Ylan Q Mui

Posted: Monday, August 10, 2009, Double X
Link: http://www.doublex.com/section/life/will-“extreme-saving”-improve-your-sex-life

AS many of us tighten our budgetary belts, some people are taking the concept to a new extreme by vowing not to spend any money at all. No movie rentals or drinks with friends. No parking the car at the garage, no newspaper for the subway ride. No groceries, even. This is about more than just pinching a few pennies. This is a consumer detox.

These moratoriums on spending can last a week, a month, or longer. The purpose is, obviously, to save money. But many adherents of the consumer detox are also looking for a deeper meaning. Like monks who fast to bring themselves closer to enlightenment, they are abstaining to clear their minds of superfluous wants that somehow turned into needs. They also hope to reconnect with family and friends by disconnecting from the checkout line. And most of all, they seem to be searching for some lost piece of themselves that got buried under all the junk stuffed into our closets.

The practice presumes that buying stuff is evil or at least a bad habit we should be working to get rid of. But spending money is a fact of life, and it’s virtually impossible to extricate yourself from consumer society. Sure, overspending is a serious problem that can lead to credit card debt and financial ruin, just like overeating can result in diabetes and heart problems. But starvation, in either case, is not a solution.

In 2006, Judith Levine published the book Not Buying It [2], about her year of consumer abstinence. Levine has written several controversial books, including one on our culture’s obsession with protecting children from sexuality. The idea for Not Buying It [2] came during the throes of holiday shopping, when she was overwhelmed by the waste and futility of it all. The same year her book was published, a group called The Compact was founded in California around a similar pledge: not to buy anything new for 12 months.

Both the book and the group sparked intense debate—particularly as reprimands to the country’ growing debt bubble—but remained the domain of progressive hippie-types. Then in February, personal-finance celebrity Liz Pulliam Weston [3], inspired by Not Buying It [2], made the consumer detox more mainstream. In her MSN Money column, she encouraged readers to buy nothing for a month [4] and report back to her. Some of Weston’s followers reported impressive results: They lost 10 pounds. They rekindled the fire with their hubbies. They saved $800. They wanted to keep going. One woman who responded to the challenge included groceries in her moratorium because she had 120 cans of tuna stockpiled in her basement

My interest was piqued when I heard that an old college friend, Asya Johnson Valdez, had embarked on a detox. She and her husband were used to dropping $200 or $300 on dinners with the kids and three-day getaways. But she was laid off in January and decided it was time to get serious about saving. She prepped carefully for her period of abstinence, choosing a month with no birthdays or anniversaries. She even paid all her bills in advance so she could truly go cash-free in June.

She broke her no-spending promise in the first week.

She had to spend $10 on a co-pay for a doctor’s appointment and another $40 on prescriptions. A trip to the emergency room for gall stones cost $50. The washing machine broke. Trying to keep to the spirit if not the letter of the detox, she replaced it with a slightly used one for $100.

I told her those expenses seemed justified. After all, even the most avid detoxer wouldn’t expect her to suffer gall stones in silence. But Valdez said that once she started spending money—on anything—the spell broke. She abandoned the project, took the family to the drive-in, and ordered everyone a round of oyster po-boys. It all unfolded in a vicious cycle, just like they say in AA: She felt guilty about the purchases, so she purchased more, screwing up the whole project.

But with such strict guidelines, screwing up is to be expected. Weston said almost everyone who took her challenge slipped up at least once. Levine’s downfall in her book was a pair of pants. And in a recent interview, she said she has returned to her carefree buying ways, though she now pays off her credit card every month. Trying to extricate yourself from consumerism is like trying to stop breathing, she said.

“When you get right down to it, unless you are growing your own food, cutting your wood, shearing your own sheep and weaving your cloth and making your own clothing, no, there is no way,” she said.

Julia Scott, who writes a blog called Bargain Babe, argues for a different analogy: She thought of her monthlong consumer detox in July like Lent—a lesson in the importance of sacrifice. Her ground rules prohibited discretionary spending but still allowed her to buy necessities like groceries and toiletries and pay her bills.

Scott quickly realized that life without money threatened to be boring. She turned down several dinner invitations and MeetUp events. She allowed herself to accept gifts if they were not out of the ordinary, like the dinner out her husband treats her to every other week. But when her friends invited her to happy hour, her spirits fell. Of course she couldn’t go.

Or could she? She didn’t want the spending moratorium to equal a moratorium on fun. So she ate at home to ward off temptation and braved the happy hour. She ordered a water to be social and tipped the waitress $1 for her time and service—technically breaking the no-spend rule.

Scott said she has tried not to beat herself up about breaking her rules. Imposing a spending moratorium on herself was one thing; making the waitress take part would be another.

“When I enforce my choices on other people, that’s being cheap,” Scott said in an interview.

But every choice we make has consequences, intentional or not. Seven-thousand people got fired from Home Depot because we as a nation decided that now is not the time to remodel the bathroom. Consumer spending drives our economy, and we probably won’t get out of this recession until shopping stops being a dirty word.

The consumer detox is not a sustainable way of life—individually or collectively. It may help you rebalance your financial needs and wants, not to mention your checkbook, but it can also foster unrealistic expectations and induce needless guilt. Though we may try to fight it, we all are consumers. And there is no shame in that.