Public Spending

Can buying be in service?

Everywhere I go, there are countless discussions about making money. There are just straight up “winning is the ultimate goal” kinds of conversations, “how can we make money doing good” speculations, or “how can I do what I want and get paid” aspiration. Whether we we’re trying to make millions or make ends meet, making money seems to be the primary focus of public discourse around personal finances.

What about spending money, though?

I’m curious about the idea of spending in service. Of looking at what I’m spending money on, even being transparent about what I’m spending on, and asking myself if that spending serves my purpose.

I think it might be interesting to discover my judgements about my own and others’ spending. Even without knowing about other people’s incomes, their spending is so interesting. I can find myself wondering, “can they afford that?” Either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ yields possible judgements that tell me something about me.

What’s more, I think we’re very trained in our current context to regard spending money as a balm, as therapeutic. It’s seen as self-deprivation when we don’t buy things we want, ‘if we have the money.’ There’s incredible amounts of compare-and-despair when we hear someone spent money “on themselves”.

So-called “consumer spending” in the US is rising. On the other hand, there are downward trends in giving money to charity.

There are megatons of trash resulting from all our packaged products, disposables, and fast fashions. Nearly all our food now contains plastics. Manufacturing and transporting stuff accounts for incredible amounts of energy depletion and environmental pollution. No amount of recycling could offset all the stuff we’re buying and throwing away.

I look around and see all the tangible things accumulating in the places where I dwell. Some things have not involved in transactions at all, like rocks I picked up on a beach. Some of those things I didn’t pay for, but someone did. Mostly though, these are things I purchased, and it can be surprising to think of all that buying and time considering purchases, not to mention the truckloads (literally) of things I have taken to thrift stores, in all my various moves. At the moment, we have a somewhat limited landfill contribution (less than a bin every four weeks) but over the course of a lifetime, my gracious, my pile of trash must be house-sized.

I have work to do here. I have moved in a more intentional direction over time, but perhaps I can incorporate more accountability. Not to say ‘spending less’ per se, but instead, being aware and intentional with the things I spend on. Maybe even begin a collaborative practice.

What are the questions I want to ask about spending money?

  1. Will the money I’m spending go to support people and purposes that matter to me?
  2. Is this the best alternative or am I sacrificing my values in some way for convenience?
  3. How much waste will I be contributing to by spending on this thing? (Including intangeables like energy use).
  4. Would I be OK to share that I am spending on this with my friends, family, or colleagues? (Of course, this might turn out to be more of a reflection on who I am involved with, or residual shame, rather than what I’m buying.)
  5. What would happen if I didn’t spend on this? Is there something I could do with this money that would fuel my purpose?

I’m not advocating being totally public about spending, since we’re living in a context where such information will only be weaponised to shame or to sell us more things. We already give corporations with vested interests in our spending transparency in pretty self-defeating ways. But I wonder what would happen if a few of us came together and accounted for our spending (and even time) with one another, purely with curiosity and wonder. Not like “I shouldn’t have done this” but more like “what can I learn about myself through what I’m putting money into.”

Some of the ways this kind of thinking can manifest can be precious or privleged. But I think these questions allow me to consider my intentions regardless of the options at hand. I will never be without compromise or escape complicity as I spend money. Things are just too interdependent. If I were to do this in a group, there would be interesting ways to practice my powerlessness over other people’s choices. I think we would need to agree that whatever we share about our spending, it’s no one else’s job to police, judge, or take a holier-than-thou attitude.

Despite feeling a strong sense of purpose, I am still reserving brain space for things like, “I need a pair of black pants that look good but can be machine washed” and “I want to eat at that fancy restaurant at least once.” It seems I’m always needing this or that at some low level of awareness. What if I had that time back to dance, write, design, walk, call a friend, or read a poem? When I was struggling with an eating disorder in my 20s, I used to think, ‘if I just thought about it as much as I do about my thighs, the problem of nuclear fusion might be solved.’ What brilliance could emerge if I stopped thinking about wanting things?

For today, perhaps I will just start tracking the things I spend on and the time I spend thinking about spending on something, especially the terrible morass of trying to research purchases that are fairly irrelevant anyway. (The best minds of my generation have read way too many Wirecutter articles). Maybe we’ll make a club. Money, in its most pure and wonderful form, is merely a mechanism of collaboration, and I want to make things together.

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