How do I become less materialistic???

Hi BHD,start from where you are,if you like ,are addicted to the internet,use it to your advantage.Watch things like the TED lectures.The brain is very plastic so it can be moulded.The direction really is up to you.

Have kids

+1

Also, try “off the shelf” things. About 12 months ago I wrote a post on hear moaning about the extortionate cost of buying a new bike to replace my then ASR5, with the same level of kit. The ASR5 arose of years of upgrades/frame selling & buying etc. About £4k for a replacement IIRC.

I bought an off the shelf Anthem 29er for £1500, spent £500 on upgrades (or £250 more than the sale of the Yeti got me) and I have an excellent bike for everything I do which I like.

That was the tipping point f materialism for me. You don’t need to look / act like a tramp, just buy things you need without caring what others think of it, and don’t buy things you don’t need.

IMO people are far more invested in your personality & character than what you own, and if they aren’t, they aren’t really mates.

TED lectures, I love them, great idea to get back into them.

You don’t have to become a full on chanting vegan to take on some of the good bits of Buddhism. Regular mindfulness meditation is good for gettin perspective and quietening down some of the urges you have.

Peterfile – I sort of agree about travel etc but interestingly I’ve seen the point made that we can be materialistic about experiences as well as things (always wanting more etc), which I think is true.

I used to be a bit like this. Over time I’ve come to realise that the anticipation of acquiring something is more fun than acquiring it. Spending months perving over some bauble only for the purchase to be a total anti-climax.

Also thinking of the ‘opportunity cost’ helps. In other words consider what else you could do with the money. An STW appropriate example might be a shiny bike part, then consider a skills day instead. What’s going to improve your life more?

Which leads me on to a self-imposed rule I try to stick to, to reign in spending and improve (as I see it) quality of life. This is to stop spending money on things which will keep me vegetating in the house. Was burning too much money on computers, gaming, gadgets and stuff like that. It means for example no PS4 + games, no ipad, no new laptop. It’s reduced my spending quite considerably.

Don’t know if any of that helps, but there it is. At least you’re self-aware enough to recognise it’s happening and is a problem. Have you considered dropping your disposable income into some kind of savings account which you can’t readily access?

Definitely have kids! Not only do you instantly lose all selfishness but even if you didn’t you spend all your money on nappies and milk powder and suddenly the simple joy of having an hour to yourself for a bit of peace and quiet to pedal your bike is all the “stuff” you ever need! 😉

Rockplough – great idea on the skills courses instead of buying bits. the idea of putting money away where its hard to get freaks me out a bit but that’s maybe why I need to do it

Peterfile – I sort of agree about travel etc but interestingly I’ve seen the point made that we can be materialistic about experiences as well as things (always wanting more etc), which I think is true.

I know the point you’re making grum and I sort of agree with you, but by their very nature you can’t be materialistic about experiences.

It’s when you cross over from wanting an experience to wanting to tick a box or impress your colleagues that travel can become materialistic I think.

An example is the person who travels to Japan because they want to immerse themselves in Japanese culture, meet the people and see what the place is all about…compared to the person who travels to Japan because it seems like an exotic place to go on holiday and will provide for an interesting and cool place to meet other travellers and have fun, plus it will look great in facebook photos.

In effect, the end result is the same, both travellers will have experienced Japan, but the motivation for spending the money in the first place is different, which makes one more materialistic than the other IMO.

Check your bank balance?
If that’s healthy, work less?

This^

We work hard to earn more money to buy things we don’t need. Not saying i’m immune to this, but as I get older I realise that time is much more valuable than money or possessions. Assuming you are PAYE – Divide your salary by 52 then again by the number of hours you work per week. Multiply that by the number of hours you would need to work to still pay the bills, travel and enjoy life a bit (i.e. 30 hours instead of 37.5). Wouldn’t it be better to work four days a week rather than five if it meant buying less jackets, having a slightly older car or reducing any other unnecessary expenditure overall?

Commit to a bigger project. If you haven’t bought a house yet and you have the means to do so then that should be your first priority.

Or in my case… buy another house cos there’s so much cr@p in my current one. One to do all the bike building etc., and the other to (very briefly) live a minimalistic lifestyle.

Just in the process of purging loads of “stuff”, just so I can make a bit more space for N+1 😉

The German recycling industry isn’t going to be going out of business any time soon, when I start offloading stuff. And some of that stuff isn’t even ebay-able.

