Coming Down the Home Stretch
If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been largely absent from this blog for the last two months. I haven’t written my weekly consumption diary in a few weeks, and my last post not dedicated to the ins-and-outs of my routine consumption was posted in mid-June.
I’ve been doing a lot with my life. In mid-June, I started an exciting new job. And since this job is purely remote, I have spent the last month sampling the digital nomad lifestyle, visiting Denver, Raleigh, NYC, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Newark, Madison and Chicago, working during the day and exploring at night. Soon, this journey will come to an end. I have mixed feelings about digital nomadism which I aim to dwell upon in a longer post, but right now I feel like there is no place like home.
There’s also no place like the road. While traveling I’ve visited a number of friends, seen the sites, and collected a number of travel stories that range from the sweet and simple to the deranged and exhausting.
Throughout that time I have remained committed to my nothing new policy. I won’t write up the receipts, in part because I’m so far behind that it would take half an hour to record everything. I mostly ate delicious and expensive food, paid for transit and lodging, and spent money on experiences rather than objects.
There are two key exceptions. I bought a nice used blazer in Raleigh, which is both very cute and very much so in line with the rules of this challenge. However, I also ordered a new phone, a OnePlus 8.
There are a number of reasons for carving this exception out, and I think it’s in line with prior exceptions I have made to the Nothing New challenge. Prior exceptions have been mostly related to emergency oral care, either purchasing toothbrush chargers or buying travel toothbrushes on a long trip. I also bought a nice suit to impress my new employer. In these cases there was a sense of the unexpected, of emergency: I didn’t think I’d change jobs this year and need to revitalize my wardrobe, and I didn’t think I’d lose my toothbrush and its accessories so often.
My phone is a similar such emergency. My current phone, a Motorola Force z2, is quickly becoming unusable. It can’t run Audible and Google Maps at the same time. It crashes at least daily. The battery no longer snugly holds a charge. These issues are inconvenient, but when traveling, an act alloyed by apps such as Google Maps and Airbnb and Lyft and Google Pay, a phone that doesn’t work properly is dangerous. If I were to get locked out of an Airbnb and my phone were to die, I would have little recourse. If I got stranded and couldn’t call a Lyft or look up the local bus schedule, I would remain stranded. A smartphone in this day is as necessary as a new suit, and possibly as necessary as oral care.
Certainly, I could have ordered a refurbished phone and committed further to the challenge. I elected not to for a few reasons, reasons that I think are cogent and which match the spirit (if not the letter) of the challenge.
When I started this challenge a few considerations for its undertaking were thrift and environmental consciousness. My new OnePlus 8 represents both pillars.
The OnePlus 9 was released earlier this year, and OnePlus 10 is rumored to arrive by the end of the year. As such, I was able to get a new OnePlus 8 on clearance for 400 dollars. When purchased new, this phone normally retails for 700 dollars. Currently, a good condition used OnePlus 8 retails for 380-400 dollars. A used OnePlus 8 in less than pristine condition can retail for 300 dollars. I expect that the new phone could last four years whereas a more beaten phone could maybe last three, and they would have the same amortized cost at this time horizon, the clearance-sale phone and the used phone both arriving at 100 dollars a year. If the used phone were to last two years, and the new phone three, then the new phone would be thriftier when amortized; it would be $133 a year for the new phone and $150 a year for the used one.
Since the OnePlus 8 is no longer manufactured–hence a clearance sale–I do not consider environmental waste an issue. Whereas purchasing a Pixel 6 or a Samsung Fold 3 would likely induce Google and Samsung to manufacture more such phones to keep up with demand, the OnePlus 8’s manufacturing history is now just that: history, unaffected by current consumer desires. And if they aren’t purchased by consumers, they will likely end up in an e-waste landfill in order to free up warehouse space for the new product line. Then, I am saving this phone the same way I might save a used one.
A system of rules should have exceptions. Here, emergency, as well as the emergence of a clearance sale on this particular phone, has made it so that to adhere to the law would be to defy its spirit. Those who hope to live by rules should also live by their potential exceptions.
Expect more posts from me as soon as I get home.