Day 14- The Story of Stuff

I made a list of things I want to buy and tried to figure out why I want them:

• Toms shoes ($44-69)
• They look cool and are really comfortable (and the "cool" shoes I have now actually are falling apart)
• New iPod ($179)
• I have been too lazy to program iTunes to only put certain songs on my iPod, therefore I have run out of memory
• Wallet ($15-25)
• I tell myself that if I have a wallet that I can easily store cash in I will spend less money
• Add in Birkenstock sandals ($80), running shorts ($20-30), running backpack ($72-90), bicycle basket ($30-40)...........

That's $440-513. Plus tax & shipping. And the list could easily go on (I didn't even touch on wanting a Macbook or rock climbing equipment).

It would take me 52-60 hours to make enough money to afford all this. That's one-and-a-half to almost two weeks of work, between 7 and 9 days of working, gone to support my consumerism.

My reasons given for why I want these things are not meant to justify my desire- it's just me being honest, trying to figure out what drives this insanity.

Which leads me to a video that everyone should watch: The Story of Stuff

"We're in this ridiculous situation where we go to work, maybe two jobs even and we come home and we're exhausted so we plop down on our couch and watch TV and the commercials that tell us "You suck!" so we go to the mall, buy something to feel better and then you've got to go to work more to pay for the stuff you just bought so you come home and you're more tired so you sit down and watch more TV that tells you to go to the mall again and we're on this crazy work-watch-spend treadmill and we could just STOP."

Total spent so far: $251.16

(Spent $18.68 on lunch that I owed a friend- I bought food for myself too because it felt too weird to buy him food but not eat and another $10.08 on groceries. My friend Anna covered my birthday dinner! Thanks Anna!)