The spending experiment

The Spending Experiment is my personal response to capitalism, given that (a) I have consumer and student loan debts that keep me tethered to a relatively higher-wage job when I’d rather be stocking organic chard at a co-op, and (b) I have been yearning for years to move into deeper integrity with how I consume.

At a very personal level, I am so freaking tired of being bound to a job that doesn’t make use of my gifts simply because I’ve incurred debt.

Short of filing for bankruptcy — which is an avenue I’d probably have to take if I lost my job — my options are to either (a) continue my trajectory (where my debt climbs or stagnates but never goes away), or (b) get hard-core about paying off my debts so that I can break the cycle and liberate myself a bit more from capitalism.

Getting hard-core about paying off debts has never worked for me in the past because it’s always involved deprivation. ”I can’t afford that…” is pretty much a guarantee that I’m about to break out the credit card. But the dopamine hit is always short-lived, and the struggle to pay new spending in full by the end of the month (even while my existing debts remain high) makes my meager savings dwindle into only one month’s reserve.

But it wasn’t always this way. In 1999, I gave away nearly all of my possessions and — with very little in the bank (I was a college student living on student loans, thank you very much) — I left all that I knew behind. I rarely earned much if any income and relied on a variety of sources to feed myself, source clothing, and get around. And while some of those sources are ones I hope I never have to return to — like eating out of garbage dumpsters — I lived on very, very little during the span of a few years. And my life was arguably richer for it.

So, The Spending Experiment is my way of tapping back into those very lean and frugal — yet deeply rich — times as a source of inspiration and motivation. Because I DON’T WANT TO PROP UP CAPITALISM ANY MORE THAN I FUCKING HAVE TO.

For years, I’ve been making values-aligned purchases without stopping to consider whether the act of purchasing in and of itself was values-aligned. What do I mean? Well, one example is that I’ve done my best to buy organic cotton clothing that is Fair Trade certified. Sounds good (and expensive), right? Well, what if I had sourced my clothes second-hand? We have a MASSIVE glut of second-hand clothing, and the resources required to produce and transport my organic cotton flowy shirts are enormous.

Anyway, The Spending Experiment exists to align my deeply held values with my spending decisions, and in the process get my debts paid off sooner…and with more ease.

You can either create your own version of this, using my approach as inspiration, or you can get on the waitlist for the program I am sitting with and beginning to formulate right now. More to come!

Click here to get on the waitlist.