Ever hit the ‘buy button’ too many times despite best intentions? Black Friday deals, BOGO offers and the holiday season can lure us to purchase. How can we be more conscious of our buying decisions and act in integrity when we aren’t?
As I pull into my driveway, I see them. Normally, they arrive in fewer numbers and days in between. Now, they are here daily: the uneven stacks of padded envelopes in assorted colors, brown cardboard boxes of small, medium and large sizes and even cellophane wrapped items.
As I walk up to the haul, I think, Ugh. What did I buy?
It’s a familiar resolution I hold every holiday season: “This year, I am not buying as much.” Spending money unnecessarily bothers me increasingly. I want to build wealth and have to be more fiscally responsible since my separation. I care about environmental impact and, in general, want to own less. More often, I want to love the discretionary purchases I make and not buy when I don’t.
When I do buy (always, things I can afford), I try to use a filter for evaluating my purchases:
This screener has positively influenced my spending decisions. With the start of this year’s holiday season, I made my usual resolution, committed to using my filter.
But looking at the piles of packaging at my doorstep, it seems my framework failed.
That’s because, per usual, my discipline and intentionality evaporates over Black Friday weekend. I guess I can’t resist a deal (or the perception of one). The scarcity sales tactics, targeted Instagram ads and timed deals get me. And so, I purchase. I don’t spend risky amounts on things I cannot afford. Rather, it is the stray from my values that is bothersome.
This misalignment comes to life in the days after Cyber Monday with the entryway of my home mimicking a tiny corner of an UPS warehouse.
As I sort my haul, in my closet when kids sleep to not only hide their surprises but hide my contradictory advice around mindful purchasing, I notice a theme to my purchases:
The first two categories are generally aligned with my values. I don’t feel guilty for having purchased toothbrush heads or updating worn out wardrobe. Rather, it is the last category, the midlife health-wellness-beauty-luxe-indulge yourself-cozy categories that, I realize, throws me out of alignment.
As I unbox, I can see that I have fallen into the marketing trap targeting women everywhere. Messages that blanket us, luring us to spend our wealth, waste our time chasing youth, beauty and better health through powders, pills and potions. Collagen powders, shiny gua sha tools (now we need one for our bodies) and clothing to complete my “holiday look” lured me out of integrity.
I took the bait.
Sitting on the floor of my closet, surrounded by jars, pills and fancy black sweaters, what I recognize is a heap of products aimed at my mid-life insecurities. In my 20s, I spent frivolously on clothing and shoes to prop up my sense of self worth. I have redirected this same not-comfortable-with-myself energy to beauty, wellness and luxe items targeted towards women.
I’m going to return some of this, I resolve.
Sometimes this is how you learn: your mistakes laid out across your floor (like above) so you physically see the lesson. Box by box, I held each purchase in my hand, reflected upon my screeners and looked collectively at the assortment. What serves me? What makes me feel good with a clear conscience? For it isn’t about avoiding consumption, but the integrity behind my choices and the energy, too.
Money is not just necessary and useful, I believe, it is a dynamic representation of our beliefs. Our choices around money are part of a larger web. The more we are unintentional with our time, money and energy the more we act in misalignment. In subtle ways, we may also continue to propagate unhelpful values in the world by commercially and energetically supporting them.
Instead, when we are intentional with money – investing it, using discretion with it and consciously consuming it, our financial behaviors become aligned with our spiritual beliefs, and our money works for us and carries positive energetic weight. It is this motivation that invites me to take another look at my purchases and let go of some.
Now as I leave my house, there are more boxes piled up at the doorstep. This time, containing shipments going back to the retailer.
This holiday season, I invite you to explore the why behind your buying. If not fulfilling your most important values, consider not hitting the ‘buy’ button. Or, if you do, wait until the new year to assess, filter and send some of the products back – giving new meaning to the term free(ing) returns.
