Trying to Live More Simply: My Journey – and Budget
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9 September 2008
Articles, Christ-onomics
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Real possibility or face-saving fantasy?
Is it possible for us as individuals in the USA to maintain lifestyles that are economically just and healthy for ourselves and for the whole world or are we doomed to be over-consumers of the earth’s resources simply because we reside in an over-consuming country? That is a question that has dogged me for over two decades.
This essay describes some of my wrestles with this question, outlines my guiding philosophies and personal challenges with regards to money and spending, and quantifies my current personal consumption.
I believe we are each on a journey with our Creator, moving deeper and deeper into the gift of our lives – into the fullness of living. This core life purpose of living fully is joined by a second one, equally important: to help create a world where all are able to do so – a world in which all 6.8 billion of us can thrive. I see this thriving world as the Grand Dream that God holds for us. I believe that we are given all that we need to live into this vision for the world, and that because God is infinitely patient with us we will eventually arrive. It is our destiny, our home.
It’s going to cost us, though. (And I think we will gladly pay . . . one day.)
I see that a fundamental opportunity – and challenge – that we have, so as to grow and live more deeply into this destiny, is to expand our awareness of our relationship with money and other resources that flow into our lives, and how we use these resources. For this reason, I see budgeting and tracking ones expenditures as an important spiritual discipline.
Money represents “stored life energy” (Vicky Robbins, Your Money or Your Life). It makes a difference, both for us and for our world, what we choose to do with this stored life energy.
Here is a bit of my own story around money.
I have always been fugal. My parents care and concerns around money in addition to some tart years, financially, through which my family traversed are imbedded in my psyche.
As I reached adulthood I was drawn to a spiritual quest and to an accompanying freedom from material possessions. For this quest, I traveled off into the world, sometimes living with just what I could carry in my back pack. I saw money simply as a resource to buy freedom. Life and the world were waiting for me with adventure and, hopefully, spiritual rapture.
This enthusiastic yet rather hedonistic life plan changed dramatically when, as part of my adventuring, I joined the Peace Corps and went to live in the Third World for two and a half years. There I encountered ubiquitous, abject poverty and saw an inexcusable unfairness of the world economic system – a system from which I and others in the Global North benefitted at the expense of everyone else. I also came to understand that the spiritual life I desired would ultimately need to come through living a meaningful life – a life of fully investing myself towards creating a meaningful, abundant life for all. I came to see this as the true transformation I desired in my depths – that which might come from surrendering my life to the very heart and creative energy of the universe. Furthermore, my use of money would be a way that “rubber meets the road” of reality in this new journey.
Out of this conversion experience and over the ensuing 25 years a set of principles has developed for me which guides my economic behaviors. First and foremost, a basic opportunity that I have for making a difference around me and being in flow with creation is to act as a humble steward to the world – a steward of the abundant resources that continue to come into my life in this wealthy country. By keeping expenditures on my self low I have more “stored life energy” that I can share with others. Moreover, the less I consume the less upward pressure I put on prices, thus helping to make globally traded resources (such as food, energy, services and natural resources) more plentiful and less costly for those who have little.
Living simply also allows me to get by on fewer paid hours of work and thus have more time to volunteer and be of service in the moment. Indeed, one tremendous blessing that comes out of having minimal financial needs is that I can precisely define and shape my work life towards balance and following the Spirit’s guidance. There is an infinite variety of ways to bring meaning to life and value to the world if one doesn’t’ need to earn much money doing it.
What I have seen in my own life is that even on an unusually low-consumption lifestyle – around the official US “poverty line” of $10,400 for a single adult – it is possible to live comfortably and healthfully. A downside, however, is that letting go of wealth also means letting go of some worldly power and purchasable pleasures. This has not always been easy for me. I also accept more risk in that I don’t carry health insurance.
