There is something quietly exhausting about consumption that we don’t talk enough about.
It asks you to plan, compare, and decide — all while disguising itself as fun. A few weeks ago someone asked me what was on my Black Friday list, and I felt my brain short-circuit. I started scanning through my life like a heat-seeking missile, looking for some gap that could be filled with something marked down by 20 percent. My AirPods battery has been struggling — maybe that’s the thing? Or maybe it isn’t.
Black Friday was supposed to be about stocking up on holiday gifts. But somewhere along the way it became this sprawling event for buying practical items you’ve accumulated in a mental list all year long. And never mind how many of those “deals” are just regular prices wearing a discount costume.
You open one tab, then another. Pop-ups arrive. Your inbox fills up. An algorithmic feed serves you exactly the right product at exactly the wrong time. Before long you have too many tabs open and no idea where that winter coat went. What color was it? And while I’m thinking about cold weather — do I need new gloves?
It reminds me of a scene from Stuart Little 2, burned into my memory from second grade because my parents snort-laughed at the theater. Snowball the Cat says: “I still feel bloated.” He looks at his bowl and decides, “Maybe more food will help.”>
That is my relationship with consumerism in a nutshell.
The shopping treadmill
Our material desires don’t appear out of nowhere. There are lists upon lists online full of “ideas” for what to buy — guides disguised as fun, telling us we should want things we never considered wanting five minutes ago.
We may be navigating a challenging economic landscape, but our spending on things we don’t need is certainly not helping. Take clothing: Americans today own roughly five times as much clothing as they did in the 1980s, and many of us barely leave our homes anymore. Online trends drive turnover rates higher than the underpaid workers who make those clothes.
Influencers sold an estimated $3.6 billion of product through LTK in 2022 — a platform built entirely on monetized recommendations. A 2020 Princeton review found that the fashion industry uses one-tenth of all industrially consumed water, and 57 percent of discarded clothes end up in landfills.
I know how it feels to bristle at the idea that individual consumers are responsible for all this waste. But Jag Bhalla and Eliza Barclay wrote something honest for Vox: “Yes, individual choices matter — especially if you’re affluent.” And there’s a harder truth beneath it: the more we buy, the more they produce.
Why I call it choresumption
Here is what I keep coming back to. Shopping isn’t actually fun anymore. It’s a part-time job that pays you in clutter and decision fatigue. So I started calling it choresumption — consumption that feels like a chore.
I’m not writing this to lecture anyone about climate change or guilt you into buying less. My point is simpler: disengaging from consumer culture isn’t something we should do purely out of altruism. We should do it because opting out genuinely feels better.
The quiet side of wanting nothing
I remember the first time I embraced a Financial Independence / Retire Early mindset — what people call FI/RE. The most surprising thing wasn’t the savings or the budgeting. It was how much marketplace noise just… went quiet.
When you genuinely want nothing, all those sales emails and pop-ups stop landing like interruptions. You’re freed from that constant, time-consuming scanning for something that might improve your life — and finding it as cheaply as possible in the process.
On the other end of the spectrum, there’s also a deep peace in reaching financial strength where you don’t feel compelled to wait for sales. You buy the few things you need, when you actually need them, and move on. It just happens that embracing mindful spending often leads you toward both.
But this middle ground — frantic consumption for sport, where the thrill of 10 percent off a KitchenAid mixer somehow hides the fact that you didn’t need one at all — feels especially empty this year. A sale is still just someone trying to sell you something.
Save money by spending it. It’s sleight of hand, and it always adds another item to an already unmanageable list.
“I hate shopping,” my husband said from across the room during that latest marketing blitz, staring dejectedly at his laptop screen. “I never know what to buy.”
That assumption baked into modern life — that we should always be buying something — hands us a problem we didn’t ask for: you now have to figure out what.
The Morning Reset: the one-item rule
If you must buy something, here’s what I try. Before adding anything to my cart, I ask myself a single question: “Am I buying this because I need it, or because I’m avoiding deciding?” If the answer leans toward avoidance, I close the tab and go outside for five minutes.
Five minutes of fresh air does more than clear your head. It reminds you that most things we feel compelled to buy right now can wait until tomorrow — and usually they do.
Frequently asked questions
Is minimalism the only answer?
No. I’m not asking anyone to pare down their whole life or sell things they love. The point is simply awareness: noticing when shopping feels like a chore instead of a choice, and giving yourself permission to walk away.
What if I have kids and actually need things?
You absolutely do. This isn’t about never buying — it’s about not letting the machine decide what you need. Buy with intention instead of urgency, and you’ll find that a lot of those “must-haves” were really just must-wants.
How do I resist seasonal sales without feeling like I’m missing out?
The trick is to prepare a real needs list before the sale season starts. When something isn’t on it, you already know the answer — regardless of how attractive the discount looks.
A note from Hazel: I used to think my values had to look like a perfectly curated life. Now I know that 80/20 is enough. Small shifts away from constant consuming are big wins for your peace of mind — even if the only shift today is closing one extra browser tab.
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