Frugal in the Fruitlands

I’m reading Peter Walsh’s book It’s All Too Much, which I just picked up from the library. Peter Walsh is the organization guru on TLC’s Clean Sweep, of which I am (not so) secretly a huge fan. Peter’s sort is my favorite part of the show. I habitually turn it off after that, unless Eric the Carpenter is having Antics. It’s like, screw this decorating shit, I want to see some people play trivia games to keep their favorite DVDs!

This quote from It’s All Too Much struck me:

… Or are you saving enough stuff to furnish a whole alternate universe in a which a skinnier you uses that dusty abdominal crunch machine every morning before inserting all your photos into a new album and then dons that old wig you’ve been storing for a costume party you’re hosting at which everyone will be lounging in the extra chairs that have been languishing in your basement for the last six years?

His point is that our stuff is supposed to represent who we are, but too often it represents someone we’ll never be. We need to let go of what’s less important to us so that what’s really important can shine through.

This book is really helping me to see the connection between clutter and the loss of control I sometimes feel in my life. For a while it boggled me that whenever I walked into my house at the end of the day, I felt stressed, not happy to be home. Then I have to take into account that the mudroom is the smallest room in the house, doubles as a laundry room, and is often (as it is right now) strewn with recyclables, garbage, shoes, empty TidyCat containers, snowshoes, coats, laundry baskets, etc. Either I need to organize it or I need to start using the front door!

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In my hand I hold the December 2007 issue of Real Simple. At roughly $5 a pop, it’s not a magazine I frequently buy. Or ever, really. But back in November, I was stuck in the Cleveland airport for an ungodly amount of time, returning from a business trip, and I decided to pick up a copy. I’d been meaning to take a deeper look at this magazine, which at first glance struck me as not particularly real or simple. I figured that, if nothing else, my $5 investment would net me a good Spendthrift Sunday article.

I was not disappointed.

First of all, like many magazines, it’s in large part ads. 215 of the magazine’s 396 pages contained ads – most of those 215 ads were whole-page or multiple page ads. That’s right – 55% of the magazine was advertising. This is not counting the inside back and front covers, which were also ads; or the fact that most of the articles, were, in fact, product recommendations. Let’s take a look at some of these articles:

“How sweet it is” gives details on holding a cookie decorating party. This party is incomplete, of course, without bakery boxes ($1.30 a pop), copper cookie cutters ($13 a pop), and for that very special holiday cheer, Wilton cookie icing ($4.50).

“Your days are numbered,” a feature on using your calendar effectively, featuring ‘Real Simple picks’ such as a $31 “6-inch personal pocket journal.” But wait! It can be embossed! And has city maps!

“Black magic,” a fashion spread of “little black dresses” – including one for $1,130, and several in the $400-700 range.

Let us not forget the ever-helpful “Real Simple To-Do” list at the back (2 1/2 pages), which offers a handy-dandy guide to all the advertisements found within the pages. This is followed by another four pages of “Simply shopping,” with even more items to lust after, such as a device to “scan, read, and organize” your receipts. Because I guess, if you’re reading this magazine and buying $1,000 dresses, you need to be clipping coupons, amirite?

In case you’re wondering who is behind this drivel, look no farther than Steve Sachs, the publisher of Real Simple. Apparently he’s been quite good for the company. Of course, some of the articles about him highlight what Real Simple is really about:

One of Sachs’s biggest successes has come in an area that most consumer marketers are finding difficult to tap into: Partnership marketing. As Real Simple’s consumer marketing director, Sachs oversaw the development of partnerships with companies such as Coca-Cola, Pottery Barn, and Whole Foods-partnerships that netted the magazine more than 200,000 new subs.

Partnership marketing. Who is profiting from my $5 “investment” in this rag? Not only Steve Sachs, apparently, but Coca-Cola, Pottery Barn, Whole Foods, and others. Unsurprisingly, you find advertisements for all three of these in the pages of December 2007′s issue.

Since I work in advertising, in my own way, I love taglines. Real Simple’s tagline is “life made easier.” This life appears, then, to be a life of unitaskers – a world where no product can stand in for another; where we need exactly the “best product for dry skin,” exactly the right cleaning products from Target, exactly the right cookie icing. However, it is telling that none of these articles say much about where to store your cookie icing when you’re done with it, unless it’s to sell you a cookie icing organizer. It doesn’t mention that you’ll need to dust that new tchotchke, except, perhaps, to recommend an environmentally-unfriendly, non-biodegradable product with which to dust it. The entire magazine is based on the premise that stuff will make your life easier; but doesn’t recognize the kind of escalation that results from this attitude, that ultimately, you will need more stuff to solve the problems the stuff caused in the first place.