Think I do agree with the “growing up poor” comment. Up to age 11-12 everything came from the Jumble Sale, and if it didn’t finally end up in the bin, went back to another Jumble Sale. Now I can afford to have things, so acquire them, because I can.

peterfile +1

How do I become less materialistic?

It’s not going to be easy if you’re at all that way inclined, there are a lot of clever people trying to prise your wallet open. You could always try decorating your house to help fight those initial impulses, maybe something like this –

Materialism is a product of our society.

Not really. It’s universal across all societies. It’s innate to human beings – well, 90% of them at least.

From an evolutionary point of view, those individuals who hoard useful things are more likely to survive in a difficult situation. Being able to transcend that is a modern luxury.

I think here we’re more accurately referring more to consumerism Mol. Which is definitely a product of our society.

Materialism (placing value in things) is definitely not common across other societies either though.

An example is the person who travels to Japan because they want to immerse themselves in Japanese culture, meet the people and see what the place is all about…compared to the person who travels to Japan because it seems like an exotic place to go on holiday and will provide for an interesting and cool place to meet other travellers and have fun, plus it will look great in facebook photos.

Speaking as a cynical ex-pat – there’s not much difference between the two, really. In both cases you’re still on holiday, gawping at the locals and their weird ways. You might kid yourself that by staying in a cheap hostal and eating at a local bar you’re somehow closer to the natives, but it’s still a holiday and in a couple of days or weeks you’re leaving.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t do the same, and if you’ve flown 12 hours to get somewhere it’s a bit of a pity to sit in an identikit 4 star hotel, but I’m not sure (in the context of this thread) that there’s really much difference from a materialistic point of view.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t do the same, and if you’ve flown 12 hours to get somewhere it’s a bit of a pity to sit in an identikit 4 star hotel, but I’m not sure (in the context of this thread) that there’s really much difference from a materialistic point of view.

That was my point…the actual effect is the same for both travellers, but in the context of whether such an experience is “materialistic” or not, I think that its necessary to look back to the motivation for the trip.

I don’t actually agree fully that any experience can be materialistic, but I sort of understand where grum is coming from with the point. I know a good number of “box tickers” who seem to fit into that category.

i think a lot of people grow out of this as they realise they dont need all that stuff and as they pick up new responsibilities. Certainly I bought a lot of junk in my 20s that i need to get rid off now im in my 30s (clothes I never wore, broken gadgets, CDs etc etc) and ive learnt to try not to buy random stuff.

“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”

This.. I’m the same though and have been thinking about trying to stop buying anything other than what I need.. want and need are very different. I use the “I may want X.. but do I really need it?” often, the answer is no

the idea of putting money away where its hard to get freaks me out a bit but that’s maybe why I need to do it

I know what you mean, but disposable income only. And if it’s a true emergency then it’s only hard to get at, not impossible.

It’s a bit like committing to something on a bike. Sometimes you just need to get past the point of no return, and the rest just takes care of itself. If you’re anything like me you might get used to it, forget about it even, so much that one day you realise you’re sitting on quite a bit of cash that you can do something properly meaningful with.

If you want to spend money, buy experiences and events. They’ll enrich your life, and won’t lead to yet more stuff piling up. I learned this far too late in life and have a house that’s more stuff than floor. I’ve got two rooms which are basically unusable as rooms, it’s mental. Going to go on a serious de-cluttering session soon. What’s the phrase, the things you own, own you. Go on holiday, go to a gig, treat yourself to a massage or a skydiving course, but stop buying tat.

The one thing I came up with to get out of the habit which really helped was not-shopping. You can feed the addiction without actually completing the purchase. I started going into town, getting a CD I liked, and then not-buying it. It’s liberating. If I was feeling especially lavish I’d not-buy an Xbox or something. And the beauty of it is, a couple of weeks later you can not-buy it again! Double the fun.

It works online too. Go web shopping, fill your basket, get your breadmaker and your uppy-downy seatpost, then hit the little [X] on the window instead of checkout. All the fun of buying things without that “WTF did I buy this shit?” feeling a month later.

If it’s something you do actually think you need, stick it on a wish list or save it for later. Buy it if you find you still want it in a couple of months’ time (when the price has probably come down). For example, I’ve a TV box set on my Amazon wish list; I really want it but don’t need it right now as I’ve plenty lined up to watch already. When I run out of things to watch, I’ll almost certainly buy it. When I added it to my list it was nearly a hundred quid, it’s down to about £30 now.

