{"id":1669,"date":"2017-10-12T10:33:23","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T10:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/money\/?p=1669"},"modified":"2017-10-12T10:33:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T10:33:23","slug":"whats-consumerism-why-does-it-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/smmo-blog\/whats-consumerism-why-does-it-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s consumerism? Why does it matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For a long time, I spent recklessly. I wrote \u201cWANT\u201d as a caption for my Pinterest board of things I didn\u2019t need. I couldn\u2019t just go to a store and \u2018look\u2019 because I <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">had <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">to have it! The excuses kept on coming, and I was amazed at the speed at which these \u2018justifications\u2019 convinced me. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It wasn\u2019t until I moved apartments that I really looked at the amount of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">stuff <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">that had accumulated over the years. Shoes I never wore, makeup I didn\u2019t need, half-started hobbies gathering dust, even items that I was too lazy to return. It really forced me to think about my spending habits, and where I was putting my values and effort. My face went red when I added up all this wasted money that could\u2019ve gone to more important things like, I don\u2019t know, paying the interest of my unsubsidized student loans. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was the point at which I started delving into the topic of consumerism. I came across Kimberly Clark, a drag queen that spins around the usual ad-speak of beauty YouTube channels, who talks you into <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">not <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">buying things. While her channel is more focused on the beauty industry and its critique, below is a clip from one of her videos where she talks about consumerism in our society. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Watch from 2:20 until 3:27 for the relevant content!\u00a0<\/strong>You are free to watch the whole video, but it is this part that interested me the most.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-responsive  embed-responsive-16by9\">\n<div class=\"iframe-container\">\n<div class=\"iframe-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"embed-responsive-item\"   class=\"embed-responsive-item\"   width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HPExBWjcm9c?start=140&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being an informed consumer means not making choices on the fly, no impulse purchases, and giving yourself time to think about why is it that you <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">think <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">you need this product. Do you really need that specific brand of clothing? That new phone? Or did this ad pressured you into thinking you need it to feel complete?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deep questions, y\u2019all. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, what does this have to do with financial literacy? Having control over your spending not only does it benefit your wallet (yay!) but creates a more intentional framework to follow next time you think about making any kind of purchase. Think about it, how empowering it is to know that you know exactly what it is that you\u2019re buying and why. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Does this mean I never buy things anymore? Absolutely not! What it means is that, while I have fewer things I did before, what I have makes me happy and I make use of it constantly. No more junk laying around my room, or the surprise item I forgot I had. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Don\u2019t hype the hype! Keep yourself informed, aware, and most importantly, financially healthy. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a long time, I spent recklessly. I wrote \u201cWANT\u201d as a caption for my Pinterest board of things I didn\u2019t need. I couldn\u2019t just go to a store and \u2018look\u2019 because I had to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/smmo-blog\/whats-consumerism-why-does-it-matter\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":1903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smmo-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/money\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}