We’re headed back into Please Buy Literally Everything season, so here are some quick thoughts on consumption, gifts, and the like.

1. Many things (especially but not exclusively gadgets) get cheaper over time—the same model of phone (for instance) becomes more impressive with each new generation, offering snazzy new features, a longer battery life, and so on. That means the longer you wait to buy or upgrade, the more you get for the same money. Act accordingly.
2. Experiences can be gifts, and shared experiences can be mutually (and collaboratively) enjoyed gifts.
3. It can be helpful to make a list of the stuff you really, truly want (for yourself or someone else) leading up to a big sale so that your future self has a harder time justifying the purchase of pointless (but cheaper than usual) things, while still being empowered to save some money on the truly valuable (to you) stuff.
4. When we buy loads of things all at once, we sometimes perceive individual prices relative to the total we’re spending, not a single item’s objective monetary value. So if we’re already forking out $1,000, it’s psychologically easier to drop another $200 because it seems like a relatively paltry sum compared to that larger whole. To blunt this effect, I find it can be helpful to compare individual prices to the cost of other things I enjoy, like a weekend roadtrip with my partner or a nice piece of cooking equipment I use everyday. Within the context of this more value-oriented comparison, $200 feels like a decent amount of money that I shouldn’t thoughtlessly spend, because I could use it on something more substantial in the future, instead.
5. Consider investing in local businesses and indie makers-of-things when you can. It’s an uphill climb to compete with bigger players in any industry, and without such support we lose a lot of monoculture-defying options and offerings (also, speaking from personal experience, it’s a rough time for any but the biggest names in all making-things-related spaces right now—so your support is especially meaningful).
6. Finally, consider investing in things that help you (or whomever you’re buying gifts for) create, rather than things that merely enable more consumption. There’s nothing wrong with watching films or reading books or playing games, but most of us have a lot more (and a lot more casually available) options for consumption, already, and augmenting our (or a loved one’s) creative capacity will tend to bear more long-term fruit than purely consumptive alternatives.

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