Next time you consider spending £50 on shite, look up your local gig listings, ring a mate and tell him/her you’re going to a gig, your treat. Go out a few hours early, have a quick cheap meal. Drink some beer. Go to gig. Dance. Do not tweet or Facebook what the **** you’re doing. Just enjoy it.

You’ll never forget the gig. It’ll always be with you. Your mate will not forget the night you treated him or her to a good night out.

Whatever shite you were going to buy will not be better than this.

Further to that last point about having stuff to watch already,

I was buying magazines because there were some article or other I wanted to read. The content varied, might’ve been SFX or Retro Gamer or an Xbox magazine, or something about movies or photography, or some fluff like Viz. I’d get them home and add them to my “to read” pile where they’d sit with the other half a dozen till the heat death of the universe.

I realised that the only one I actually read cover to cover was SFX, so I subscribed to that and decreed that I’d only buy another magazine if I’d run out of reading material (or if I was away from home and had forgotten to bring anything).

Same with books and other media. I was buying books because it was “the new Robert Rankin” or some such, then adding them to the shelf to gather dust. I needed a paradigm shift in my thought process; stop thinking in terms of whether I want it, because of course I do, but in terms of whether I need it because I’ve no books left to read. If I’ve got several outstanding, and I usually have because just as I get on top of it there’s Christmas or my birthday, it stays in the shop.

And of course, now I’ve got to de-clutter. I’m the world’s worst for “there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a shame to throw it away” or “it might come in handy.” I was raised not to be wasteful, but that was by post-war parents and grandparents who hadn’t filled their house with shite.

There’s stuff I don’t want but it’s really hard to break that mindset. A hundred audio cassettes, “well, someone might want them.” A Psion 5, great little device that I adored, but it’s of no use to me now beyond a curio. Old computer parts, my previous hifi separates from before I upgraded everything to stuff with HDMI (so Yamaha receiver, DVD player, twin cassette deck, top-of-the-range VCR, laserdisc player). A kite buggy. Enough cabling ephemera that if you wanted to plug a ZX Spectrum into a Soyuz spacecraft I’ve almost certainly got the correct cable for it. Probably shrinkwrapped. Books that are older than I am.

It’s all got to go. Hundreds, nay thousands of pounds worth of gear. Crap. Ebay, STW classifieds and a big skip I reckon.

I don’t actually agree fully that any experience can be materialistic, but I sort of understand where grum is coming from with the point. I know a good number of “box tickers” who seem to fit into that category.

Wikipedia’s definition of materialism seems reasonable:

Materialism (adj. materialistic) is the excessive desire to acquire and consume material goods. It is often bound up with a value system which regards social status as being determined by affluence (see conspicuous consumption) as well as the perception that happiness can be increased through buying, spending and accumulating material wealth.

Now ok it refers specifically to material goods, but I think people can crave and ‘consume’ experiences in a similar way, and for similar reasons.

Still probably perforable to owning a slightly shinier car or TV, but not entirely different.

I read about the idea in an email newsletter I get from someone who runs meditation classes, but it resonated with me quite a bit. I’m saying this because I think it applies to me to some extent. 🙂

This does come from a Buddhist perspective whereby you attain happiness not by getting the stuff that you want but by not wanting the stuff in the first place – I think that can apply equally to material possessions as experiences.

If you take that to it’s extreme though then you should be happy just sat in a box room never speaking to anyone (which some Buddhists do for extended periods of course)!

I struggle to see how meeting interesting new people and having adventures etc can be a bad thing, but it’s something to bear in mind IMO.

@darcy – speaking of treating people to nights out ( 😉 ) I think I’m going to be in Bristol on the 10th/11th March if you can fit in a beer at some point? Will probably be staying central-ish but driving about quite a lot.

This is just how we are programmed to be now, advertising, and ‘stuff’ is everywhere. You know you shouldn’t be fooled by it, and can do without a lot of this stuff, but it’s really not that easy to pull away. It’s littered all around this page……..

It’s human nature, you have stuff, to make things easier, or just because you enjoy it, or ‘need’ it to do a job, but someone else always has ‘better’ (usually more expensive) stuff for doing the same job, or doing it slightly differently, so you want that instead, you work more, strive for a better wage, so the cycle continues.

At some point it’d be nice to actually just reach a place where you think you’ve found the balance, and have just the right amount of stuff, aren’t working your arse off to afford it, and aren’t broke as a result of trying to pay for all the stuff.

