optimistic pessimist
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A Consuming Life
Could you live a whole year without shopping? Author Judith Levine did. Here's what she learned.
David Steinberg
Levine says she's learned to be happier with less
View related photos
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Jessica Bennett
Newsweek
Updated: 6:51 p.m. ET March 31, 2006
March 31, 2006 - You're allowed to buy soap, bread, cat food. Prohibited: ice cream, tissue, soda. Haircuts are OK, but focaccia bread is not. What about hair gel? Organic French-roast coffee?
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For Judith Levine, the idea of cutting ice cream out of her diet for an entire year was not easy. For her partner, Paul Cillo, the challenge was the red wine that ran like water among his Italian family and friends. But on New Year's Day 2004, the couple, who spend half their time in Brooklyn, N.Y., and half in Hardwick, Vt., began a rather odd resolution: to go a year without shopping.
The idea began after a holiday purchasing frenzy that culminated in a maxed-out credit card. "I was schlepping a big shopping bag across New York City and dropped it in an icy puddle," says Levine, 53. "I thought, 'There must be more to life'."
Her new book, "Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping" (Free Press), released this month, is Levine's witty depiction of a year living relatively free from the constraints of a credit card. However, not shopping at all would be somewhat of an overstatement. The couple allowed themselves toilet paper and basic cleaning products. They bought necessary—but not elaborate—food items. They checked out books from the library but kept their subscription to The New York Times. But they didn't go out to eat or to the movies. They didn't buy clothes. And they cut out morning Starbucks runs and fresh-cut flowers from the corner store.
"Free of the obligation to buy or to be merry, life is gloriously ordinary," Levine writes. But, for the majority of us, is ordinary enough? What's to gain from not buying in a society dominated by consumption? Levine addressed these subjects with NEWSWEEK's Jessica Bennett. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: I can't believe you only bought the bare necessities for an entire year. What made you do it?
Judith Levine: It was a combination of personal worry and environmental and social concern.
Do you generally consider yourself more environmentally aware than your average consumer?
Yes, and yet I buy just as much crap as other people.
What made you get serious about really taking this on?
I was interested in investigating what role consuming has in my life. That was really my motivation, and I thought it'd be easy to go for a week or a month, even three months, so I thought, "Let's try to do a really extreme experiment and go for a whole year" ... Shopping is an emotional thing, and overconsumption is a kind of social, political problem. So how do these two things connect to each other?
How did you decide on rules for what you could and couldn't buy?
Those kept on changing and being discussed all year long, which was part of the lesson of the project. The line between need and desire is very fluid and very personal and also very cultural. It'd be quite different for me if I were a farmer in Bangladesh, or, you know, a television producer in Los Angeles.
I know you cut out soda and seltzer. What about coffee and alcohol? It's hard to be a New Yorker without the two.
We decided that [drip] coffee [made at home] was a necessity—we both agreed on that. But alcohol was a point of dispute. Paul, who is Italian, claimed that wine was a necessity. It's like water to him, whereas I considered it a luxury. So we went back and forth until finally he signed on with two of his Italian friends to make wine, which turned out to be very fun and very good.
What did you miss the most?
I really missed ice cream. And I missed the experience of going out after dinner on a hot summer night and standing outside at the ice cream stand and eating ice cream. So these kind of sensual, social, even nostalgic experiences. I missed buying flowers at the corner. It was really small things like that, and experiences like going to a cafe and sitting by myself and watching and being private in public—which is a great urban pleasure.
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Had you ever explored the issue of consumption in your writing before?
I've written about sexuality for most of my life, which is completely intertwined with consumption.
How so?
You might say that a long-lasting effect of the sexual revolution was the complete commercialization of sex. Now, being attractive is tied to whether you've had a boob job. Sexual fun—if you read the advice columns—[is] to go out and buy a vibrator or some lingerie ... And then, of course, the mainstreaming of pornography is another commercial influence on sexuality, or therapy, or now all these new drugs like Viagra. We kind of think we can buy a good sex life.
