A Penny 'Saved'

I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable with people's rhetoric about "saving." A friend posted a link about someone who paid down $10,000 of credit card debt in a year by making his morning coffee at home instead of buying from a coffee shop, going from a two-car to a one-car family, "making do" with a pre-paid and more basic phone and plan, etc. Yesterday I was reading a post where a woman was asking about money-earning possibilities from home after where comment after comment recommended (rather unsolicitedly and completely ignoring the fact that she'd already stated how frugally they were living and only wanted to hear about income opportunities) she cut her cable subscription, go from two cars to one, get rid of a land line and/or go down to the basic cell plan, stop eating out, etc. What I want to know is why we consider having a $90 cable package, $80 cell phone plan, (multi-?)weekly restaurant visits, two cars, daily lattes, and the like the norm.

It's not really "saving" money to replace a daily $4 caffeinated beverage of choice with a 12-cent cup brewed at home; it's just not wasting it as egregiously. It's not being super-frugal to cut your cable package from all-inclusive super-deluxe premium package to basic cable + internet. It's really kind of offensive to read money-saving tips from people who assume that everyone is just handing huge sums of money out on a monthly basis to whomever asks for it in exchange for the merest convenience or entertainment. You don't need cable TV (I use a $10-a-month Netflix subscription for movies and free Hulu for the TV I watch; even that's unnecessary and could be cut were my straits direr or if I just decided to stop wasting so much time or kill so many brain cells); you don't need to buy coffee every morning (or, for that matter, drink coffee at all, heresy though that may appear); some people get by perfectly well without owning cars and aren't necessarily pursuing that out of desperation but as part of their regular life (though I do acknowledge that not everyone's current living/working situation makes that possible).

I find it highly ridiculous that either people think they're being frugal by paying slightly less for really pretty cushy and objectively superfluous, unnecessary, or even harmful things or that the average person isn't actually anywhere near that prodigal but thinks everyone else in the entire country is engaging in the utmost of hedonistic consumption. It's not like you get points simply for being below average consumption or that everyone deserves or is guaranteed a certain standard of living (well, yes, philosophically I think they do, but considerably lower than the one under discussion) and anything under that is virtuous abnegation and "doing without."

Of course, when it's money under discussion, income is quite relevant. If you make enough money to be able to afford all the above-listed things, I'm not saying they're inherently bad things to spend money on (though I personally hope to avoid them despite my income), but if you have tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt that you can pay off by cutting out coffee shop drinks and cable, I'd imagine the way you got it is exactly by making those expenditures to begin with. It is definitely, unequivocally not saving money to give up these things, then; it's simply not going (further) into debt, not living beyond your means.

This type of thinking is even worse when it comes to talk of "saving" energy. This NYT article reminded me of my increasing discomfort (though really its take is overall pretty good). It seems like people feel entitled to a certain amount of energy consumption and that the slightest bit of consumption under that activates feelings of deprivation or of virtuous forbearance. It's kind of silly to talk of "saving" water by turning off the tap while you're brushing your teeth (well, for one thing, does anyone actually not do this?) or by turning down/up the thermostat when you're not at home or by having your DVR player have the option to go into deep sleep when its not needed; in fact, you're using water, gas, or electricity to do any of these things and you're just not using/consuming/wasting as much when you turn things off or down.

The default is nothing. The earth didn't contract with us to permit us each X number of tons of carbon emission per year, Y gallons of water per day, or Z gallons of gas per week, and then it will start exacting penalties once those levels are reached. Each of these things we consume harms our environment or climate; the goal is to use as little as possible, not simply less than what's "reasonable" for a person living in a developed nation in modern times. (Money, as I said, is a little different since you do in fact have a certain amount you can spend up to and no further.)

I don't watch TV; I turn my computer off when I'm not using it; I unplug my cell charger when it's not actually charging my phone; I don't let water run when I'm not actively using it; I walk and take public transportation rather than driving; I don't eat resource-intensive beef or overly processed foods; I don't have air conditioning and keep the heater on a timer and still pretty low even when I'm home; I don't replace things like my MP3 player until they break even if they're crappy and better ones exist. I could (and, yeah, pretty much still do) feel holier-than-thou for everything I'm saving and all the good I'm doing; instead (/in addition) I'm horrified by the amount of water required per time I flush the toilet (1.6 gallons in a low-flow toilets; I think it's 3.5 for older ones) and feel bad (when I think about it, yes) for using my computer at all, for not keeping the thermostat still lower, for living in a space that's larger than what I would technically need, for buying things that aren't absolutely necessary for survival (um, it's quite possible to live without owning an MP3 player), for buying food I know has been shipped in from California or Mexico or Kansas or Florida... I mean, I don't obsess over it, and I don't suppose I think people should (mental health is important too), but I do consider it, I am made uncomfortable by it, and I do try to reduce it further where I can. I think rather than activating all our cognitive tricks to assuage whatever guilt we feel for living and consuming the way we do and then congratulating ourselves for not living worse, we should be willing to live with the discomfort, acknowledging that our choices aren't actually the best.

Otherwise we fall prey to the pat-yourself-on-the-back kind of environmentalism that ends up not actually making any improvements but merely keeps things from getting worse. (This is one reason cap and trade has never completely won my support, since rather than requiring cutting as much as possible it picks a level of "acceptable" pollution and lets everyone pollute up to that point. I mean, I still support it, it's obviously better than nothing, and it's likely the only thing that would work without strangling our economic system which people seem to be rather attached to...) I don't know why humanity has to feel like it's doing good all the time. You can feel it's necessary and justifiable to do certain things and still feel it's regrettable that you have to, that that's not the best possible course of action in an ideal world, and want to minimize them as much as possible (see: death penalty, eating meat, cutting social programs in a recession). I do think we have a right to be on this earth and to live flourishing lives, but we have a responsibility to live as lightly as we can and not to excessively harm other things in so doing.

