Wallets out
A week or so ago, there was a discussion at Ozarque (just generally a very interesting read, by Suzette Haden Elgin), spread over a few posts, about, generally, money. Much of the conversation annoyed me, but I am now calmer about that, so I am going to respond to it, in parts. (I am wolfangel78 there.)
The gist is this: SHE was responding to an ad which went something like: a teenager girl asks her father for 80$ for jeans. He asks the name of the designer, goes and buys stock in that designer, and hands her the cash.
I pointed out that no designer sells their jeans for that little, that, in fact, average jeans come close to that.
The conversation then began to revolve around what is average, and what is reasonable, etc etc.
(I’m trying not to be too defensive, because I think this is just too reminiscent of my old roommate, who would sit there and wonder how I could spend my money on whatever, while she enjoyed using my whatever, which grated.)
We had lots of people laughing. Ha! Like Gap is average! I can get my jeans at Target/Walmart/thrift shop for 30/20/2! That’s average! Well, no, it’s not. Average means in the middle.[1] Not the cheapest or the most expensive. Of course you could get them for less, or you could get them for more. Ignoring the 4 digit prices, it’s easy to get 2 or 3 hundred dollar jeans at a mall in any middle class neighbourhood. Thrift shops are not average prices by any means, though you might be able to make a good case for 30$ jeans.
Then we had the Well, it’s just if you care about brands that you shop at the Gap, Target/Walmart/thriftshops have jeans that look as good and last as long etc etc. Point one: expensive things are often expensive for a reason. They fit better, wear better. Point two: my time is worth something. I can walk into a Gap-brand store and I know the jeans there fit me well. I dislike shopping for jeans, so making this process painless is worth something on top of my time. Gap is certainly not a trendy, cool brand, either.
And there was the question of morality: is it *immoral* to buy jeans that cost 80 dollars? But at what point is a luxury immoral? Is it immoral to go out to dinner, since you could make the same food at home for less? Immoral to buy other than the store brand of anything? Immoral to travel, since you could save all that money? Immoral to buy new computers, or more expensive computers than you absolutely need? Buying them at all, since there are public libraries with computers? Immoral to use washing machines instead of washing your clothes by hand? Immoral to buy books, because you could go to the library instead, or donate all the books you buy to the library? Immoral to see movies? At what level are we allowed to spend more money to make our lives easier or more pleasant? Is it only ok to ask this of people who have money, or can we also tell people without money that it’s immoral to smoke or drink or eat dessert or whatever? Stephen at Ethesis also made this point, which no one there responded to. Presumably because everyone has their own little luxuries which they are understandably unwilling to give up. My contention is that if you have some, you really have no basis to condemn them in other people.
Of course I judge people too — someone remarked upon a $10million bat mitzvah which is really horrifying. I don’t know where I draw my line, but it’s somewhere after 80$ for jeans and before 10,000,000$ for a party.
But it’s interesting, the amount of self-righteousness — to which I was not immune — there, about what is and isn’t appropriate or ok to spend money on, what people do or don’t “deserve” and what they are or aren’t “entitled” to. (I dislike those verbs; they give much the wrong emphasis.) Where it is okay to spend money on yourself and where it isn’t. (The answer, of course, is that whatever I do is right, and anything different isn’t.)
I want to defend spending more than the absolute minimum of money necessary, but I am not into conspicuous consumption, either, and I can’t figure out if this is just the answer above or something more thought-out. I am not sure, either, why some things are okay to spend on (computers, books, food) and others not (clothes, televisions). I can come up with some ideas, of course, but none seem quite right.
The word ‘need’ doesn’t work for those purchases but — few people only purchase what they actually *need*. It’s rather hypocritical.
In the end, I try to stick to one rule: you can insult what other people buy or like (it’s fun), but not to their faces.
[1] Yes, it has other meanings, many of which are precise.
December 19th, 2005 at 3:50 pm
“(The answer, of course, is that whatever I do is right, and anything different isn’t.)”