'Not Buying It' is a humorous account of a couple's year (relatively) free of shopping
What did you learn about yourself through the experiment?
I learned that I'm more of a shopper than I thought. I tended to think of myself as a pretty uninterested shopper. [But] as soon as I stopped buying things, I realized how important buying things is—not just for the things, but for the experiences. I missed movies a lot, but I also learned that by taking recreational shopping or impulse shopping or the kind of shopping that's marginal—like really needing a pink handbag—out of your life, for me it eliminated a lot of the worrying that I do about money. It freed up a lot of emotional space for me, not to mention time. I learned that just a little bit of consciousness goes a long way, and it has unexpected rewards.
How did it affect your relationships with friends?
Our friends were a combination of cheerleaders, and, at times, weary participants. There was a penalty to hanging out with us, which was that you didn't get to go out to eat, or even stop and have a beer. But we cooked dinner ... [and] we made things for people. At Christmas we made cookies for everyone ... I think in our relations with our friends and family we reached a kind of creativity, which was about giving more of ourselves than just buying something.
Did you see yourself changing throughout the course of the project?
A big transformation for me was from consumer to citizen. Once you take out the consumer role in your life, you start to have a lot more time and passion and money to contribute as a citizen. I came to feel much more responsible for the public amenities that are out there, on which I became much more dependent, and for which I became much more grateful—like the public library.
What was the hardest part of the whole thing?
I was expecting to long for a lot of things. Instead, I felt vulnerable and sort of childlike and a little bit like a beggar. I felt sort of stupid because I wasn't keeping up on the latest movies, and a big part of my identity has always been sort of "in the know." And I felt lonely and bored sometimes. I think the nadir was when I was sitting at home on a Wednesday night watching "The Bachelor," feeling sorry for myself but at the same time—for lack of anything else—really waiting with bated breath to see who he was going to give the rose to. That was a bad moment.
Did you ever break the rules?
There was an instance when I cheated. A friend called to invite me to dinner and I hadn't accepted such invitations before. But this was a guy who was a colleague, so I said yes, and [hoped] he would pick up the tab. Then I could make this excuse to myself that "this was business" ... He did pick up the tab, and I did confess to him ... but the whole evening, instead of just enjoying being with him, I felt like I was there on false pretenses.
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Tell us about one of your most trying moments.
I was going to go to Washington with a friend, and I wasn't willing to pay for the more expensive train to go ... I ended up taking the bus, which was horrible. We left at like 5 a.m. and got home at midnight, and it was raining, at which point I decided I wasn't going to take a cab home to Brooklyn, so I went to go get the train, and I had to wait half an hour for the train. I was crying with exhaustion by that point, standing on the platform waiting for the train, thinking I was going to get mugged at one in the morning. In the big scheme of things, was this a terrible hardship? No. But you just don't recognize how buying your way out of a big predicament to just a small, uncomfortable situation sort of operates your life.
How much money did you end up saving?
We weren't intending to save money ... But I ended up paying off my credit-card balance of nearly $8,000.
What's changed since you ended the project?
Both [Paul and I] have almost entirely ceased to be impulsive buyers now ... I've shopped so little since the end of 2004 that when I had to buy some clothes for this book tour, Visa called to say they'd seen some unusual activity on my credit card.
Would you do it again?
I have to say I felt a little wistful at the end of the year, and so did Paul. It's fun being on some kind of regime, it gives you this daily focus. What I would do again, and what I have done, is to be conscious of the things I buy. I know that I can live on a lot less and still be happy.
What was the first thing you went out to buy when the project was over?
I went out and rented about a half dozen movies, and Paul bought a box of Q-Tips.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12099950/site/newsweek/
Could you live a whole year without shopping? Author Judith Levine did. Here's what she learned.