Interestingly, the average American doesn’t need to turn to a $5 magazine to tell them how to simplify their lives. Voluntary Simplicity, the seminal work of the VS moment, tells the stories of many individuals who managed to simplify their life. In large part they did it by turning of the stuff machine and tuning out the advertising drivel.

But that isn’t as sexy, and doesn’t sell slick magazines, does it?

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This is a question that has bothered me since I started this blog: if money were no object, would I still want to live frugally and simply? I mean, it’s only voluntary simplicity if it’s voluntary, right?

Well, one could argue I don’t live all that frugally or simply now – this blog has always been about the journey, and currently the best I can do is to live out of sync with the consumerist culture I inhabit. When I think of the crushing weight of my mortgage, it’s handy to reflect on women who spend upwards of $1,000 a month on their beauty routine.

I think the conclusion I’ve come to is this: If I were independently wealthy, I would “invest” more heavily in sensual, temporary pleasures. I would do almost no cooking or eating at home, unless Matt was moved to make one of his extra-special dinners. I would buy a subscription to a tea-of-the-month club. I would buy more perfume oils. This stems from an observation that my joy results not from having stuff, but from fleeting experiences. Some of my happiest moments have been sitting in bed with a cup of tea, reading H.P. Lovecraft, and smelling the warm blend of smells coming from my bureau, where I keep my perfumes.

Most importantly, though, I would harness the extra money to break the chains of full-time employment. I don’t mean I would necessarily quit my job – but I wouldn’t live in fear of being fired, and I wouldn’t be afraid to pursue my passions. Work can be transformational when you’re not afraid.

But if I were wealthy, I would still use the public library, in part because I find it such a welcoming place. I would still go to garage sales. I would still not buy a gym membership. I can’t imagine investing more in my beauty regime – I’ve never worn makeup, never shown much of an interest in fashion, and my idea of “put-together” is clean and with clothes that match.

On some level I worry that every cent I spend above my basic needs is snatching food out of the mouths of poor children. But down-shifting is so much more difficult than improving the quality of life. We are constantly swayed to improve the quality of our life, and it takes a great deal of conscious effort to examine our crap and decide it doesn’t fit with the person we want to be.

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It’s happened to most of us before – we’re commuting to work, listening to the radio and the sound of our stomaches grumbling, when we hear a commercial. Maybe it’s for a candy bar, a breakfast sandwich, or the newest latte – but suddenly we start craving whatever it is being advertised.

Or maybe that doesn’t describe you at all. Maybe you’re savvy to the way advertising works, and you just say to yourself, “Meh, I can have a (free) cup of coffee when I get to the office and some oatmeal.” You drive on, smug in how you avoided the trap that millions of others fall prey to.

Most advertising, though, is more insidious than this; it preys on emotion more than base needs. I work selling colleges to high school students and their parents, and I know that what we aim for is not to sell facts – 13:1 student:faculty ratio, hands-on learning experience, study abroad opportunities – but the idea that a student will fit in there; that it will feel like home.

Advertising fills your mind and heart and displaces your values. That may sound extreme, but hear me out:
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Dairyman Crick’s household of maids and men lived on comfortably,
placidly, even merrily. Their position was perhaps the happiest of
all positions in the social scale, being above the line at which
neediness ends, and below the line at which the convenances begin
to cramp natural feelings, and the stress of threadbare modishness
makes too little of enough.

– Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

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Have you started thinking about Christmas yet? I’ve already started dreading it. I haven’t quite figured out what I like the least – getting gifts I don’t need or want, or giving gifts that other people don’t need or want.

It might seem early, but now is the time to start thinking about how you want to celebrate Christmas. This will ensure that you have enough time to plan a relaxing season with family and friends, rather than a season of conspicuous consumption.

Here are some tips for fitting your own ethical sensibilities into an over-commercialized season:

1. Make your home a no-giving zone. Start early – it’s no good telling Aunt Jeannie that you don’t plan to exchange gifts when that lumpy green sweater is already in the mail. Similarly, if you plan to spend the holidays with someone, you want to set up the gift-giving rules early. Last year in my home my husband’s parents and my mother agreed that they would not exchange gifts. If you send out a family newsletter each year, you may want to send it earlier and include the announcement that due to (financial situation, awareness of poverty in the world, disgust with consumerism, etc) you are refraining from gift giving this year, and that likewise, you don’t wish to receive any gifts in return. I find that most adults are relieved to find out that they don’t have to purchase Yet Another Gift, not dismayed.

