Throughout my life, I have always been one to save money. This habit has benefited me with not over buying when shopping, always asking myself, do I really need this? I am always trying to save money as well as not be wasteful or over indulgent, but I have learned that I am not immune to the endless ads that I cross paths with everyday through Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Emails.
In Part One of this post, I take a look at a couple weeks of my life and look at my habits, activities, and purchases made. In Part Two, I reflect, and look at what changes I can make in my daily life to look at what is really necessary, considering the difference between wants and needs.
Part One: Daily Journal of Consumption
Monday, October 23, 2023: Regular work day. Purchase of Chef’s Plate Meal Delivery service was delivered, which consists of supplies for three dinner meals.
Tuesday, October 24, 2023: Regular work day, no purchases made.
Wednesday, October 25, 2023: Regular work day, no purchases made.
Thursday, October 26, 2023: Regular work day, no purchases made.
Friday, October 27, 2023: Regular work day, curling in the evening. No purchases made.
Saturday, October 28, 2023: Attended Bowling Social in the evening- purchased dinner at McDonald’s on the way. Purchased one drink at the event and purchased silent auction tickets (didn’t win anything). Saw a sponsored post on Instagram about a magazine that I was tempted to purchase from Celebrity Magazines.com that was a memory book of the Taylor Swift concert I attended in June. (Did not end up purchasing it)
Sunday, October 29, 2023: Costco winter tires purchase. Bought lunch at Costco while waiting for tires to be changed. While at Costco, I bought regular groceries and bought Pokémon Halloween cards (an unnecessary purchase, but was on sale) for my students. In the afternoon, I delivered the 70 pumpkins to my school that I grew in my garden. I stopped at the car wash and washed the car and purchased dinner on the road at the local convenience store in town for the way home.
Monday, October 30, 2023: Purchase of Chef’s Plate Meal Delivery service was delivered, which consists of supplies for three dinner meals. Started to feel ill in the evening and missed yoga.
Tuesday, October 31, 2023: Woke up feeling very ill, could not go into work.
Wednesday, November 1, 2023: Ill, could not go into work.
Thursday, November 2, 2023: Ill, could not go into work. Online order arrived: Custom doormats with our cat’s picture on it, warning people to not open the door as he will escape.
Friday, November 3, 2023: Ill, could not go into work. Had to miss a concert I had already paid for.
Saturday, November 4, 2023: Ill, had to miss movie I had already purchased ticket for.
Sunday, November 5, 2023: Ill, slowly starting to get better. Purchased tickets to the “Beyond Monet Experience” which is an event happening in December.
Monday, November 6, 2023: Went to work for half a day, was still ill so went home early. Spent the afternoon resting. Online purchase arrived: “The Big Cheese” picture book (purchase made for my classroom teaching). I have all of the other books in this picture book series and use them as a mentor text for a writing project for my students.
Chef’s Plate Meal Delivery Service got delivered which include meal kits for three dinners.
Tuesday, November 7, 2023: Regular work day, got a last-minute doctor appointment. Went to Costco to fill prescription and did some grocery shopping. Purchased new windshield wiper blades, cat treats, kombucha, frozen pizza, pears, and dish soap refill. Most of these items were on the list to purchase but some were influenced by sales.
Wednesday, November 8, 2023: Regular work day, no purchases made.
Thursday, November 9, 2023: Snow Day, so no school! No purchases made. (Unfortunately, I did not receive a code to purchase tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour in Vancouver happening next December, so I was unable to purchase these tickets. I would have otherwise.)
Friday, November 10, 2023: Regular work day, purchased outdoor composter from Amazon (had been watching the price for a few months and a warehouse sale went on today, so made the purchase).
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Throughout these two weeks, I have been bombarded by ads from nearly all social media platforms I have including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Email. Although I did not make any purchases from any of the Ads that I came across, they are very good (most of the time) at tailoring the Ads to things that I am interested in or of similar products that I have purchased in the past.
Instagram ads: My most used App. I counted an ad between every 3-5 posts from people/pages I chose to follow. Some of the Ads were from: Prose, Chatbooks, dysportcanada, llbean, poppy_peonies, thepawfecthouse, retrokid_to, gossbyglobal, sheertex, halara_offivial, the list goes on…
As you can see, these were just some of the Ads that I came across within a 4 minute time span on Instagram. While unfollowing some accounts that are mainly used for advertising can help, that doesn’t eliminate the Sponsored posts that come up between the posts from people you follow.
Facebook Ads: I get an ad between every five posts of people/pages I follow. Some of the companies I received ads from are: Prose, Halara Leggings, Audible, Halara, BloomChic Dress, WayFair. (I have never purchased anything from any of these companies before.)
YouTube: I pay for a YouTube Premium subscription which means that I don’t see the banner ads and the commercials that play at the start and throughout the videos, but many of the YouTube channels I watch are sponsored by a product or company that the Youtuber is paid to advertise and promote their product.