David Steinberg
Levine says she's learned to be happier with less
View related photos
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Jessica Bennett
Newsweek
Updated: 6:51 p.m. ET March 31, 2006
March 31, 2006 - You're allowed to buy soap, bread, cat food. Prohibited: ice cream, tissue, soda. Haircuts are OK, but focaccia bread is not. What about hair gel? Organic French-roast coffee?
Story continues below ↓ advertisement
For Judith Levine, the idea of cutting ice cream out of her diet for an entire year was not easy. For her partner, Paul Cillo, the challenge was the red wine that ran like water among his Italian family and friends. But on New Year's Day 2004, the couple, who spend half their time in Brooklyn, N.Y., and half in Hardwick, Vt., began a rather odd resolution: to go a year without shopping.
The idea began after a holiday purchasing frenzy that culminated in a maxed-out credit card. "I was schlepping a big shopping bag across New York City and dropped it in an icy puddle," says Levine, 53. "I thought, 'There must be more to life'."
Her new book, "Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping" (Free Press), released this month, is Levine's witty depiction of a year living relatively free from the constraints of a credit card. However, not shopping at all would be somewhat of an overstatement. The couple allowed themselves toilet paper and basic cleaning products. They bought necessary—but not elaborate—food items. They checked out books from the library but kept their subscription to The New York Times. But they didn't go out to eat or to the movies. They didn't buy clothes. And they cut out morning Starbucks runs and fresh-cut flowers from the corner store.
"Free of the obligation to buy or to be merry, life is gloriously ordinary," Levine writes. But, for the majority of us, is ordinary enough? What's to gain from not buying in a society dominated by consumption? Levine addressed these subjects with NEWSWEEK's Jessica Bennett. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: I can't believe you only bought the bare necessities for an entire year. What made you do it?
Judith Levine: It was a combination of personal worry and environmental and social concern.
Do you generally consider yourself more environmentally aware than your average consumer?
Yes, and yet I buy just as much crap as other people.
What made you get serious about really taking this on?
I was interested in investigating what role consuming has in my life. That was really my motivation, and I thought it'd be easy to go for a week or a month, even three months, so I thought, "Let's try to do a really extreme experiment and go for a whole year" ... Shopping is an emotional thing, and overconsumption is a kind of social, political problem. So how do these two things connect to each other?
How did you decide on rules for what you could and couldn't buy?
Those kept on changing and being discussed all year long, which was part of the lesson of the project. The line between need and desire is very fluid and very personal and also very cultural. It'd be quite different for me if I were a farmer in Bangladesh, or, you know, a television producer in Los Angeles.
I know you cut out soda and seltzer. What about coffee and alcohol? It's hard to be a New Yorker without the two.
We decided that [drip] coffee [made at home] was a necessity—we both agreed on that. But alcohol was a point of dispute. Paul, who is Italian, claimed that wine was a necessity. It's like water to him, whereas I considered it a luxury. So we went back and forth until finally he signed on with two of his Italian friends to make wine, which turned out to be very fun and very good.
What did you miss the most?
I really missed ice cream. And I missed the experience of going out after dinner on a hot summer night and standing outside at the ice cream stand and eating ice cream. So these kind of sensual, social, even nostalgic experiences. I missed buying flowers at the corner. It was really small things like that, and experiences like going to a cafe and sitting by myself and watching and being private in public—which is a great urban pleasure.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement
Had you ever explored the issue of consumption in your writing before?
I've written about sexuality for most of my life, which is completely intertwined with consumption.
How so?
You might say that a long-lasting effect of the sexual revolution was the complete commercialization of sex. Now, being attractive is tied to whether you've had a boob job. Sexual fun—if you read the advice columns—[is] to go out and buy a vibrator or some lingerie ... And then, of course, the mainstreaming of pornography is another commercial influence on sexuality, or therapy, or now all these new drugs like Viagra. We kind of think we can buy a good sex life.
