Spending Fast
There’s a time for everything under the sun. A time to spend and a time to not. I’m reminding myself this because we are currently underway with our annual spending fast. We don’t usually remember this an official tradition of ours until late December, when it sets in just how much money we spent on gifts and travel for the holidays. It’s true that we could probably buy a few less gifts or discern better spending habits to prevent initiatives like this, but I am choosing to be happy with our current finances. What’s spent is spent and Basil loves her new ukulele.
I must admit, the desire to habitually buy stuff is not something I am immune from—especially when I’m at CVS. Everything is a little too expensive there, but with every purchase I receive a receipt akin to a scroll with discounts on stuff I might maybe need in the future (at some point). I keep those receipts like one keeps notes from a lover and scheme how I might come back to redeem them in exchange for a kiss (by kiss I mean normally priced products). Is this basically onset gambling? Probably. Will I be parting ways with CVS any time soon? I’m not ready to go there, but I am beginning to reckon with my primal desire for a dopamine hit every time I enter their doors.
All joking aside, this is why I need this spending fast. While I know this in my head, my heart is often tempted to feel like everything would just be easier if we just had more money. Like then we wouldn't need to do these financial resets every January. I know that might not sound very Andrew Tyson of me, who is usually game for growing-oriented-deprivation-initiatives, but old age is tempting my counter-cultural spirit to become soft! So I need to continue reminding myself, there’s a time for everything and quite possibly this time is for me to reflect on what money is even for.
I’m remembering this documentary I saw a few years ago. It tells a story of a man who lives in a nice little trailer and collects cans and bottles to make money. He lives in Vancouver, BC and is able to take advantage of the Canadian recycling infrastructure so he can live a simple life–gardening and writing poetry for the bulk of his time. Most strikingly, the man talks about wealth as a possibility for anyone who has one friend and insists “we should not have to be prisoners of the economic system we live in.”
Regarding the practice of making money, the Vancouver man says: “you don’t need to be greedy about it. Twenty dollars a day, to me, that’s about enough. If I want to acquire something, then I might put a little bit more effort into it, but every time that you put effort into work, and you’re making a little bit of money, you better have a very good plan of what you are going to do with that money because you are using up your life.”
These ideas, so simple and lived, ring profoundly true. They cut through the noise and help me contemplate what I really want from life. I want time with the people I love, time to make art, time to invite wonder into my heart, time to realize I’ve been happy this whole time. Buying things, getting that little hit of adrenaline, doesn’t compare to evening bath time with Basil, playing with her duckies, watching her be utterly joyful to simply splash in the water.
Maybe one day we’ll make more money, maybe one day we’ll make less, but we’ll never be poor. It’s just not possible with the amount of friends we have. There is a time for everything under the sun, and right now that means eating the beans hiding in our cabinets, watering down our shampoo, and remembering what true wealth is. Turns out there’s still no need to store up treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy. Turns out, I’m happy to be doing yet another, unplanned, somewhat necessary, spending fast.