2. Give to charity, not to each other. This is another way to harness the family newsletter—use it to announce that instead of giving individual gifts this year, you have used the money to buy a herd of goats for a third-world country. Heifer.org and the International Fund for Animal Welfare are just two charities that allow you to “itemize” your charitable gift according to what benefits it buys (i.e. $50 buys a neuter for a dog). This is good idea if you’re worried about keeping up appearances by giving a certain amount—I doubt the recipient will go online to price a herd of goats.

3. Suggest a regift swap. I successfully implemented this idea in my book club last year. In this kind of swap everyone contributes a perfectly good item that they don’t need. You can distribute the gifts via any method that works for you: secret Santa, grab bag, Yankee swap. I daresay our book club had more fun with this than we ever would with a new gift swap, perhaps because the nature of the gifts meant that nobody minded so much having a copy of Scattergories or a set of garden gnomes stolen from them, Yankee-swap style.

4. Start a gift-free tradition. Sometime in the week before Christmas, we like to have some friends over for a party. We make it clear that the purpose is not to exchange gifts. We pop popcorn and string them on strings with cranberries and make orange pomanders, listen to Christmas music, and eat Christmas cookies (everybody brings their own). The point is to enjoy each other’s company without an outpouring of consumerism.

5. Decorate green, decorate cheap. There are so many inexpensive ways to decorate in Christmas that don’t involve the consumption of a tree. My fondest Christmas memory is of a day in winter when I was very small and my mother stayed home with me to do Christmas crafts. We made garlands out of old wrapping paper, found pine branches from the woods and set them in jars, and made orange pomanders. Some other Christmas crafts you might want to try are:

• Paper snowflakes
• Washable window painting
• Christmas tree tomato trellises: take a cone-shaped tomato trellis and bend the pointy bits that go into the dirt down onto themselves to form a rough tree shape. Drape with lights and use it to decorate your porch or front lawn. Alternately, you can also reuse your Christmas tree to make tomato trellises!

6. If you have to give, give consumables. Everybody loves chocolate, wine, or other luxury foods. Other items that will be used, such as soap, lotion – or, hey, CFL bulbs – are alternatives to gifts that will sit on a shelf.

7. Make and give homemade. The beauty of homemade gifts is that they usually cost less than store-bought gifts while providing recipients with a one-of-a-kind, homemade item. Last year, many people on our Christmas list received homebrew beer for exactly this reason. Our spiced Belgian-style ale was quite popular in a cold winter!

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Does perhaps a balance stand
Between the Devil on one hand
And God on the other, which must be gained
As often as lost, and so maintained?–
And what I love as my own soul
I spit upon–to make me whole?

- Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Journal”

We are imperfect creatures. Voluntary simplicity and frugality are certainly my goals, but sometimes I fall short of the mark. This post is my own way of balancing the scales; of assessing what my husband and I do right as well as what we do wrong.

Ways I Simplify

1. I use simple cleaners (such as vinegar/water or diluted Simple Green), with rags, for most of my cleaning needs.
2. I compulsively reuse. Plastic grocery bags become litter cleanout bags. Litter tubs become planters. Plastic tubs for food are washed out and used again. I have rows of raspberry syrup bottles cleaned out and ready to reuse for gifts somedays.
3. I love my library – so much so that I have almost stopped buying books entirely. We also borrow books and DVDs from our friends.
4. We don’t have a land line – just two cell phones. They’re basic cell phones, too – no smart phones here, although they’re tempting.
5. My husband and I carpool to work 3-4 times a week.
6. I almost always bring my own lunch to work. Sometimes, if I forget, I’ll walk down to the nearest supermarket and pick up some lunch supplies, instead.
7. We make use of Freecycle, Craigslist, yard sales, and the kindness of family and friends for many of our needs. We just got a working Toro snowblower through Freecycle!
8. We only go to the movies two or three times a year The last movie I saw in a theatre was the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
9. I reuse tea bags at least twice; sometimes three times. Surprisingly, the most inexpensive teas are most often the ones that are stuffed with tea and can be reused again and again.
10. We don’t have kids, and don’t intend to. We’re staunchly childfree, and I don’t see the point—ecologically, economically, or philosophically—in bringing another methane-belching living thing with a 70 year lifespan into the world. Plus, we’re having too much fun without them.

Ways I Complicate
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The next time the radio digs it up, pay attention to the lyrics of Sheryl Crow’s “Soak Up the Sun.”. You’ll be surprised by the message of voluntary simplicity this song sends:

It’s not having what you want
It’s wanting what you’ve got

Apparently Sheryl Crow attracted quite a bit of attention this year when she forwarded the suggestion that a limitation be put on how much toilet paper is used. She and No-Impact Man should together. I’m sure they would have plenty to talk about.

What’s playing on your voluntary simplicity/frugality radio?

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