(If you would like to understand more about my choice to not carry health insurance I invite you to read a short blog article here. “My Choice to not Have Health Insurance”)
I should add that I don’t plan for retirement income beyond social security. Indeed, I expect to be working part-time, happily earning my keep until I can no longer physically manage a job and folks tell me I’m just getting in the way. (85 years old?)
Okay . . . so, if I accept a discipline of stewardship and redistribution, what is the right level of expenditure on my own needs and wants versus the needs of the world? On the one hand, I would like to experience giving my whole self into being God’s servant and a “pass through” of resources. This might entail letting go of all personal consumption beyond some minimum basics for my health maintenance.
On the other hand, I want to savor life, including some of life’s purchasable, discretionary pleasures. There is an ongoing tension between these forces. As author E.B. White wrote, “Every morning I arise, torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
Or – in my case – a budget.
At times these competing urges push my consumption habits a little bit one way or the other. Still, I have stayed remarkably consistent through the years, expending – when adjusted for inflation and excluding business expenses and philanthropic giving – about $10,000 to $12,000 per year.
Aside from feeling for the balance between saving and savoring the world there is another parameter – an external reality check – whenever thoughts enter my mind about maybe raising my consumption. That is: How much does the average person in the world consume? I can’t ignore what seems to be logical math that in a global economy with finite resources if I am consuming more than the average person in the world then I am consuming more than one person’s share and thus someone else is consuming less than the average and less than their fair share because of me. The average worldwide per capita consumption level (taking into consideration different costs of living) is, by my rough calculation, about $10,000 per year.
In fact, to tell the tough truth, any money I spend on myself is money I could have given to charity and saved a life. I have heard that a mere $2 – the price of the coffee I’m sipping while I write this paragraph – could give someone in need of food one more day of life on this blessed planet, one more day of conversation and hugs with friends and family, one more spectacular sunset. And I could do the same for an entire family for the price of the last movie I went to. Two hundred dollars could give a child enough support to get past the most dangerous first five years of life when the poor most often die of easily preventable, hunger-related diseases. Five hundred dollars – a couple of train trips for me to visit my family and friends – could, instead, be loaned through a philanthropic organization for the enhancement of a marginalized family’s micro-business. This might, in turn, lift them entirely out of poverty and into sustainable, meaningful lives. Then, when the loan was paid off the “stored life energy” could be turned around to boost another family, and then another.
Or I can take my trips.
With these hard considerations I present here my current expenditures (excluding business expenses and giving).
Current Annual Personal Consumption Expenses
5,200 Rent & utilities (bedroom in a 2 bedroom apt. in high-priced California. House phone. No cell.)
1,500 Food (lacto-ovo vegetarian, with an emphasis on good nutrition)
100 Misc household and personal items
100 Clothes (thrift stores provide all of my clothing)
1,000 Health care & supplements (no health insurance)
750 Transportation (public transit fares & tennis shoes. No car)
500 Recreation (movies, eating out, retreats, coffee shops, etc.)
650 Travel: to see family & friends
550 Gifts consumed (items received gratis & low income medical discounts)
—–
10,350
In this consumption overview there are some expenditure areas that challenge me a bit – challenge me as I balance between saving and savoring the world. Two stand out these days:
1) As I indicate above, I take a few moderate trips each year to visit loved ones. Connectedness with my far-flung “circle” feels so important to me, but how does this weigh against lifting several families in the Third-world out of poverty? I am also pining for a trip abroad to see old friends from my Peace Corps days in the Philippines and/or fulfill a life-long dream of traveling by rail around India and South Asia.
2) I think that it is a luxury of our age that each person is expected to have their own bedroom. In traditional societies or economically poor communities this is not the case, nor was it the norm here in our own country a couple of generations ago. Even though I am single I would like to explore sharing a room with someone else using a bunk bed. That would then bring my annual resource consumption down to or below the global norm so that I might no longer be consuming beyond my “fair share”. However, finding such a residential possibility is difficult in this era. I may have to do the work and take the risk of initiating it myself by setting up a household where two persons per room is the norm. And then, who knows, I may find that having my own room and space is just one of those things that I must have for my health and sanity!
