Do you really know how materialistic you are?

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Sierrah

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A friend of mine from Bosnia was talking about when she came over to America years back and wasn’t able to bring many personal items with her let alone furniture and other stuff. She pretty much had to start from scratch. She said it really made her reevaluate the importance of material items… gadgets, furniture, pictures, momentos, stuff…basically. She realized without knowing it she was far more materialistic then she thought. So how materialistic are you? If you had to get and leave one day without much notice how much would you miss all your stuff. :confused:

I would miss my books and family photo’s the most. Clothes can be replaced…books too I guess but I think as long as I had my pets at least I would be fine. 🤷
 
I’m fairly mobile. Everything importiant to me could fit in my van with enough room for a passenger or 2. My shortwave, a laptop, knives, pots & pans, clothes & a kitty cat 😃 Art work could stay.
 
we got rid of nearly everything when we moved down here, because we had planned to live in a camper. That did not last long, so what we have now (about a tenth of what we had when we sold our last house) has been aquired here. Anything we purchase now is meant to be the last–truck, stereo, computer etc. --we ever buy. If the whole house blew away in the next hurricane we’d be fine w/o it and all the stuff in it. it’s just stuff.
 
I’d have a hard time deciding between my big screen and puter. But then what about my motorcycles?? Blackberry?

I like “stuff” but I never lose sight of the fact that is all it is.
 
I like jewelry, and things like this…but I don’t place any ‘things’ above my love and relationship with Christ. Perhaps, at a subconscious level, I might at times…without even realizing it. Like, do I really ‘need’ another purse…do my kids really need another video game…another shirt from this or that store…another tv…another piece of jewelry…

I am reading a most excellent book right now called, The Overspent American. It talks about how we have blurred our ‘wants’ into ‘needs’ in the U.S., and how it is not impossible to stop that cycle of materialism.

I do like our new tv…some things have sentimental value…like items we buy for the whole family, items we buy because it’s our wedding anniversary.

Or it is my way of justifying my materialism? :ehh:

I’d say I’m a work in progress, but this thread makes you think…thanks Sierrah!
 
I’m from the war-stricken part of the Balkans as well.

There were times when I had to be prepared to part with my ‘possessions’, or my life, which is also not really mine, but God’s. It actually wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected.

I still have some stuff I like and need now, but I could part with all if that was God’s will. The truly Christian attitude towards the material world, as I understand it, is to dwell in it and use it, but never become a slave to it.

War, hurricanes, etc., help somewhat towards that healthy attitude, but are not crucial. Christians in all walks of life can cultivate it. 🤷
 
I like my stuff, but if leaving it all to meant getting my kids, husband, and self to safety, I would do it. I’d have to take my meds, but stuff can stay. Maybe we’d take some clean undies…
 
Yes I do. FAR too materialistic.

Easier to admit than to fix. Working on it though.
 
my mom always taught me not to be materialistic… I don’t even own expensive stuff… I have nothing of much value but my car
 
Nothing wrong with owning expensive things. It’s if those things own us, as the one poster pointed out.
 
Our house flooded at the beginning of September, and when I found out about it, I said, “Well, I hated that carpet anyway.” 😃 My children and husband were with me, and safe, so everything else wasn’t important.

90% of my stuff is in two huge piles in my dining and living rooms, and I’m resisting the urge to throw it all away before sorting through it. I was sad that a few irreplaceable things were water damaged beyond repair, but it’s all just stuff.

The most traumatic loss of material possessions that I have had was this past Spring. My computer crashed. I lost hundreds of photographs of my little girl and all of my son’s newborn pictures. :bighanky: I was sad for days, that I would never get to look at those pictures again.

I guess I am quite attached to some “stuff.” :o 😦
 
manualman said:
Yes I do. FAR too materialistic.

Easier to admit than to fix. Working on it though.
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Me too. I THINK I’m above it all, but as I have been trying to lower the bar, I see where the pinches come. Don’t think you have to be St. Francis of Assisi and do it all at once: take off your clothes in the town square and walk away from your life. Just keep de-acquisitioning until you come to a place where everything around you is used frequently and necessary for your life and work.

BTW: I have never had five minutes of consumer debt. Only the house.
 
mercygate said:
BTW: I have never had five minutes of consumer debt. Only the house.
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I’m almost with you. I never have more than 29 days of consumer debt. Then I pay off the card before it accrues any interest.

I don’t get why people finance cars. Drive a junker and make payments to yourself until you can pay cash for a more decent used one. Repeat and eventually you can pay cash for new ones if you so desire.
 
manualman said:
I’m almost with you. I never have more than 29 days of consumer debt. Then I pay off the card before it accrues any interest.

