The high price of too much stuff

I'm jumping up and down about a teeny-weeny, nationwide consumption disorder that needs to get better before things get a whole lot worse.

About 200 years ago, poet William Wordsworth penned these lines. They could have been written today:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers

Never mind that we live in a culture that encourages constant consumption. Or that few can afford all the stuff that is supposedly part of the American dream. Or that debt is a drag on your personal financial health.

The relentless focus on having and buying and wanting and owning -- and using your credit card or your home equity to cover it -- has landed us here: with crates of things we don't need, stuffed into compartments where we never see it, throwing yet more money down the drain for the meaningless thrill of knowing we have it.

Why? Because we don't want to admit we were wrong, that buying all that stuff didn't add up to what we had hoped.

How could this have happened?

This isn't your fault or mine. Many factors converged to create this particular storm:

• In the 1980s, massive deregulation throughout the banking industry created a climate suddenly favorable to widespread use of consumer credit. Suddenly, rates were low, and terms were lax. Americans began to borrow, because they could.

• In 1994, Time launched InStyle magazine, giving consumers directions about how to buy things they couldn't possibly afford and feeding a new phenomenon: the financial fantasy mind-set.

• The same year (coincidence?), the sitcom "Friends" began a decade-long campaign to instill doubts in the mind of every hardworking American about our national values. Maybe it was possible to live in a gorgeous home, wear hip clothes and barely have to work? Answer: Visa.

• In 2001, after Sept. 11, Americans sought the security of home . . . by watching countless cable shows about do-it-yourself renovation projects, helping to fuel the astonishing expansion of granite countertops nationwide.

An affordable life

I'm not saying the answer to our financial woes, individually and collectively, is simple.

But when you look at the pattern of consumption over the past decade and realize that the expansion of the storage industry is just a manifestation of materialism run amok, it becomes clear that something has to change.

Things are changing already. Thanks to the credit crisis and the subprime-mortgage meltdown, cheap and easy borrowing is drying up. On top of which, the sting of gas prices and the pinch of overall inflation are forcing many Americans to face financial realities as never before.

Living beyond your means -- saving little, owing a lot -- is no way to live.

When I drive past those ugly, sprawling storage facilities, or even the bright cheery ones, I feel depressed. Someday these early years of the 21st century will be remembered as the Crazy Aughts, a time when Americans spent more money on nothing than ever before in our history.

And we are not richer, we are not happier, for all that getting and spending.

It will be challenging to turn things around. Old habits run you ragged before they die; I can attest to that. But I think these grim economic times contain a sparkle of hope. Let's learn to spend more money on life, less on stuff.

It's cheaper than storage.

Learn from MP Dunleavey

Tired of being stressed out about money? To achieve that vital sense of financial serenity and control, join MSN Money columnist MP Dunleavey for a one-night seminar, "Remain Calm, Create Wealth," from 6:30 to 8:30 June 30 in New York. She will be co-teaching with financial planner Galia Gichon, the author of "My Money Matters: Tools to Build Peace of Mind & Long-Term Wealth." To learn more and sign up, click here.

Published June 26, 2008

< previous |  1 | 2 |