Enough is Enough

August has been the month of things breaking down. First it was our house air conditioning, unfortunately a must-have in Southern California. Also unfortunate was the news that we needed an entire HVAC system, and it would cost $20,000 to install. Then my car decided it wanted to act up. Another couple grand. The last straw was the refrigerator going out. I decided the mechanical gods hated us and opened a bottle of pinot noir.

Thankfully, said refrigerator is our back-up which lives in the garage, so beyond some meat we’d been storing in the freezer, we didn’t lose a lot. This led to a discussion about whether we wanted to try and fix the fridge. My first instinct was to say yes since it’s nice to have somewhere to keep supplies for entertaining or for over stock of frozen foods, but then I thought more about it.

1. Our household doesn’t need this refrigerator and trying to fix it would take more money.
2. We pay for electricity every month to operate this appliance and it’s become something to maintain.
3. There might be more room to park my car if we got rid of the fridge.
4. Why isn’t one refrigerator enough?

The urge to purge

I grew up as a “saver” a personality trait that has its good points—retirement funds—but also meant that I was forever shoring up goods in anticipation of need. I started to really tackle this characteristic a few years ago when my now-husband and I moved in together. Suddenly there was someone questioning my need to save seven bent cookie sheets and boxes of cords for electronics that no longer existed. At first I was defensive—yes, it’s true that we’ve only used those sleeping bags twice in 15 years, but what if we suddenly become campers? In truth, the more I purged, the better I felt.     

When we purchased our house together two years ago, the footprint was a lot smaller than I was used to. So, we donated A LOT of stuff—carloads of books, dishes, clothes, toys, accessories, décor, furniture. In my mind I was Marie Kondo reincarnated. I took before and after photos of my kitchen drawers and showed them to friends. I bet you can guess what happened next. We bought more stuff.

Now instead of my house being full of unused items, the clutter has moved to the garage. I might be better at purging than I used to be, but I haven’t cut back enough on accumulating. My daughter called me out on this the other day when I said that we should go back-to-school shopping. In that superior tone that teenagers like to use, she informed me that she had plenty of clothes and school supplies, and that we didn’t need to waste money.

Initially this did not compute in my brain, since I grew up taking for granted that trying on scratchy sweaters in August and buying reams of notebook paper was a necessary rite of passage. But when I was a kid, you could count on getting clothes twice a year—during back-to-school shopping and Christmas. God help you if you grew a bunch. No parent going to Mervyns in March unless they absolutely had to.

That’s not the case for many people nowadays. Shopping, buying, consuming is a national pastime. I used to go to Target or TJ Maxx on my lunch break out of boredom and—what do you know—I would find something I wanted and buy it. I shudder to think how much money I’ve spent at Amazon. That two-day shipping is a blessing and a curse.

When do we have enough?

Experts say that when we acquire something new, our brains get rewarded with a rush of dopamine which makes us feel happy and in control. We also chase novelty to distract us from the repetitive nature of responsibility that comes with being an adult. Throw in the constant onslaught of advertisements that we’re subjected to every day, and you have a perfect storm that creates the cycle of accumulation.

The good news is that we can retrain our brains to appreciate what we already have by figuring out what we value. For example, if sustainability is important to you, thinking about the energy or waste used to produce something might be enough to stop an impulse purchase. If you want to give your kids a better life, then researching investments might be a better use of your resources than buying a new toy.  

I try to practice gratitude regularly. Anytime I start to daydream about all the things I want, I force myself to meditate on what I already have. This ritual also reflects a larger philosophy that I’ve tried to embrace in midlife: enoughness. Obviously, I’m aware that enoughness is not technically a word, but for me it embodies a deliberate move from “there is never enough” thinking to believing “there is always enough.” I have enough. I am enough. I will not endlessly hoard in a futile effort to stave off death. More is not better. Enough is enough.

Shopping rules

I’m not trying to tell you that I’ve become a perfect minimalist, but I have created deeper mindfulness around my shopping habits. In order to curb my spending and use what I already have, I’ve started instituting the following five rules around spending.

1. No shopping as a hobby. I don’t go into a store now unless I need something specific. Until recently my guilty pleasure has been finding treasures in thrift stores, but even if something only costs $5 it’s still a waste of money if you don’t use it.
2. Ask yourself: what does this achieve? Will this purchase solve a problem, make your life better in some way, or further a specific goal? Be honest: do you already have something that is similar that you could either use instead or get rid of?
3. Do the space inventory. How long do you plan to use this purchase? Do you want to store it inside the house or somewhere else? Can you fit this into your life without creating clutter? Would you give something up to acquire this?
4. No using online shopping to try on clothes. I’ve gotten into the bad habit of buying a bunch of clothing options online and swearing that I’ll return the things I don’t like. But then life gets in the way and suddenly I’m left with a bunch of ill-fitting garments that I end up giving away. Now, I force myself to try stuff on in the store and only leave with something if I really love it.
5. Use the 48-hour rule. Making intentional purchases requires time to reflect and research. It’s so easy to get swept up in the rush of a 50% off sale or to have a bad day and decide that new red stilettos will make everything better. If I’m at all undecided on making a purchase, I’ll wait 48 hours before buying it. If I still want it after a couple of days, I’ll pull the trigger. No impulse purchases.

I’m hoping that using these rules will help me to craft and curate a life and a space that I’m proud of. I’m hoping that when I die, my family isn’t forced to excavate decades of worthless trash I’ve accumulated “just in case.” And I’m hoping that someday I can park my car in the garage.

Main image Jakob Owens at Unsplash.