing who pledged to buy nothing new in October. Even if you haven’t been able to stick to the pledge buying a whole lot less in the attempt is a great for the environment also. Any attempt at turning down the volume of new products you consume is a step in the right direction.

* * * * * * * *

For Chelle and Raesha who wanted to know how my families CDs are stored. Keep in mind that we don’t use the actual CDs very much because everything is on iPod and computers.

In an endeavour to keep reducing until there is nothing but useful and loved things in my home I continue to revisit areas where I have decluttered previously. This week I decided to take another look under the laundry tubs and here are my before and after shots.

And Yes, that effort did only take ten minutes.

Here is proof of the old saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

3CRU 21st Anniversary Port Crock

This port crock was decluttered from our home some time back. I actually can’t find evidence of it on my blog so I can only assume that I filed the photo in the wrong file and it has never featured as a daily declutter item. Which only makes this story even more of a funny coincidence. I am also therefore not sure whether we donated it to the thrift store or sold it on eBay. The photo was taken in February of this year.

However the story goes like this. My husband walked into the office of one of his colleagues yesterday and noticed an object on his desk. He asked how it got to be there. The colleague informed him that is was given to him by another colleague to keep as a precious relic of Unit history. On closer inspection my husband confirmed that it was the very same port crock that we had decluttered same time ago. There was a unique paint imperfection which made it stand out from any other similar crock. It commemorates the 21st Anniversary of 3CRU (No.3 Control and Reporting Unit,) a surveillance unit of the Royal Australian Airforce. If we had known it was “so precious” we would have donated it to the unit ourselves. My husband however was quite amused by it all.

This What AM I has something to do with a very famous brand.

Can you guess what it is.

Send in your guesses and we shall see who is the clever one.

The answer will be the Item of the Day on Monday.

What Am I?