Confessions of a Reformed Materialist: Eliminating my Shopping Budget

Whether it was the constant intravenous diet of Keeping up with the Kardashians and Real Housewives growing up or simply the experience of going to an all girls’ high school during my most formative years, I used to be — by all definitions of the word — a materialistic person. 

I LOVED shopping. I loved BRANDS. My Louis Vuitton knockoff bag from Limited Too with the repeating “K” initial was my prized possession in elementary school — that is, of course, until I bought myself a REAL Louis Vuitton.

And don’t even get me STARTED on how many of those knockoff “Please Return to Tiffany & Co.” tag necklaces I’ve had in my life.

My parents were always confused (and a little irritated) by my obsession with STUFF — they were frugal (and about as un-materialistic as it gets).

They tried not to enable and support it too much.

They were materialistic in the GOOD way: As in, they were concerned with the actual, legitimate “material” value of products. The type of people who got each other Eddie Bauer gift cards for Christmas.

“That’s cute, guys,” I’d mutter, “But where are my new Uggs?”

I was a monster.

That monster only intensified when I started earning money and got access to a credit card. 

My biggest temptations?

Designer handbags, fast fashion, watches, makeup, and skincare. I was obsessed with anything that conveyed even 3 ounces of status, for reasons I still don’t understand.

I realize now, in retrospect, that a lot of my obsession with brand name goods, trendy clothes, and Chanel makeup had less to do with a wholesome appreciation for luxury goods and more to do with an obsession with conveying a certain image to everyone around me.

(Shocking revelation, I know.)

Status symbol aficionado

My freshman year of college, I had this fabulous, gorgeous roommate who came from a really wealthy family – she drove a sporty white Audi, got her hair and nails done regularly, and had a veritable Sephora pop-up shop in our bathroom. 

She wore Tory Burch shoes almost every day (the pinnacle of wealth, I tell you!) and was constantly bringing home bags of clothes from the nicest stores in Tuscaloosa (which — okay — let’s be realistic, the pickings were slim). 

I so admired and envied her for the ease with which she acquired new things — and for how beautiful and effortless those things seemed to make her life. 

(The grand irony is that this friend actually had a chronic health problem and ended up needing to drop out of school — all that glitters is not gold, obviously.)

I’m clearly oversimplifying the impact that money has on one’s life: But at 18, I saw the girls with David Yurman jewelry, Louis Vuitton bags, and Gucci belts, and I wanted some of that prestige, baby!

The hilarious part about the specific luxury goods I lusted after is that they’re some of the most predictable, ubiquitous expensive shit that women my age wear.

If you made a mood board of 2015-2020 upper middle class white women, that trifecta of items would undoubtedly be on it.

Clearly my desires weren’t very creative — I was just mirroring what I was seeing around me.

So how did I go from chronic over-shopper obsessed with name brands and spending money on status symbols to obsessive investor who spends as little as possible and buys $2 used Birkenstocks off her neighbors?

Well, the confession worth making first is:

That obsession is still buried somewhere in there. 

I still pause and admire the rainbow of Hermés Birkin bags on Keeping Up with the Kardashians re-runs, and if I see a pair of red-bottomed shoes in the wild, I definitely stop and reconsider my entire FI plan: “I could retire early… or I could bag that shit and start rapidly accumulating flashy stilettos!”

I think the only reason it’s been subdued long enough to make solid progress is because I redirected the obsessive energy toward something else: growing my net worth. 

The luxury goods world was one in which I’d never be ahead. Every seasonal release guaranteed that.

But a net worth goal with a definitive endpoint that signaled financial independence? That was a goal that COULD be “won.”

Channeling materialistic energy somewhere else

Because trust me, there IS something obsessive about keeping up with the Joneses.

You’re constantly on the lookout for the next thing – because as we all know, accumulating new stuff is only exciting at first. She’s a beast that needs to be fed constantly to be satisfied.

The energy that used to go into researching whether Chanel or Armani foundation was better shifted to figuring out which investment vehicle is more tax-optimized.

In that way, it’s not so dissimilar — I’d argue it’s just a more productive use of that energy.

But something funny happens when you give yourself permission to opt out of the rat race: a sense of freedom.

It no longer mattered when Chanel launched new makeup products or Louis Vuitton bags popped up on secondhand sites – so much of my mental energy was now mine again. It no longer belonged to leather-bound capitalism.

The compulsions that used to sink me into wormholes about how to spot fake Gucci belts was now free energy to be channeled toward more productive endeavors with longer-term payoffs.

When I stopped judging myself on my ability to embody upper class trends, I regained a truer sense of self

It’s almost like the rubric with which I measured my worth got a new set of rules: Rules that I was freer to establish for myself.

I had a few reorienting revelations – like the fact that, in a lot of ways, having nice things can actually make your life worse.

(Or, at the very least, force inconveniences.)

But that doesn’t mean the little Real Housewife inside me is totally dead – she’s just a lot quieter and less persuasive now (probably because I stopped feeding her a steady diet of window shopping and reality television).

But there are certainly times where I want to buy something (I’ve been eyeing platform Doc Marten Chelsea boots for a few days), and I truly don’t know how to spend money on clothes, shoes, or handbags anymore. It just feels wasteful to me now – like I can’t “unsee” the light.

The irony that I’ve never had more money than I have now and yet feel truly uncomfortable spending it on things that I wouldn’t have thought twice about two years ago isn’t lost on me.

Achieving balance with materialistic tendencies

The interesting thing I’ve noticed about my own bouts of, “Well, shit, maybe I do want these $180 Chelsea boots…” is that – if I give it roughly a week – the desire fades. It passes almost completely.

(Not to the point that I no longer want them at all, but to the point that the compulsive, near-addictive desire goes away – and I can consider the purchase more rationally.)

So much of my shopping back in the day was fueled by my animal brain. I’d have this indescribable desire to purchase something as my psyche rapid-fire explored all the reasons why this thing would improve me or my life, and it’d be almost impossible to deny. I could make the case for just about anything.

In retrospect, I can see that that feeling is just that: a feeling.

It’s an emotion, and emotions pass.

In no particular order over the last few weeks, I’ve felt that emotion about:

• White Birkenstocks

• A new, black Dagne Dover backpack to replace my current one

• The Doc Martens

• Gold hoop earrings

• Those icy diamond infinity bands that Khloe Kardashian always wears

And a few other things.

In the moment, I felt positively gripped by the need – and now, days or weeks later, I’m completely blasé about every single thing on that list (except for the Doc Martens… those still have a hold on me, just not a hold that I’m willing to pay $180 to satisfy).

Time is the answer, but so is recognizing that it’s not about getting more stuff

Often times when I talk about this stuff, people direct me to sites like Poshmark to get things used:

“You can save so much on designer goods!”

But that’s not the point.

The point isn’t about spending LESS on designer goods – the point is realizing that you don’t NEED designer goods. That they not only don’t make you any happier, but in some ways, can make you actively unhappier if you’re handcuffed to the hedonistic treadmill, constantly chasing more of it – even if the handcuffs are Cartier.

“Buying used” isn’t the solution

If I want to buy a designer handbag someday and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s something I’d really want to have, I should be willing to pay full price for that good. If it means that much to me that I believe I need something luxurious and unnecessary, I should be willing to pay full price. Otherwise, I don’t want it badly enough.

Acquiring more of it at bargain prices simply isn’t the answer for me.

For me, the answer has always been allowing one week to elapse and asking myself, very tenderly, “What is it that you think this thing is going to give you that you don’t already have?”

I have yet to produce an answer to that question that results in me buying the thing.