The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption

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The intent of my off consumption experiment is to spend an year without buying anything that is not a necessity.

Even though I have written down rather elaborate rules for what is allowed and what isn’t during my year of being off consumption, I have deliberately avoided defining what is a necessity. This is because one of the most interesting aspects of the experiment for me is to discover what I think of as a necessity and how it changes with context.

Perhaps the only fool-proof approach to discover what I think of as a necessity is to record and study what I actually buy, and how it changes over time.

So, here’s a complete list of everything I bought during week 1-2 of my experiment:-

9 dozen bananas: Rs. 180
1/2 kg grapes: Rs. 25
1 pineapple: Rs. 40
1 kg bell pepper: Rs. 80
1 kg capsicum: Rs. 50
1/4 kg mushroom: Rs. 20
1/2 kg spring onion: Rs. 25
1 coconut water: Rs. 10
2 corn-on-the-cob: Rs. 20
6 loaves of brown bread: Rs. 120
4 packets of Britannia cheese slices: Rs. 300
3 packets of Good Earth Honey and Dates toasted oats: Rs. 240
2 packets of Good Earth Diet muesli: Rs. 360
1 packet of Good Earth Classic muesli: Rs. 120
1 Colgate Advanced Whitening toothpaste: Rs. 48
Train fare to suburbs and back: Rs. 8
Auto fare within suburbs: Rs. 255
Taxi fare to suburbs and back (twice, to drop back my dates at 5 am): Rs. 915
Taxi fare from Cuffe Parade to Kala Ghoda (I was running late for office): Rs. 20
Taxi fare from Marine Drive to Cuffe Parade (I was tired after my evening walk): Rs. 30
Man’s World magazine (the issue with my article on Twitter): Rs. 100
Time Out magazine: Rs. 30 (yes, I broke my own rules; post coming up)
‘Reimbursed’ by my date: (Rs. 100)

Total: Rs. 2896

I’m sure you’ll have a lot to say about my definition of necessities, but here are my three top of the mind thoughts.

First, I’m sure that a lot of people survive on less than Rs. 3000 a month. In fact, I survived three years on less than Rs. 3000 a month. However, Rs. 3000 is less than what I would typically spend on a night out for two, before I went off consumption. So, whether Rs. 2896 is too little or too much is a question of context.

Second, most of the individual items on the list should be non-controversial as necessities, but there are some gray areas that I’m myself undecided about. I would insist that muesli and oats are a necessity, but what about cheese slices? I would admit that taxi rides for short distances are a slip-up, even when I’m tired or late, but what about pre-dawn taxi rides across the town, to drop my dates? I don’t have all the answers yet, and I’m sure there aren’t any black and white answers anyways, but I do sense that my list of necessities will become smaller through the year, as I learn how to make do with less.

Third, as I force myself to become aware of what I buy, I’m discovering that I’m a shockingly label-blind shopper. My preferred approach to shopping is to buy what I want without even looking at the price tag. So, I would enter a store, pick up what I want, sign the credit card slip, and walk out within five minutes. As a result, I don’t even know what most things cost, even things I buy regularly. For instance, even though I have been buying Good Earth muesli for months now, I hadn’t noticed that the Diet version costs 50% more than the Classic version!

What about you? What do you think of as a necessity? What is your preferred shopping style? Have you been label blind too? Do drop in a comment and let me know.