I don’t get why people finance cars. Drive a junker and make payments to yourself until you can pay cash for a more decent used one. Repeat and eventually you can pay cash for new ones if you so desire.
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The thing about driving a “junker” is that you end up paying for problems with the engine, etc every month or every other month. We used to own a Ford–we know about junkers. (and it was new when we bought it) Ouch. :ouch:

😉

I think in theory it’s a good idea, but I have to drive my kids on major highways a lot…it’s not practical or safe for us to be driving something that might break down because it’s too old or has tons of miles. A junker might be cheaper, but sometimes you get what you pay for. Cheap isn’t always a good way to go when making certain purchases.

Now, you don’t ‘need’ a Lexus, but a junker is the other extreme…at least for how much driving my dh and I do…

Otherwise, your plan sounds pretty good. (the saving money part!)😃 Actually, that’s a pretty brilliant idea!
 
I used to think I wasn’t materialistic, and I still think I’m pretty good about not being materialistic, but I’ve also realized that I have a lot more stuff than I need. Since I’m planning to leave Korea sometime (don’t know when) I’m on a “stuff strike”. I’m not buying anything except food (and possibly some winter clothes, since last year’s don’t fit anymore). I’ve already gotten rid of a lot of stuff, and I still have boxes I don’t have room to unpack in my prison-cell one room apartment. This week I’m going to take four boxes of books to the second-hand bookstore and sell them.

It’s hard to choose which stuff to keep and which stuff to leave. I thought I was doing well, but it’s hard to look at things and decide never to see them again. Sure, I haven’t used the blender in months, but what if I want a smoothie?

I’m a work in progress.
 
We moved to Malaysia, and go back to the States about twice a year. My friend was going on vacation and offered to let us stay in her house while they were away. I remember how stressed out she was as she explained (with profuse apologies) how she was so sorry her automatic garage door wasn’t working, how the refridgerator door water and ice dispenser wasn’t working, and how the dishwasher door sometimes got stuck. She was sooooo sorry as if somehow that meant that her 5 bedroom, 5 bathroom house with a pool was somehow unworthy!

It made me laugh, because I live a perfectly happy life, without a garage, without an automatic icemaker, and without a dishwasher. All the things she was so worried about don’t even exist.

That made me realize how materialistic we all are in the States, and how the very things that are supposed to make life easier, actually can make us more stressed out!
 
ecp007 said:
We moved to Malaysia, and go back to the States about twice a year. My friend was going on vacation and offered to let us stay in her house while they were away. I remember how stressed out she was as she explained (with profuse apologies) how she was so sorry her automatic garage door wasn’t working, how the refridgerator door water and ice dispenser wasn’t working, and how the dishwasher door sometimes got stuck. She was sooooo sorry as if somehow that meant that her 5 bedroom, 5 bathroom house with a pool was somehow unworthy!

It made me laugh, because I live a perfectly happy life, without a garage, without an automatic icemaker, and without a dishwasher. All the things she was so worried about don’t even exist.

That made me realize how materialistic we all are in the States, and how the very things that are supposed to make life easier, actually can make us more stressed out!
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It’s funny you say this…(thanks for sharing)
When we lived in PA, we lived in a very old house…we loved it…beautiful cottage type…but it didn’t have a built in dishwasher. Thankfully, it had central air. I think I’ve grown to need that in the summers. lol But, now that we have a dishwasher in Florida, as most of the construction where we live is very new, so top of the line appliances in every house, etc…I still find myself washing dishes by hand. I kind of like washing dishes. It’s therapy…and the dishes get cleaner. lol

And we didn’t have an ice maker up north either…and now we do…and I don’t use ice much, so I guess I got used to not using ice up north. My husband ‘doesn’t know what we did before an icemaker.’ lol:o But, it seems that we all can function just fine without some of these conveniences.:aok: As society becomes more rushed…we ‘think’ we need appliances that do everything but cook dinner for us. I do like our new home we are living in now very much, but I have also lived without some of these things, and it wasn’t a setback to us. I will say that having nice appliances NOW, it might take some getting used to if we didn’t have them, but it still would be fine.

I thank God for everything we have–materially and spiritually, because He has bestowed it upon us. It all belongs to Him.
 
This thread is scary.

Roof? Dinner? Bed? Clothes to get you through the seasons? That’s more than two thirds of the world’s people have going for them.

Do you know that something like 73% of people in the U.S. now think a cell phone is a necessity?
 
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