I pray for clarity in each of these growth areas.
So, there you have it – one middle class North American’s modest effort to try and live responsibly with regards to money and consumption – in hopes of helping to build a better world.
The question that I asked at the outset of this piece – whether or not our over-consumption in the U.S. is presently unavoidable – has not yet been definitively answered in my mind. However, I do believe that a just world – even in terms of economics – is our destiny. Our collective hearts, yearning for planetary peace, will continue to lean and tread in that direction, making the sacrifices one step at a time and encountering the blessings.
I welcome all feedback on these efforts that I’ve described here or any of your own insights and experiences.
Ocean hearts.
Rick Zemlin, these days, considers relationships to be his greatest wealth and treasures the friendships in his new home town of San Diego. He is a member of the Hawthorn House house church, and before that was for eighteen years a part of Church of the Savior, a model ecumenical network of faith communities and ministries in Washington, D.C.. For his paid work Rick does relationship-based fundraising. He currently works with theologian-activist Ched Myers at Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries. Also of key importance to Rick, along with work, relationships and simple living is to discover, more and more, God’s gift of inner peace and recognizing God in others.
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Rick,
Thank you so much for sharing. It is so interesting to see your budget written down. The part that struck me was that you only spend 600 dollars per year on recreation. Wow! I think you are an inspiration to many people. I hope people see this and think how they can strive to live more simply. This might be too nosy, but I am kind of curious. You seem to imply that you make more than 10,000 per year, yet only spend that much. What do you do with the rest of your money?
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That is a GREAT question, Brooke. I earn, after taxes, about $14,000 per year in my half-time paid work. As my budget indicates I spend about $10,350 per year. In the blog post I should have included in the budget section the amount that goes towards philanthropic giving, which is about $1,500 per year and another $500 per year for business expenses. (I didn’t include these two line items because the focus of the essay was on my “personal” consumption, but those figures do help complete the picture. So, thanks for the nudge!)
Adding in this $2,000 for giving and business expenses to the $10,350 in the budget and subtracting out the $600 line item in the budget for “Gifts consumed” (things I didn’t spend money on but consumed nonetheless) brings my total financial outlay per year to $11,750. That leaves me with a surplus of about $2,250 per year. I invest that surplus capital into a loan fund called OikoCredit (www.oikocredit.org) (www.office.us@oikocredit.org). OikoCredit, in turn, provides very poor micro-entrepreneurs in the Global South (“Third World”) with small loans to help them develop their humble businesses. As an “investor” I earn a nominal interest of 2% per year. These funds that I’ve placed in OikoCredit are always available to me in case of some emergency need that might arise. I drew out some funds once over the past 22 years that I have been an investor at OikoCredit and received the check immediately from them, without any hassle. Meanwhile, the funds at OikoCredit are doing exactly what I would do with them if I were to give it all away, which is to help the marginalized of the world by trying to correct in my small way the global economic system that distributes so much of the world’s resources to us in the Global North while much of the rest of the world gets so little.
Thank you for the affirmation in your post, Brooke, and the question.
-rick
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Thanks Rick!
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Thanks for this Rick. I am really touched by your thoughts, with the help of E.B. White, on saving the world vs. savoring the world. You have given me a better place to start some deep change in my life when it comes to my consumption.
Much Love
[Reply]
Hi Rick,
Well done!!
I have one question that continues to be a sticking point for me in all of these conversations, and I don’t know if others share it, but I might as well bring it up with you so you might consider addressing it. We debated this a lot at Sojourners, and some in our economics discussions from this past summer at the Hawthorn House.
