What's Your Consumable Shopping Percentage?

As I was checking out at my Publix today, (I LOVE Publix!) I was thinking about how often I shop for groceries in comparison to other things. Shopping is what I consider a necessary evil because on the one hand, you do need food, drinks and toiletries but on the other hand, shopping is also a supreme opportunity to add clutter to your life if you're not reeeeally careful.

Buying consumables -- the necessities -- is the lesser of the two shopping evils because at least those things disappear. Food gets eaten, drinks get drunk, and paper products get used up. However, the hard goods you buy -- clothing, household items, furniture, and tschotchkes -- they hang around. Forever, in some cases.

I began thinking about the number of shopping trips I make for...

consumables versus the number I make for hard goods.

For me, the consumable trips vastly outnumber the others. I'd say about 85% of all my shopping trips are for consumable items, and 15% of the time, I'm shopping for hard goods. This means that although I am adding items to my life, they're constantly being used up, so the net clutter added is zero.  This is the beauty of consumables and why I advocate consumable holiday gifts too.

What about you? Do you shop for fun? For sport? To find a great bargain? Because you're bored? Because you're deluded into thinking that one more THING will make you or your kids happy? (Madame Blueberry made that mistake too.) If you evaluate your shopping habits, what percentage of the time are you shopping for hard goods versus your everyday consumables? If the percentages aren't what you'd like them to be, what can you do to change that?

Comments

[BigNerd]

You've raised an interesting perspective here. I've never looked at the ratio of expendable items vs. items we are forced to reprocess or 'put somewhere'.

This is a great way to review items being considered for purchase.

Don't forget that it is equally important to recycle the packaging that our consumables come in.

Keep your home uncluttered and your local landfill too!

[Monica Ricci]

BigNerd, thanks for checking back in! Good to see you here again. You are so right about the packaging thing. Thanks for your comment!
~Monica

[Melinda]

I used to shop because I was bored or mad... I used to believe in "retail therapy." But you know what? It doesn't work. We've been working on a zero-based budget, so our percentages of consumables are on their way up.

A good way to declutter your refridgerator is to do a menu plan every week. It works for us.

[Monica Ricci]

Melinda, good for you for realizing retail therapy doesn't work! Much like drugs, retail therapy temporarily makes you forget your pain and makes you feel good. But after the "rush" of the purchase (or the drug wears off) you're still stuck with whatever issues you had before the shopping (or the drug) came into play.

Thanks for your comment, Melinda!
~Monica

[Felicia]

Oddly enough I've been dragging a lot less stuff home lately. I usually do most of my shopping at Saturday morning garage sales but I've set up a craft booth at my local market the last few months to sell my creatures. So now I'm making money rather than spending it! LOL

[Diana Bartling]

We started a family Christmas tradition last year that all gifts in our gift exchange should be consumable. It has been fun to see the creativity of the gifts...everything from a month's supply of chips and salsa to a roll of stamps to a Napoleon Dynamite calendar. We also do the whole "stealing" of gifts thing, so it is a lot of fun!!

[Monica Ricci]

Felicia, that's one way to turn your hobby into money. Good for you!

Diana, I instituted this policy in my own life about ten years ago, and slowly, my husband and friends got on board. The result is that we have WAY less clutter around the holidays. It's wonderful.
~Monica