That’s about it. The only remaining question is *how* wrong are the other people. Some of them are tolerably wrong …
December 19th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
Regarding expensive things being expensive for a reason - true enough, but sometimes that reason isn’t “because they’re of better quality”, but rather “because people assume that they’re of better quality”. True story: I once worked at a company that sold its rather inexpensive product in a variety of markets. They had trouble breaking into a rather posh market, so they increased their price by 50%. That was it: they were selling the same stuff as before. Result: increased sales. Not just increased revenue, but more people were buying their stuff.
But about the “you didn’t HAVE to buy that” - I’ve found myself saying that on occasion, but not in response to “I spent $100 on a pair of jeans” but more in response to things like “I don’t know how anyone can possibly wear jeans that cost less than $100, because they’re SUCH low-quality!” So I’ll only make a remark about not needing something in response to an assertion that that thing was indeed needed.
Though I can relate on not wanting to spend time shopping for jeans. I’m kind of lucky, in that I find that my best-fitting jeans are the $5 ones from the Salvation Army. Also, I find that shopping at the Sally Ann for jeans is actually LESS of a waste of my time, because the Sally Ann organizes jeans by waist size and inseam, whereas most stores that sell women’s jeans are under the illusion that a size like “6″ or “12″ actually means something. That’s actually my time-saving principle when it comes to buying jeans: I will not try on a pair that does not list a waist size AND an inseam. Sure, not every pair that is size [my waist size]-[my inseam] fits me, as there are other variables involved; however, I have far better chances with those pairs than with the ones that just have a single size number.
(Speaking of which, the other day I was in Sears buying PJ’s. The combination of tall+boyish figure means that much of my wardrobe comes from menswear, but I hadn’t anticipated that the men’s pyjama bottoms were labelled with waist size and inseam. And they had pockets! This is how the other half lives, the lucky bastards.)
December 19th, 2005 at 9:58 pm
I agree: some things are expensive just to be expensive. And really, most of my jeans are 30-50 — Canadian — at a Gap-brand store, not 80. Gap brand jeans happen to fit me very well, and I know what size I wear in them. My size hasn’t changed in years, so it’s pretty easy.
I’m really not against saving money, and I have nothing against thrift shop jeans. And yes, the “how could you buy something that cheap?” is absolutely as obnoxious as “how could you buy something that expensive?” and deserves the answer they get.
Pyjama bottoms with pockets. That would work. I have a pair of sweatpants with pockets, and I am amazed at how much crap I carry in them.
December 19th, 2005 at 11:06 pm
For some, particularly for some who have very little, it’s simply shocking to spend that much on a pair of jeans. Your argument is well put, of course. And I agree with your theory that everyone has a pitfall for spending money and I think the “immoral” argument is pointless. How we spend money has nothing to do with morals. But I wear jeans that are hand-me-downs from my MIL.
I don’t know. I guess it’s hard for me to read posts like this justifying the purchase of $80 jeans as an average when I haven’t bought my kids new jeans this year. And that’d be jeans that fit, and aren’t too short, or too tight; forget about fitting into the nomenclature of blue jeans.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:20 am
I disagree with the comment that How we spend money has nothing to do with morals. Of course, as a writer on morals and the environment, I think morals have to do with everything. :^). That said, I have no idea what the answers are here. $80 sounds rather a lot to me for jeans, but then I buy at Farm Fleet. But more generally, what we consume, and how much we consume, does seem to me to have major moral consequences, because it has major resource and environmental consequences, which in turn has major socio-political consequences. wolf may be better off in this regard spending more on the better-quality product rather than buying the cheaper version that dies sooner. Or maybe wolf patches them, extends their life cycle even more. Again, I have no idea what the right answer is. I, for one, get tired of my independently wealthy colleagues, whose children never hear the word “no”, passing judgement on the parents who go to Walmart for Christmas to buy “geegaws” for their kids, thereby somehow ruining the planet more so than the kid with stuff from higher-end stores.