Is money spent actually equal to resource consumption? In other words, is a certain amount of MONEY the most accurate way to measure one’s “share” of the world ’s resources? While I can see that this is broadly true, I think it’s not quite accurate, because our economic system doesn’t measure a number of ecological “costs” when assessing price. For example, I could buy organically grown apples for twice the price of conventionally grown apples, which by your measurement would mean I’d consumed “more” of the world’s resources — but I would argue that buy paying more in our man-made currency, I’ve actually depleted the world’s “bank” less. Does that make sense? Similarly, there are many items one can “purchase” for a great deal of money (concert tickets, for example) that don’t necessarily have a great ecological cost, which is ultimately the “bank” we’re all sharing (though of course one has to consider that the money could have been used to provide food for a starving child, which is a related but distinct point). The lines are fuzzy, I know, but I’m wondering what you think about some of these issues around currency (US dollars) being the measurement for “consumption.”
That’s all for now — thanks for sharing this post with us!
Laurel
[Reply]
That is a GREAT question, Laurel. I think you highlight how this is a fuzzy subject all around. Your question can help people see the need for their own reflection, because my rather simplified presentation of the issue has some clear holes in it (just as Brooke G pointed out in her own comment, above).
And you are right — we DO need to weigh how much money we are spending vs what types of human activity we are supporting in our market place. Fair-traded products vs Wal-mart shopping is another good example. Your question points to a whole different discernment around personal economics for building a better world that is of central importance – one which I don’t address in my article.
Thanks for pointing that out.
-rick
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I am privileged to get to live w/ Rick and actually SEE his simplicity journey in action! My favorite part about his commitment to frugality is that his lifestyle does not burden him. He is joyful and clearly satisfied w/ the lifestyle his budget offers him. And he bakes his own bread every week! How could one feel poor with daily homemade bread?
Sometimes I do wish he would invest a little more in the “savoring” vs. “saving” part of the equation, like in feeling freer to spend money on traveling to see his friends.
Also, I have a hard time understanding the direct connection between money I don’t spend and the poor in the developing world. I have a hunch that the source of the problem lies less w/ our individual habits of consumption than it does w/ more macro-level economic and political structures that govern resource distribution. IF my hunch is correct, it makes me feel a little better about my “savoring” efforts! Policy advocacy is such a crucial activity to support, in addition to all our individual efforts at reducing our excessive consumption.
But even if a lifestyle of extreme frugality isn’t itself directly helping the poor oceans away (’though maybe it is!), it is at the very least an extremely important symbol for middle class America to be startled by. A commitment like Rick’s serves to stir the hearts of the rest of us, to stop us in our tracks and help us see different ways of living–and not just the specific path of voluntary poverty, but also the challenge to live deeply, intentionally, w/ the good of all the Earth in mind in everything we do.
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Thank you for the warm, affirming and challenging reply, Cassie, written in your superlative communication style.
For other readers I would point out that my housemate, Cassie, is a model of simple living, herself. Through her solidarity with the poor she disciplines herself to use clothes that didn’t require a purchase of any sort. Rather, she acquires them through trades with friends or through hand-me-downs. Only rarely does she give into even shopping at a thrift store. She also goes out of her way to avoid purchasing pre-packaged food because she is environmentally conscious and doesn’t want to add those packages to landfills. Moreover, her left over food scraps are then dutifuflly fed to her worm bin who turn the refuse into fertilizer that Cassie takes to her community vegetable garden plot. I am deeply impressed by her.
So, Cassie, in response to your caring comment, I recognize the saving vs. savoring dialectic as an important ongoing discernment for me and for us all. I greatly appreciate your highlighting this issue for my attention. I would hate to get to the end of my life and feel that I have diminished life unnecessarily through an over emphasis on one side of the equation or the other.