Emails from the following companies (some of these sending daily emails) advertising products or sales happening in their stores: Popflex, American Coaching Academy, Clarks Shoes, Modo Yoga, Novel Effect, Vita Health, Signatures Handmade Market, Cineplex, WhattaCharmer, Bath & Body Works Canada, Scene +, Scholastic Book Clubs, Reitmans, cuddle+kind, Not So Wimpy Teacher.
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Part 2: Reflection and Goals
After looking at various aspects of my spending and consumption habits for a couple weeks, I have learned that although I am tempted, I do not often make the purchases of items that advertisers hit me with. Also, it turns out that being sick and not leaving home, really reduces the need to make purchases, which is what happened to me one of the weeks I was documenting my spending habits.
Mulligan’s chapter on Consumption and Consumerism is a good starting point for anyone looking to begin taking a critical look at your own consumption habits and looking at the hidden costs that come with living in a society that is known for over consuming. Simply being more mindful of the purchases you are making, using up what you have first, and trying to repair instead of buying can make a big difference.
Going forward changes to make:
Goal: change how Christmas gifts look at home
With the holidays approaching, I find November and December to be some of the hardest months for over consumption with food, treats, drinks, and often frivolous purchases in the name of gift giving. One change that I have started in the past two years with my husband is giving the gift of experiences instead of physical gifts. For example, last year I picked out two unique restaurants that we have never been to and gave a note with cash to be spent at that restaurant. The cash was an intentional choice over a gift card to the restaurant to avoid the plastic of the physical gift card as well as to eliminate the need to spend extra to use the full amount of the gift card, as these are places that we wouldn’t normally go to. I received tickets to a comedy show that I would normally not have justified purchasing the tickets for. We both appreciated the thought that went into picking out the restaurants and activity and are looking forward to this year’s activities.
Goal: Lessen Instagram usage and unfollow pages that are solely advertising for products
Every so often I go through all of the pages that I follow and unfollow the ones that are mainly advertising or ones that I feel are influencing me to make purchases that are not necessary in my life. I plan on increasing the frequency in which I unfollow these accounts and hopefully this will end up in not being on the platform as much. In line with the unfollowing of pages on Instagram, I need to go through my emails and unsubscribe from the many companies that got my email address to slowly reduce the amount of emails that I get everyday.
Goal: Composting
I am sad to admit that I have only diligently started composting all of my indoor food waste this summer with the purchase of a FoodCycler machine through my local municipality. This device has made composting indoor waste much simpler and the compost is ready to be put into the garden after a few hours of being in the machine. Over the winter I will store the finished compost in a bin, and work it into the garden in the spring. One of my recent purchases I made in the past week is a large rotating composter which will be used for outdoor plant and garden waste. I am excited to get started on the outdoor compost in the spring.
Goal: Eating locally and more seasonally
One of the reasons for moving outside of the city was for the increased yard and garden size. The book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver is an inspiration for supporting local and eating seasonally. In this book, we follow Barbara and her family in their journey of eating locally, seasonally and growing and preserving their own food. Although this concept is very challenging for those of us to live in colder climates to simply go without the foods that you cannot grow locally, it did give me lots to think about, and simply reducing foods that have been imported can make a difference.
It sounds simple, but simply using up items I have in the fridge, freezer, and pantry before buying more, even if it is on sale, is something that I need to work on. One item that I don’t have that my husband and I have been debating between is having a large freezer. On one hand, freezers tend to fill up with items, people forget what they have, and it ends up going bad and freezer burnt. On the other hand, increased freezer size could allow us to store the fruits and vegetables that we grow in our garden and use throughout the winter months, which would reduce the vegetables bought out of season. Both sides have valid points.
These past couple weeks of intentionally reflecting on my consumption habits is an activity that I would recommend to anyone looking to reduce their spending and become aware just how influenced we are by the advertising we are hit with on a daily basis. For those interesting in living more sustainably, the David Suzuki Foundation has many links to articles with practical tips to reduce consumption and live green.
References:
Chung, E. (2019, December 19). The gift-card conundrum: Convenience with ______an environmental cost | CBC News. CBCnews. ______https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-newsletter-gift-card-______holidays-1.5402807
Kingsolver, B., Hopp, S. L., & Kingsolver, C. (2008). Animal, vegetable, _______miracle: a year of food life. 1st Harper Perennial ed. New York; _______Toronto, HarperPerennial.
Living green. David Suzuki Foundation. (2023, October 25). _______https://davidsuzuki.org/living-green/
Mulligan, M. (2018). An Introduction to Sustainability: Environmental, _______Social, and Personal Perspectives. Routledge. _
Tips to help you lower your consumption. David Suzuki Foundation. (2023, _______September 14). https://davidsuzuki.org/living-green/tips-help-lower-_______consumption/
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Sustainability, Creativity, and Innovation: Sustainability in the Classroom 