Conspicuous Nonconsumption

I've noticed in the past five years or so that as any big event occurs, I realize how little I (and everyone else in America) understood about some giant chunk of important stuff. The last occasion was during the primaries, when suddenly everyone paid attention for once and ended up really, really confused. Wait, so the primaries not only take place over a period of months, but their scheduling can be varied (but not too much, or you'll incur the wrath of the party overlords)? The Democratic Party can actually refuse to count states if they want? (Don't they have an obligation to count everyone? Oh, wait, no, they don't. They have nothing to do with the government and can run their primaries however they please...or not at all.) Democratic and Republican primaries are often not on the same day in a given state? Puerto Rico gets to vote in the primary but not in the general election? Texas has a combination caucus and primary system? How do superdelegates work again? I don't know about everyone else, but I learned more about the Democratic Party (no, I didn't pay as much attention to the Republican primaries because none of their candidates were interesting) and the party system in a couple months than I had in the previous several years. I felt the current system of primaries was ridiculous and that it desperately needed drastic reform.

Fast-forward to, oh, now: the economy. Suddenly all of America is learning things they never knew about derivatives, credit swaps, leveraging, and toxic assets (or are trying as hard as they can to). Everyone's wondering how we managed to get into this mess, and everyone's pretty sure (OK, I'm pretty sure, and I'm extrapolating) that if everyone had known what was going on, it wouldn't have been going on for long. Why don't we know more about how the things we use every day work?

What this economic crisis has taught me: I think the economy is stupid, and I hope it dies. I mean, I don't want unemployment and famine to sweep the land or anything like that, but I really think the economy the way it works right now is somewhere past ridiculous. For example: credit is the lifeblood of our economy. It's true; everyone says it: to save more banks from collapse, we just need to get credit flowing again. Um, but why? Why is it that corporations' payrolls are paid each week with money they don't actually have at that time? Why is it that stores go the entire first 10.75 months of the year in the red and only come into the black during the holidays? Why does our entire country run on not having any money right now? Why is this state desirable? Why should we facilitate this?

Andrew and I were talking today, and we have both recently begun to wonder what exactly the point of the stock market is. Oh no, the stock market is down! Which means...someone's opinion of how much someone else will pay for their tiny chunk of voting rights (that nobody actually wants) in a company is less than it used to be! Think about it. The stock market goes down for all sorts of non-economic reasons, including elections and inaugurations (no, not just Obama's). It goes up for all sorts of stupid reasons completely unconnected with the companies whose stock actually involved. Basically, the stock market survives and goes up because stockholders/traders assume that there will always be someone else who wants the stock they own right now. How silly. And to tie everyone's retirement to the stock market in the form of 401(k)s and IRAs? That is one of the dumbest things I think our country has ever done.

Then there's the whole "consumer confidence" thing (a silly term, in my opinion). Everyone's supposed to keep going out and buying stuff; the worst thing for The Economy (capitalized for its almightiness) that one can do right now is to save money and pay down one's own debt. Wait, what?

So what The Economy needs to survive is lots of people going further into debt, consuming stupid crap they don't need, merely to prop up corporations that wagered on people always wanting stupid crap. The Economy needs huge corporations to survive. I have a hard time caring. Why is our economy structured such that it can only survive as long as everyone keeps buying monkey-shaped bookends or a third sofa or gag gifts like rubber squirrel-faced punching bag balloons? (And isn't that the whole point of a free market, that if people decide they no longer need horrid punching-bag animals from the dollar bin that the maker of said abominable creations goes under or starts making something people will buy?) All I really need to purchase right now is food (although if pushed, I could probably live for a month or two on what's in our pantry already combined with the CSA boxes we've already paid for), with the occasional purchase of body wash or whatever I'm out of at the moment. Why do we consume so much utter crap?

Well, I'm stopping. I gave up my credit card for Lent (not that I'm Catholic or even Christian, but I had never done Lent before and kind of like imposing arbitrary rules on myself, so why not?) since I am actually carrying a balance on it at the moment (for the first time ever, thankyouverymuch) and need to quit using it while I pay it off. Also, paying for things with cash, you're actually aware of how much you're spending and tend to spend less than if you just charge it (research shows). So I've basically not spent any money in the past couple weeks except on one movie (OK, so I'm still consuming some, but only for movies I've been waiting for for months), one $12 grocery run, and one $3 emergency gum-and-Pringles infusion yesterday at work. No clothes, no shoes, no things. (I considered giving up parentheses instead. One can see why I chose the credit card. I don't think I could actually live without parentheses...plus, they don't actually hurt anyone. (Do they?))

Anyway, so yeah, I'm going to see how little I can consume. I know that makes me unpatriotic, because the best thing one can do for the economy in a recession is go shopping, but so what? When it comes down to my duty to myself versus my duty to my country, I'm picking me. Actually, it's not even really a money thing, though money did start it all; it's a simplification thing. I've been saying for years that I own too much stuff, and I've steadily gotten rid of it even as I acquired more. Recently, I have been fed up with all the junk I own. Then I've been looking at it from an environmental standpoint and an economic standpoint simultaneously and realized that the solution to both those problems of waste is simply not to consume.

When everything goes under, blame me. It'll make you feel better.