I fortunately don’t have any debt, my employer paid for my qualifications, and am pretty comfortable for someone my age. I ride bikes (2no.), have a couple of guns, and a rally car, that’s expensive, but unless I can afford to do any of those things without borrowing money, I don’t. On the flip side, I drive a very mundane 2nd hand car, we have 2nd hand furniture in our (rented off the in-laws) house, and don’t go swanking about in designer clothes with a rolex on. That’s how I like it.

But, when I look around at my peers of a similar age, they’ve got new houses, a big mortgage, a new car on finance, a DFS sofa, 42″ TV, iphone 6, ipad, new laptop, posh clothes, 2 kids, etc etc etc. All nice ‘stuff’ to have, but it means nothing, they own none of it, all their salaries are doing is paying off borrowings, and they have no money, or time left for the stuff that really makes you happy.

Sometimes the simplest, and cheapest things make you happiest, like going for a walk, being outdoors, going for a bike ride, none of those have to cost the earth!

A good process I’ve found is to put all your impulse purchase whims on a spreadsheet. All of them. the tablet, the jackets, the bikes, the tyres, the hifi stuff… then the things you’d like to do to the house, the garden…

Don’t buy anything whimmy without sticking it on the list.

Once you’ve seen it on there as just another item on a £..,000 list of frippery, you’ll get a bit of context about what it means to you. You can give yourself a time period – “things I’m going to buy with next month’s salary” You can’t get them all, because it’s a silly, and silly expensive list.

So if you have to choose, you start looking at them more rationally, you might realise you don’t need any of them. You might start looking over to the “improvements” list, realise that a few months saving would get you some longer lasting, more permanent improvements to your life.

Or realise that by saving £ more, you could pay off your mortgage earlier, retire earlier, live a bit more, take a sabbatical. Just a way of considering and planning your spending, rather than splurging.

A Psion 5, great little device that I adored, but it’s of no use to me now beyond a curio.

Sold mine. But still got a Compaq Ipaq and loads of gadgets.
Same principle though.

Oldest things I’ve found so far that I kept “in case they are useful one day”… Commodore PC keyboard with a full size DIN connector, and a 2x CD-ROM drive.

ebay? or sling them in the electricals recycling bin? (ipaq will receive the hammer treatment first since there’s probably flash memory).

This is just how we are programmed to be now, advertising, and ‘stuff’ is everywhere.

Massively this.

I’ve found I’m a lot better since I got rid of my TV and now hardly ever see adverts. When I do they seem bizarre/horrible. I don’t really read magazines either.

Now if I could only stop going on the internet!

Now ok it refers specifically to material goods, but I think people can crave and ‘consume’ experiences in a similar way, and for similar reasons.

I know where you’re coming from grum…but it’s not materialism if it doesn’t involve material goods. Materialism focuses on our desire to spend money on “things”.

It can be an indicator of a wider spending/consumption issue, but it’s not materialism.

I definitely know the type of person…there’s a few at work that MUST go to places like Dubai and must stay in a nice hotel and must eat out at nice restaurants etc. I think that aspect of the spending element has lots of similarities with the traits that materialistic people show, but there must be another term for it since it doesn’t involve material goods.

Flash ****, maybe? 🙂

I definitely know the type of person…there’s a few at work that MUST go to places like Dubai and must stay in a nice hotel and must eat out at nice restaurants etc. I think that aspect of the spending element has lots of similarities with the traits that materialistic people show, but there must be another term for it since it doesn’t involve material goods.

I don’t just mean being flash though.

Amongst certain social groups social status is gained not by having a fancy car or house or posh holiday in Dubai, but by having had a ‘crazy adventure in the jungle in Vietnam’ or whatever.

iolo – that’s the thing, I do know there is more to life – my mum was terminally ill and was a massive wake up call – however these experiences actually made me buy more stuff as I was of the attitude of well what the hell its only money, you only live once kind of attitude.

Have a mate who went through the exact same thing. His dad died in tragic circumstances when he was 10 on a family holiday. My mate was usually pretty level headed until his business started doing well then he spent money as quick as he could earn on anything he could lay his hands on. Had every gadget going, car, motorbike etc etc. His reasoning was that you could be gone tomorrow so why not spend it.

He’s calmed down a bit nowadays but only because he sold the previous business and his replacement business dosnt give him the same disposable income. He dosnt buy as many gadgets nowadays but ‘trainers/sneakers’ are his thing now with 100’s of pairs of them!

Amongst certain social groups social status is gained not by having a fancy car or house or posh holiday in Dubai, but by having had a ‘crazy adventure in the jungle in Vietnam’ or whatever.

Aye, that’s EXACTLY the type of person I was alluding to in my Japan example.

