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The best way to win the war with clutter? Start reining in your spending. After all, it's just stuff. To find a balance in our everyday lives, we need to understand the distinction between our "wants" and our "needs." Needs are those things that are essential to our survival and growth, says Duane Elgin, author of Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (1998, Harper Paperbacks), while wants are the extras that gratify our psychological desires. He continues to write:
For example, we need shelter in order to survive. We may want a huge house with many extra rooms that are seldom used. We need basic medical care. We may want cosmetic plastic surgery to disguise the fact that we are getting older. We need functional clothing. We may want frequent changes in clothing style to reflect the latest fashion. We need a nutritious and well-balanced diet. We may want to eat at expensive restaurants. We need transportation. We may want a new Mercedes.When we equate our identity with what we consume by believing the advertiser's fiction that "you are what you consume," Elgin says, we become possessed by our possessions. Here are four consumption criteria he recommends we check our potential purchase against:
1. Does what I own or buy promote activity, self-reliance, and involvement, or does it induce passivity and independence?
2. Are my consumption patterns basically satisfying, or do I buy much that serves no real need?
3. How tied are my present job and lifestyle to installment payments, maintenance and repair costs, and the expectations of others?
4. Do I consider the impact of my consumption patterns on other people and on Earth?
Lynne Twist, who wrote The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life (2003, W. W. Norton & Company), has a simpler test: Before you whip out your wallet, ask yourself, "Would I buy this if there were no one around to appreciate (or be impressed by) it?"
See also: ::Avoid Shopping Binges, Impulse Buys
Difficulty level: Easy
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