I found this article interesting: 17 Ways Consumers are Changing.
While I have been a consumer for basically as long as I've had allowance money (even if I bought very little with it for most of my childhood, I did occasionally part with it), I have only recently developed into a weekly shopper, seeing as I need to at least buy groceries once a week. Since I was immediately thrust into my new role as a wife during the recession, and while living on one income, I quickly sought out ways to save money. We had a paper that came to us every Sunday with coupons that I would clip (unfortunately, it only comes sporadically now). I would compare brands and prices, and tried to decide if it was worth sticking with the brands I grew up with, or if the store brand would work just as well. And as the article explained, several of the store brands are actually pretty good, and I will probably stick with them for some things even when I have a little bit more money to spend. I mean, why not, if it's cheaper but just as good?
Garrett and I have learned to live without certain things we're used to or have been wanting, but we usually don't miss them. We only have a few channels instead of full-out cable, and while I miss What Not to Wear and occasionally other shows, I'm happy that we're saving money in this area for now. I have always wanted a DVR or Tivo and Netflix (which actually isn't that expensive... I may try out one of their free trials one day) but if we miss a show we can catch it online, and on my Mac it looks almost as good as it does on the TV. We can live without renting movies for now, and if we get Netflix one day, we'll have a large list of movies to catch up on, and thus get our money's worth! We used to basically never eat out except with a gift card, though now we are usually doing it about once a week (generally after church). We've never been one to order expensive things on the menu anyways, but as the article points out, special deals at restaurants help out a lot. Also, both sets of parents feed us from time to time, so it almost evens out with the free meals we get.
We don't have curtains for our living room. I haven't gotten my engagement and wedding rings welded together like I had originally planned. I have bought very few new clothes (thankfully my mom has helped me out in that area). My 5 year old laptop is running slow. I want to be able to go to a show at TPAC without feeling like I'm breaking the bank. I'd like a new desk. There's a list of things I can't wait to get once we have the extra money, but I know I won't be going out there and spending it all at once. The truth is I've always been frugal. As I mentioned before, as a kid I was saving up my allowance money for who-knows-what. I don't know how much will change after I have a job, and after the recession. Maybe Netflix, cable, some new clothes, and a special treat every now and then, but I'm still going to be as wise as I can with our money. And I think a lot of Americans are learning to live that way now. Hopefully they'll stick with it after the economy bounces back. We're always going to want more, no matter how much we have, so we need to realize there's nothing wrong with living with a little less. As the article mentioned, maybe we will stick with our new definition of success.
3 comments:
It's definitely interesting to see what you can live without once you have to. When john and I go out to eat, it's usually to Chili's (where you can get three courses for $20), Logan's (where you can get two entrees for 13.99), and Zaxby's (where we can both eat for less than $12). We also have learned that it's o.k. to splurge on some things every once in awhile (i.e. the NFL Sunday Ticket so we could watch Titans games in Floida). I'm thankful that John works for AT&T; otherwise we wouldn't be able to afford DirecTV or the type of internet we have (he gets a pretty hefty discount).
I listened to an episode of This American Life about a year ago (before the recession was in full swing), and Ira Glass interviewed a retail manager who had a good point. While yes, 10% of Americans are out of work, 90% are not, and it is okay to spend money as long as you are being a responsible consumer. Americans continue to choose capitalism over other economic/political systems, but in order for capitalism to work, we have to spend!
I guess I didn't say this clearly, but I'm not against spending. I just think it's always a good idea to be wise with your spending, i.e. not going into debt for junk you don't need, or not establishing a good savings in case you do lose your job. I'll probably spend a little more than I indicated, but I definitely want to be a wise and responsible consumer, like the retail manager said.
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