Christa, Day 31: The Slow, Unending March from Wanting to Not

Here's a story: Once upon a time I really wanted a Lincoln Navigator. I don't know why. And I wanted a Louis Vuitton Damier Speedy 35. And didn't know why. I wanted numerous pairs of shoes, all bookmarked in my browser, though I didn't have a clear idea of how they'd fit into my wardrobe. I wanted a long black shearling coat with a princess silhouette. A canopy bed and a pool and a Tulip table* and a whirlpool tub and greyhound. And who could say why. Then one day, I realized that how I spent my money now would have a pretty big impact on whether or not I had to work at 80 as a bagger in the supermarket and I said screw all that stuff.

Today's voluntary simplicity idea:

Learn to live frugally. Living frugally means buying less, wanting less, and leaving less of a footprint on the earth. It’s directly related to simplicity. Here are 50 tips on how to live frugally.

After the story above, you are maybe thinking that I was converted completely. That I am an epic frugalista. Not true. If that were true, we'd be living in a condo in the city instead of a house. I would have shopped for secondhand work clothes instead of opting for new stuff from the clearance racks. I probably wouldn't be all jazzed for the delivery of my new-to-us but extremely old piano tomorrow morning. A piano for which I paid $175 including inside delivery, a princely sum around here when it comes to 'wants.' Did I mention that neither of us is much of a piano player? (Yet.)

The point is, we definitely buy less and I try to want less, and we generally succeed at both. The list linked in today's idea? We nail pretty much every item on it. I don't know about the whole footprint on the earth thing, but I will say I get absolutely livid when I see how much still-good stuff people throw out on trash day. My first thought is that they bought something new to replace something that didn't need replacing and are now trashing things that other people could desperately use.

Of course, maybe frugality for us is easy. We're not frugal to simplify our lives or to reduce our eco footprint or because we're concerned with the working conditions of the low wage factory workers that make all the plastic crap Americans seem to be obsessed with. Nope. We're frugal because we just plain don't have all that much dough, and if we're going to make it last, spending it higgledy-piggledy is not the smart way to go about things. Frugality is part of a strategy that may make it possible for us to retire one day or to send our children to university or to travel without being so concerned with the price of airline tickets. In the short term, frugality is what lets us live in this region of the country, which is ridiculously overpriced. So $800 handbag? Definitely not on the shopping list, now or possibly ever.

(In part because one can buy a perfectly luxurious all-leather handbag from a small established Parisian leatherworking company for a quarter of the price - and that drops to free when your gram gives it to you secondhand. That's MY kind of frugality.)

*I still want a Tulip table. One of these would do just as well, though. With four of these in orange. See, even for me not wanting is difficult!