Other people’s consumption is always a hot button issue. I’m consistently interested in how Dudley from the Harry Potter is excoriated for his greed, because he is fat (when he was little), but Rowling often describes the lavish feasts that Harry and his friends have at school. Dudley shouldn’t be allowed this or that, but Harry and his friends, because they have better metabolism or self-control, are entitled (I love that word) to their consumption of sugary crap. In fact, it is a part of school food…
The thing is, we want other other people to respect our choices, and we tend to like to think that we respect other peoples’ choices when, in fact, we often don’t. It’s cultural imperative to pretend as though we shouldn’t judge other people’s choices, but secretly we all think our choices are better….or else we wouldn’t make the choices we do. I may not think I am a better person than my friends who drive cars or eat meat, but I think I am making morally superior choices. Do I get to be sanctimonious about this? Well, not if I want any friends…
December 20th, 2005 at 9:13 am
Michelle, fair enough. Actually, I think 80$ is a little on the high end, but 50$ seems like an average price for jeans (adult, I obviously have no idea what kids’ jeans cost), in that sense of neither the cheapest nor the most expensive. And I can understand finding the numbers shocking — my shock level is a little higher, but it exists.
Lisa, yes, true. There is an interplay of our ethics and our wallets. I refuse to shop at Walmart — but I can afford to refuse to shop there. But I don’t buy organic everythings, and I don’t buy only local veggies. I wear my jeans until there are holes in inappropriate places, but do they last longer than cheaper ones? I don’t know, and I don’t care to test it. Sometimes, buying better at first does mean things will last longer — but not everyone can afford that.
The answers are certainly not simple.
You know, that point about the HP books had never caught me before. Interesting.
I admit I don’t always respect other people’s choices. I think if you can afford to avoid Walmart, you should. I think that people should use cars with lower gas consumption. I think no one should have an SUV because they blind me in my low car at night.
But there are other choices that I don’t think are quite as heavily loaded. I don’t judge people who have wine with dinner regularly, though I don’t do it.
I think the imperative is not to pretend we shouldn’t judge — that won’t ever happen — but to not share the judging to the people you are in fact judging (”Wow, you bought THAT? What a waste of money!” which goes really well with things that are either too expensive or too cheap, for any values of too), but to do it in private.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:45 am
Lisa, I don’t know. I find myself pondering this still. I think that the decisions we make reflect our value system but morals? I just don’t think that how money is spent reflects *morals*. I don’t want to get caught up in nit-picking about connotations. but our morals, to me at least, implies wrong versus right, and in a way that is very socially subjective. It’s not up for grabs, right? But how we choose to spend our money is rooted in shifting priorities. I spend my money quite differently even now than I did ten years ago.
Wolfa, to be fair, they do wear uniforms to school, and since we don’t live in the tundra, it’s only been recently (oh say, the last few days after being out of school) that this conundrum about the blue jeans has arisen, so it’s sort of a coinkidink that your blue jeans cost post hit the screen at the same time that I’m going, hmm, where can I find the cheapest jeans since I don’t exactly have the money right now after recovering from unplanned expenditures and Christmas present buying?
And I live in the interminable looming shadow of my mother-in-law, who is a prime example of one who “wastes” money, as I see it. But even in that case, who am I to judge? If she wants to spend thousands of dollars whitening her teeth, hey, somebody’s pockets are getting lined by this grossness, right?
Overall, I very much agree with you. I think that it just comes down to what people can relate to and that often times, the difference in ability/choices is what determines relationships between people. It’s when one is exposed constantly to someone with a value system so quite different and/or opposed from his/her own that the clap the trap rule you mention should be invoked, simply to avoid being — you know — rude.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
Michelle, I think we all live in the shadow of someone who has and spends lots more money than we do. (It’s my aunt, for me.) And I’m really not judging you or your choices or purchases. I am sure that mine will change in 10 years, too, and if I have kids then, I might well be closer to your shoes than mine.
It’s true, there’s a lot of “can’t relate” — but it’s sad that so often the first response to that is an attack.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:03 pm
Not that people here have been attacking.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:44 pm
Well, at the risk of being boring (oh, phsaw! When has that stopped me!), I’d say that morals do shift around as well, and can be highly situational; perhaps yours are the same as they were 10 years ago, but many people change in that (and that’s not to hint you haven’t grown. Maybe you just had a very resilient set of morals back then. I didn’t, I had rocks in my head back then (early 20s)).