I think if you genuinely want to see the jungle in vietnam, experience what it and all its people are about…and you go off and book that trip for that reason, to satisfy yourself with the experience, it can’t be “materialistic”.

But if you’re doing it to appear cool or impress others, then it falls into a different category. Your trip is to serve some other purpose, not for the experience itself.

Don’t buy stuff…do stuff.

One of the risks of openly eschewing materialism is that you run the risk of sounding like a smug sanctimonious git 🙂

But if you’re doing it to appear cool or impress others, then it falls into a different category. Your trip is to serve some other purpose, not for the experience itself.

Aye ok, but I think if we’re being totally honest there’s probably an element of that involved for most people – especially now with the advent of social media to show/tell everyone about what you’ve been up to.

Like when you post pictures of your adventures with your hot girlfriend. 😛

Maybe I’m just projecting my own hangups onto everyone else but I don’t think so!

One of the risks of openly eschewing materialism is that you run the risk of sounding like a smug sanctimonious git

I’m very anti-materialism but that doesn’t mean I always practise what I preach. In fact part of the reason I am so anti is because I’m so disappointed in myself when i get caught up in it.

As all ready mentioned kids and a mediocre salary have MOSTLY cured my want of new things. Kids put a lot of things in perspective and you realise that spending time with people and smiling are the two most important things and you are happy(ish) to go without to ensure they have what they need. Obviously this is a drastic measure.

Not earning enough means that you have to want less and this is best done by not reading magazines and looking at the internet. Essentially both are tools to make you want more. If you are out there doing other things and spending time with people then this limits time to browse and dream. Perhaps then the less drastic option then is to lead a busy life.

Don’t get me wrong I like new things but I now find it easy to distinguish between what I want and what I need.

Living in rural North East Scotland also helps as there is less temptation.

I’m sure the above has already been said but I should be doing other things than reading a three page thread.

Aye ok, but I think if we’re being totally honest there’s probably an element of that involved for most people – especially now with the advent of social media to show/tell everyone about what you’ve been up to.

Like when you post pictures of your adventures with your hot girlfriend.

hahah, it’s not my fault she’s in all the photos, she’s the only person who’s ever there! 🙂

I know what you mean though, it’s not always easy to separate the two. I like two aspects of “adventure” (whether locally or travel)…the actual thing itself…but also being able to capture it and share it. I know that for some, the sharing is the motivation for the trip itself (ie “box tickers”, people who do things just to say they’ve done it). I can think of more interesting things to do than sleep in a tent if I was trying to impress!

It’s a grey area I suppose and I probably view others wrongly, as they will no doubt do to me too.

I was in a similar position to the OP until I (and the OH) realised that if I ever wanted to get out of rented accomodation, etc. I would have to start saving more.

Set up a savings account or ISA where you get interest (admittedly not great at the mo) but can’t take it out easily (1 month notice, charges for withdrawls, etc) and set up a standing order for whatever your toy money usually is (minus a bit so you can still do some stuff) to the account for the day your salary comes in. That way you never see the money and it accumulates in a place where you can’t impulse spend from but is still there if absolutely necessary.

I also put my credit card (only have one now and I asked the bank to reduce the limit) in a safe place at home meaning that it was harder to impulse buy and never saved payment or address details on the web. When you have to root out the card or enter everything manually each time it gives you a cooling off period.

Made me plan a lot more and prevented impulse buying. Very few of the things that I bought materially improved my life and I’m now rather amazed by the amount of money that is in my savings account that would have been essentially frittered away.

Now I don’t need to do any of those things as I automatically consider each purchase and I actually find I “want” things less.

YMMV but it worked for me.

EDIT: God I sound smug. Sorry. 😳 But I guess I am pleased with how I (and the OH) managed to turn my finances around

Wont help with route cause of the issue but I play off laziness to stop myself doing loads of things. If it’s a right pain to buy things then you are far less likely to do it (as an aside works well for dieting.) This is sadly more difficult with websites saving your cards, paypal etc where it is so easy to buy things but that is why they are there…

Another thing that stops me buying tat is a long list of wants/ experiences that require an attainable but large amount of capital – the less tat you buy the closer you are to doing the things you really want to. This is not productive if that list is an aspirational one full of material desires however!

Finally, the crux for me is we’re lodging on this planet for a fixed term, I have a lot of things I want to do. Like most things these require money, money spent not on these only delays doing what you really want to do perhaps meaning you miss out. That’s easily enough to terrify me into being a miser!

Iain