ABOVE: Two high-cost problems solved through creative thinking: A bargain end-of-season outdoor dining set, simple matchstick blinds, wood-slat floor mats and paper lampshades together turn a covered back porch into a reason to play restaurant at home.
There's something strangely comforting in the news that Americans — and Canadians to a lesser extent — are suddenly forced to live within their means. Too bad it’s taken a morally corrupt mortgage-lending scheme, 9-11, and global warming to get here.
'Here’ feels like the end of the giddy, greedy era of unrealistic expectations and the beginning of a new sensibility where we’re not just consumers anymore. We’re getting back to the financial basics, and starting to rethink our needs. Some people will do this on their own; others will need some shock therapy, like seeing their line of credit disappear or their mortgage application denied.
Living within one’s means is not just about reducing spending on goods that used to feel like necessities but are really luxuries, like flat-screen TVs or dinners out, but questioning every purchase: Do I need this or is this just retail therapy? Will this item last or will I dump it in a few years? Do I need to buy this or could I borrow one instead?
It’s not a bargain if you don’t need it, my grandmother used to say, but she developed her spending habits in the era before credit cards stopped that thinking. These days, questioning our consumer habits takes a lot more willpower because the credit card companies depend on consumer debt.
Beyond questioning our habits and their marketing, we have to think creatively. One way is to consider our collective power.
For example, our apartment building recently bought a pressure washer that individual owners can sign out from a strata council member to clean their own decking, saving us all the cost of renting or purchasing (and storing) our own pressure washers. The same could go for a carpet steam cleaner, a box of tools or a couple of bicycles.
We need to consider the power of vast, instant communication that enables us to, for example, use Facebook to see who might have an extra set of barstools they’d like to unload or a suitcase they’d be willing to lend. Both my sisters found the exact baby carriers they wanted on Craigslist for a fraction of the retail price, and for those with no cash at all there’s the swap/trade listings.
Finally, we need to rethink our activities. I’ll take an at-home dinner party over an expensive restaurant, or a trek through the Seymour Demonstration Forest over the mall any day.