Anyway, I think I may have introduced a bit of a canard there. The question about consumption and how much you pay for things are separate. You can spend the same on 10 pairs of cheap shoes and 4 pairs of expensive ones, and I’ll be damned if I know the best way, other than just trying to take care of yourself as well as you can, think about the consequences of your choices the best you can, and muddle through.
My parents are immigrants, and they are fanatically thrifty. Fanatically so. Spending money is a sin, and they walk around the grocery store clucking about how much things cost and being the old people that everybody hates in the checkout line because they are disputing a 50-cent price difference. It’s their religion. Growing up around that was sheer, unudulterated hell; wearing secondhand clothing to school (they worst, most horrible 1970s plaid slacks in the 80s because “jeans were too expensive” etc etc.) However, they grew up in WWII-era Germany. It’s not hard to see where they developed this habit. The problem is that they taught no moderation. Because money was their religion, they were never capable of explaining how living within your means is a way of taking care of yourself…it always just seemed like a weird obsession–like weird immigrant food and accents.
December 21st, 2005 at 12:53 pm
There are lots, so many, ways to live that are ethical. It’s not about how much money you spend on jeans. But it is about how you let other people live their lives.
But the internet is funny that way, because it’s hard to tell when you’re insulting people. Comment threads are clearer, though.
I’d think thrifty is further than “living within your means”, no — it’s living as cheaply as possibly. My parents never did it quite as explicitly, but when we had less money, they said so, and they often made their choices explicit (less money on home repainting, more money on vacations), which I guess worked. Or not, because I think I am somewhat more paranoid about money than they are.
December 21st, 2005 at 2:09 pm
One of the things that amazed me most about the commercial — but that perhaps won’t be surprising to people moving in financial circles where an $80.00 pair of jeans is considered ordinary — was that the father in the commercial, not out on the road but in his own home, only had to reach in his pocket and hand his daughter those eighty dollars. Among people I know, you might have that much money in your bank account or that much room on your credit card, but you sure wouldn’t have eighty dollars handy on demand, just sitting there in your pocket.
Suzette
December 21st, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Well…There are lots, so many, ways to live that are ethical. It’s not about how much money you spend on jeans. But it is about how you let other people live their lives. yes and of course no. In general I’d argue it’s kind of a modern, western practice that suggests we live and let live. There are behaviors we condemn and for good reasons, and sometimes moral clarity helps, really. What constitutes a collective problem, where my moral assessment of your action matters, versus what problems we “let other people live their lives” with…another thorny issue.
I’d say that the issue of how much you spend on your pants, however, is not one of those times when moral clarity matters that much. It hurts to feel judged, bottom line, and passing judgment on such things is, as Michelle pointed out, bad manners. As Miss Manners would probably say, even if you are appalled at somebody’s spending habits, chances are, the bad manners of commenting are a bigger deal.
I certainly hope I haven’t suggested that your pants-purchasing tendencies are wrong…good Lord with my spending habits I would not only be living in a glass house, but a glass village. I’m simply ghastly with money despite my parents’ frantic efforts. I married an accountant to keep me out of the poorhouse. I just thought the discussion was interesting, and it pertains to the stuff I write about for my research, so I got talking. Enjoy your pants in good health!!!!
December 21st, 2005 at 4:37 pm
I guess there’s poverty and there’s poverty…. The people I consider poor are people who usually don’t have a bank account, because the banks require you to either keep a minimum balance (usually $50) or pay a fee, and that’s impossible for poor people. If you asked them if they had a credit card they would laugh. Look at the next “pre-approved” credit card application you get in the mail — there’s a minimum income and it’s far above the poverty line…. So they do have cash in their pockets, and if it’s right after they cashed their check they’ll have more than $80. Of course they can’t give it to their daughters to spend on a pair of jeans; that money has to last to the next check.
December 21st, 2005 at 6:52 pm
or–gad–some of the cards that low-income earners get charge WAY frigging high interest.
December 21st, 2005 at 11:10 pm
I’ve received credit card applications in the mail extending credit to my children, and it’s a well-known fact that credit cards prey upon the inability of their debtors to pay. Look, I guess poverty is a relative term being tossed around here. What you need for a bank account is a job and a residence to report. If you don’t have that, you’re probably homeless, and I don’t think that anyone would argue that homeless people are poverty-stricken.