'Not Buying It' is a humorous account of a couple's year (relatively) free of shopping
What did you learn about yourself through the experiment?
I learned that I'm more of a shopper than I thought. I tended to think of myself as a pretty uninterested shopper. [But] as soon as I stopped buying things, I realized how important buying things is—not just for the things, but for the experiences. I missed movies a lot, but I also learned that by taking recreational shopping or impulse shopping or the kind of shopping that's marginal—like really needing a pink handbag—out of your life, for me it eliminated a lot of the worrying that I do about money. It freed up a lot of emotional space for me, not to mention time. I learned that just a little bit of consciousness goes a long way, and it has unexpected rewards.
How did it affect your relationships with friends?
Our friends were a combination of cheerleaders, and, at times, weary participants. There was a penalty to hanging out with us, which was that you didn't get to go out to eat, or even stop and have a beer. But we cooked dinner ... [and] we made things for people. At Christmas we made cookies for everyone ... I think in our relations with our friends and family we reached a kind of creativity, which was about giving more of ourselves than just buying something.
Did you see yourself changing throughout the course of the project?
A big transformation for me was from consumer to citizen. Once you take out the consumer role in your life, you start to have a lot more time and passion and money to contribute as a citizen. I came to feel much more responsible for the public amenities that are out there, on which I became much more dependent, and for which I became much more grateful—like the public library.
What was the hardest part of the whole thing?
I was expecting to long for a lot of things. Instead, I felt vulnerable and sort of childlike and a little bit like a beggar. I felt sort of stupid because I wasn't keeping up on the latest movies, and a big part of my identity has always been sort of "in the know." And I felt lonely and bored sometimes. I think the nadir was when I was sitting at home on a Wednesday night watching "The Bachelor," feeling sorry for myself but at the same time—for lack of anything else—really waiting with bated breath to see who he was going to give the rose to. That was a bad moment.
Did you ever break the rules?
There was an instance when I cheated. A friend called to invite me to dinner and I hadn't accepted such invitations before. But this was a guy who was a colleague, so I said yes, and [hoped] he would pick up the tab. Then I could make this excuse to myself that "this was business" ... He did pick up the tab, and I did confess to him ... but the whole evening, instead of just enjoying being with him, I felt like I was there on false pretenses.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement
Tell us about one of your most trying moments.
I was going to go to Washington with a friend, and I wasn't willing to pay for the more expensive train to go ... I ended up taking the bus, which was horrible. We left at like 5 a.m. and got home at midnight, and it was raining, at which point I decided I wasn't going to take a cab home to Brooklyn, so I went to go get the train, and I had to wait half an hour for the train. I was crying with exhaustion by that point, standing on the platform waiting for the train, thinking I was going to get mugged at one in the morning. In the big scheme of things, was this a terrible hardship? No. But you just don't recognize how buying your way out of a big predicament to just a small, uncomfortable situation sort of operates your life.
How much money did you end up saving?
We weren't intending to save money ... But I ended up paying off my credit-card balance of nearly $8,000.
What's changed since you ended the project?
Both [Paul and I] have almost entirely ceased to be impulsive buyers now ... I've shopped so little since the end of 2004 that when I had to buy some clothes for this book tour, Visa called to say they'd seen some unusual activity on my credit card.
Would you do it again?
I have to say I felt a little wistful at the end of the year, and so did Paul. It's fun being on some kind of regime, it gives you this daily focus. What I would do again, and what I have done, is to be conscious of the things I buy. I know that I can live on a lot less and still be happy.
What was the first thing you went out to buy when the project was over?
I went out and rented about a half dozen movies, and Paul bought a box of Q-Tips.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12099950/site/newsweek/
She thinks she has accomplished something poor people do for years on end. And I didn't even get the subscriptions or the travel at all.
Anne, are you suggesting like, if you're buying anything you're instantly violating the first question of "Could you live a whole year without shopping?" 