Regarding the other part of your comments, I can understand how abstract it might seem that there is a relationship between my spending and people that live “oceans away”. Here is my rationale for saying that it does matter: we live in a global market with finite resources. Every time I consume a resource it reduces the availability of that resource on the global market, and thus, due to forces of supply and demand, it makes the resource more expensive and thus less accessible to the poor. The most obvious examples of this are commodities that are traded globally – petroleum, food, natural resources. The huge spikes in oil and food prices over the past year were directly a result of reduced supply and increased demand. Even those commodities that are produced locally are still part of the global supply pool. My consumption of US-grown wheat, California-produced oil or bauxite, or San Diego-produced vegetables means that those items are not then available for someone else, either here or abroad and I have joined the push of elevating their prices beyond the reach of the poor, both here and abroad. I believe the same argument can be even made about labor for services I consume (though that may seem a bit of a “stretch” to you or others).
Secondly, any labor (“life energy”) or money (“stored life energy”) that I don’t expend on meeting my own wants is available for me to use in addressing the needs of the world. By keeping my own expenditures low I increase my ability to help heal pains in our world through charitable giving and volunteered work. As I state in my essay I want to live into the role of being a steward of resources to the world. I want my life, as much as possible, to be an investment OUTward into the world. This, in turn, helps me feel more in flow with God’s will for me and with the inherent creative energy of the world. My hope is to “save my real life by losing it” for the world. However, as you well know, I have a heck of a long way still to go on that spiritual journey. In spite of my decades-old simple living and philanthropic disciplines I can still be amazingly small and self-centered at times.
Finally, I want to respond to your mention of the significance of systemic problems. I agree with your thesis that we all need to work for systemic change. At the same time, I feel that we in our own individual habits help engender and create the world economic systems. I worry when I see people chastise the “system” while their own over-consumption reinforces that which they denounce. I think that criticizing the system becomes a way for people to avoid the hard work of changing their own habits. You, Cassie, are a master at leading a disciplined life to try and build a better world. You clearly are not waiting on the system to change and you clearly seem to think your own efforts have value, even if the system remains solidly in place.
That’s all for now.
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Wow.
It’s great to hear of someone living out the ideas I’ve been considering and debating with myself (and others) for years, and trying to implement in some form or other.
I think that there are two dangerous lies that are currently being perpetuated that stand in stark contrast with your approach to the world. The first is the necessity of continuing exponential economic growth, globally – the world gets richer, forever. This is impossible in a finite earth. The second, which is closely coupled to the first, is continuing economic growth, locally, or on a personal level: to spend one’s life accumulating personal material wealth, and to spend lots of time doing so. The result of these two situations is that we apparently need to keep everyone employed full time to fund their mortgage and fancy cars and entertainment, the net result not being a happy society but an overworked, disconnected, stressed society that doesn’t understand why we’re not happy with all these luxuries. And in order to keep everyone employed full time and accumulate said wealth, we need to make and sell lots of junk, thereby using more than our share of the resources that the world can provide.
In contrast to this picture of rampant consumptive self-destruction, the simple life you have explained is a great picture of “less is more”: less work, less stuff to clutter up your life, less debt, less stress equals more happiness, more satisfaction, more chances to contribute to the world rather than taking from it, and more opportunity for others to live a life without daily struggle and grief.
The one question I have is this, the obligatory question of economists (though I am not one myself): if everyone in the Global North lived a life as you have described, what would happen to the local and global economy with the accompanying drop in trade? My simple, thinking-out-loud-late-at-night answer to that question is that it would collapse as it depends on growth for investment. But if our economy (”our” being both global and local, which for me is Australian) were more focused on balance and equality and sharing of wealth rather than growth, it might be possible. This would necessitate paying higher prices for material goods, which means fairer wages for all, simpler lives, and less work hours (as automated labour along with reduced consumption reduces the need for jobs). It would also require a greater shift toward non-consumptive, sustainable service-based economic activity, i.e. less people earning a living by selling useless stuff.
All that aside, it is a joy to live a life that is moving toward simplicity rather than complexity, giving away what stuff you have, catching the train, seeking a balance of life that is outward-looking and generous, and I am encouraged by your zeal and humility in aiming to be a positive, Godly, lightly-treading force in the world.
Keep up the faith.
Thanks,
Christopher
South Australia
[Reply]
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