Spiral

Image by msandersmusic from Pixabay

This is part of my series on Decluttering Mental Models.

The Diderot effect states that certain purchases will cause a flurry of follow-up purchases, called a consumption spiral

For example, I’ll watch a movie trailer and say, “I have to go see that!” After I show the trailer to my wife, she’ll want to see the movie too. So we make it a date.

Two tickets only cost $18. It sounds like a cheap date, right? But we have to hire a babysitter. And if we’re going to get a babysitter, we should make the most of our time and go out to dinner. With dinner, I may want a flavored lemonade. It comes with free refills, after all! After dinner, I’ll be tempted by the dessert menu. At the theater, we might want popcorn and Red Vines, but then I have to get a drink. One thing leads to the next, just like in the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

What started as an $18 date ended up costing $90. And it all started when I watched a movie trailer.

A similar thing happened when a friend saw an ad for a gym and signed up for a 2-year membership. He bought Nike gym shoes, an Under Armour gym bag, a BlenderBottle Shaker Pro, whey protein powder, 5 pounds of frozen berries, and a Blendtec blender for post-workout smoothies. He also bought deodorant, shampoo, soap, and razors to keep in the gym bag.

But these consumption spirals pale in comparison to the one I fell into when I bought my first house.

Now, consumption spirals are not necessarily bad. Some are just part of life. When my wife and I had our first baby, we spent money on all sorts of things, e.g., furniture, diapers, and clothes. This is reasonable and expected. In fact, having a kid is an 18-year (or longer!) consumption spiral. And that’s OK.

So the goal isn’t to avoid all consumption spirals. Rather, we should be mindful of them. We need to think about what we’re getting into before we make that first purchase. Do I want to spend $90 on a date right now? Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Either way, I consciously direct my spending.

In addition, when I enter a consumption spiral, I set limits, so they don’t careen out of control. Early in our marriage, my wife and I went out to dinner a lot, and I always ordered a flavored lemonade. (Strawberry is the best!) It was a good deal because I always got a refill. Or two. But these delicious drinks increased my bill and my waistline. As did the desserts. (Strawberry cheesecake, anyone?) These days, we order water with our meals and skip dessert. We also try to catch less-expensive matinees, and we skip the concessions.

Setting limits on how much we spend on dates means we have more money to go on more dates. And that’s the point: spend less on frivolous stuff, like strawberry lemonade, so we can spend more on what makes us happy.

Thanks to James Clear, whose blog post first introduced me to the concept of consumption spirals.


More Decluttering Mental Models:

Top 10 Favorites

  1. How I answer the question: “What if I need this later?”
  2. “The Container strategy” will simplify your decluttering
  3. Selling clothes is for suckers (unless you earn $15/hour)
  4. Wait 48 hours before buying stuff
  5. 21 questions to ask before you buy
  6. The radical way to measure wealth, part 1 and part 2
  7. We’re trained to be dissatisfied with what we have (and how to fix this)
  8. Clear clutter by zoning your home
  9. How screen time kills your motivation to declutter
  10. Dear car dealers: I don't want a "free" T-shirt with your logo

Get started

  1. Clear clutter by zoning your home
  2. How I answer the question: “What if I need this later?”
  3. “The Container strategy” will simplify your decluttering
  4. Hold each item and ask, “Does this spark joy?”
  5. When the “Does this Spark Joy?” fails you, ask these 6 questions
  6. Create your “Discard by Feb. 2022” box
  7. Decluttering yearbooks? Ask these 8 questions first

Shopping

  1. 21 questions to ask before you buy
  2. Wait 48 hours before buying stuff - version 1 and version 2
  3. How a grocery shopping list saves me time, money, and pounds

Manage your clothes

  1. Selling clothes is for suckers (unless you can earn $15/hour)
  2. Dear Dude with too many T-shirts: no one wants to buy them—just recycle/trash them
  3. Don't be like my friend Giorgio with his 400 Hawaiian shirts
  4. None of my clothes "spark joy"—so what do i get rid of?

Happiness & satisfaction

  1. Limit pleasurable things so they don’t lose their novelty
  2. We’re trained to be dissatisfied with what we have (and how to fix this)
  3. Craving never stops and my potato chip addiction
  4. Reminder: happiness levels stay consistent

Get motivated

  1. Want to boost your motivation to declutter? Immerse yourself in decluttering videos, podcasts, & books!
  2. How screen time kills your motivation to declutter
  3. Imagine your ideal home… Imagine all the clutter is gone…
  4. Feeling unmotivated? Declutter with a 5-minute time box

Manage your money

  1. The radical way to measure wealth, part 1 and part 2
  2. Save money by controlling aspirational identities
  3. I wasted so much money starting projects (and how I fixed it)

Manage consumption spirals

  1. How consumption spirals work
  2. Buying a house led to an enormous consumption spiral
  3. How craving completeness drives my consumption

Shift your Paradigm

  1. Change your environment, change your consumption
  2. 3 thought experiments to adopt a decluttering mindset
  3. Your home is not a storage unit for other people's crap!
  4. Before you buy stuff, do this little mental exercise
  5. Less space, less stuff
  6. That’s right, you and I pay for the privilege of seeing viagra ads
  7. Your home is an expensive container for your stuff. What’s your cost per sqft?

Manage your emotions

  1. Can you tolerate boredom?
  2. Fill the void with a long term goal

Control the Clutter

  1. Dear car dealers: I don't want a "free" T-shirt with your logo