Mindful Spending

Mindful spending is a way of treating yourself, your community, and your money with respect.

Mindful spending begs you to consider each dollar you spend an extension of your personal values, creating an individual economy that centers on what you love and not what society tells you you have to have. It means choosing not to spend money at all sometimes, choosing to spend more on high-quality, well-crafted items that support your community, and choosing to spend less on items that commercialism has put an unnecessary price tag on.

Mindful spending means buying handmade or buying local when appropriate. It means supporting fair industry practices around the world.

Using your money in a conscious way and not just spending when it feels good requires some out-of-the box thinking. It’s not what we’ve been told to do. Even in a recession, the government and the media beg us to spend out money – more! more! more! – to bolster the economy. The “have-nots” are asked to spend their money to support the “haves.” We buy more cheap meals, more cheap toys, more cheap clothes, more cheap services, more more more until the cheap has become more expensive than quality goods & services.

And the people out of work are those that create the quality goods & services.

Bottom line, it is important to spend your money. We can’t expect to get paid if we’re not willing to pay others. But being mindful of where your money goes benefits society in unimaginable ways. According to the 3/50 project, $68 dollars of every $100 stays in the local community “through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures” when you buy from an independent locally owned brick & mortar store.

If you buy directly from a maker or service provider, the impact is even greater.

When you are mindful of your spending, you are supporting yourself with your money.

You are spending money to allow someone else to spend money on you.

For additional reading on mindful spending try:

3 Reasons to Pay More for Your Stuff it’s time to rethink the value of stuff. sometimes stuff costs more because it’s worth more: the person who created it is skilled, the design is innovative, the materials are longer lasting…

Disposable Culture & Our Fear of Commitment If money = commitment, we can’t commit to quality, to things that last a lifetime. We can’t commit to things that nurture us instead of make us sick. We have a serious problem with commitment. And so we have a serious problem with money: the way we earn it, the way we save it, the way we spend it.

The Danger of DIY Culture On one hand, DIY culture teaches us that it’s better to make than buy, better to do than accept. On the other, the New Economy tells us that we can embrace our entrepreneurial spirit, do what we love, profit from passion. In the middle there is a choice – buy or make – where the two collide and threaten our happy little arrangement.

True Cost of Handmade when you’re dealing with a craftsperson who knows her business, her product, and her market, you’re probably going to pay more. but consider carefully what you’re paying for

5 Times I Choose to Spend More Choosing to be mindful of your spending, to choose to pay more can be a nerve wracking decision. Other times, it’s pretty cut and dry.

Creative Tithing Are you willing to give a portion of your income every month to an artist? Oh yeah, you get some art in return.

{image via erin jane designs}