Consumption Diary #27
A key part of this challenge is to record a weekly consumption diary. This will both hold me accountable to readers of this blog, and will allow me to think about my consumption habits.
As a reminder:
Exempt items are those classes of goods that I am allowed to purchase new, such as food and cleaning supplies.
Watched items are items that I am allowed to purchase, but that I would like to cut back on. Examples include travel and certain productivity softwares. I will also always include a justification for these items.
Restricted items are items I am not allowed to buy new.
Finally, I will also record the goods I have sold or donated.
Physical EXEMPT Items Purchased
$13, Crepes with my Mom
$27, drinks with Olivia
$23, Doordashed Veggie Burger.
$9, crepes on my own
$31, Tailoring my clothes
$26, Doordashed Burger
$23, Doordashed Nachos
$21, Groceries
Digital EXEMPT Items Purchased
Physical WATCHED Items Purchased
Digital WATCHED Items Purchased
RESTRICTED Items Purchased
Items Sold or Donated.
Final Thoughts
- Um… Well, I most certainly engaged in an odd mixture of hedonism and thrift. I ate out six times, but my single largest purchase is getting three pairs of pants repaired by a nearby tailor.
- I also did nothing fancy on Memorial Day, a day when I saw multiple cars drive on the sidewalk to get to the nearest gas pump. That’s pretty thrifty: reduce, reuse, recycle.
- Pertinent question: what counts as consumption? My employer, for example, this week booked me tickets to Miami. This dwarfs greatly my expenditure on crepes, and has a larger environmental impact than other actions. I don’t know. I think that the trip is an inevitable part of my work life, and that I dedicate my work life to helping people get better healthcare, and so the ethical accounting is a bit Madoff. I don’t know. We can dwell on it.
- This week, or until I get tired of ranting, is Faith in Medicine week, talking about the ever-present horror that is the impact of money on healthcare. Expect a discussion of the bioethics of keeping smallpox samples, and the multiple ways anti-scientific hucksterism becomes accepted medical science through the power of dark money.