I’m more interested in the gap between that and the upper middle class. There’s a lot discussed amongst people who *have* about all the *have nots* and it tends towards those at the extreme versus the people who are trying to make a freakin’ honest living and simply get by, who may be lower middle class, like me. I earn decent money, and we live in an okay house, and we’re stable and not in debt, except for medical expenditures recently incurred, but I don’t spend $80 on jeans, and I wouldn’t have it to spend on myself and I certainly wouldn’t dole it out to either of my kids, who I should point out are boys, not girls, and young, not teens, but you can bet your bottom that if they ever want $80 jeans, they can pay for it out of their own freakin’ wallet like they do their games.
And I think there’s value in that.
December 21st, 2005 at 11:26 pm
80$ handy: I’m not sure that I’d have that much for one thing, but I take out more than that when I go to the ATM (which I do quite rarely, which is why I take that much out).
Lisa, you’re right — there are times when how you spend is morally relevant. And jeans, though themselves not a great example, make a small part of things.
I was not feeling attacked here. Anyways, if you want to attack my spending habits, I have better suggestions than my jeans.
December 22nd, 2005 at 7:15 am
I find these discussions very interesting, especially having spent brief times in third world countries (and my parents and wife have spent a good deal more time in them) and living in Texas as a guy (where men wear Wranglers, which sell at Wal-Mart and other fine stores for $14-$16 and always fit and wear better than any other men’s jeans).
My wife has a wonderful, but hard to fit, figure. For her it isn’t a matter of dropping into Target or Wal-Mart and grabbing another pair of Wranglers American Heros and getting five dollars back on a twenty (after tax).
Sometimes luxuries can be cheaper … I have cable internet and an internet phone and it runs a dollar a month less than normal phone service. But should I be using a computer at home or just going to the library?
The real question becomes how do we balance our lives and what does the balance require of us. I worry about it more as I raise my youngest child. My oldest surviving child has a good balance. She was with us through the funerals and the tough times and has a high level of innate compassion. My youngest always is curious if we will buy her things. After all, sometimes someone says yes. So she just keeps asking. Of course she just turned six, but I worry.
I don’t have answers, but I realize that the issues are more complex than many people think them to be, especially as they widen out.
Glad to visit this blog again. I’ve been dropping by randomly (it seems) for several years.
December 22nd, 2005 at 10:19 am
Maybe that’s one of the reasons I am so i interested in the question of first-world consumption. I’ve worked in Malawi, Kenya, and the Dominican Republic, and it’s a different world.
December 22nd, 2005 at 10:40 am
Michelle, I think it is a good thing to have to spend your own money. There’s a balance, of course — it’s cruel to expect a teen to be able to buy winter coats and boots here (good ones are *expensive*. And they need to be good). But having to buy your own games or designer jeans? Fine.
nd the problem with money is that the amount you have isn’t binary, but we act as if it is: rich, not rich. There’s a gulf between the really wealthy and the upper middle class, upper middle class and lower, lower and poor.
Stepehn, I don’t really know. I would like to think that most people turn out okay but I don’t think it really happens, unless there are financial limits set. If they can’t see you making choices — though I’m sure they can.
I don’t, obviously, think t here’s anything wrong with using a computer at home. Or with having some luxuries in general (which almost everyone does), as long as you’re mindful about it, realise you’re paying for a luxury or paying to save time. I guess that’s the issue: mindfulness. Not the only issue, but a big one.
Lisa, it’s a different world, and if it’s unfair to judge them by our standards (”what? no cable tv?”), isn’t it also unfair to judge us by theirs? I’m simplifying, of course, but on some level, I’m not. We can’t just take their culture and plop it down here wholesale. And I’m always a little wary of — and it’s not that you are doing this, I know you know more about it than I do — the noble savage culture idea. There are of course good things to be foudn there, and I think a bit *less* consumerism is a good idea, too. It seems to come back to realising what you are doing and making choices deliberately — at least overall — instead of just to make them or have things.