What if We Underconsumed this Autumn Season?
π An Autumn Buy Nothing Challenge! Consumables & experiences encouraged.
Welcome to The Seasonalist, a happy place to land, where youβll find all things seasonal and seasonal-adjacent (books, movies, food, and fun) from Austin, Texas. π€ If youβd like to subscribe, click below.
βWe donβt have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.β βHoward Zinn
Autumn is upon us, fellow Seasonalists.
And so is the seasonal crap and the over-consumption.
One glance at social media and there are folks who have decorated their homes IN AUGUST (and donβt get me started on the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte βreleaseββalso in August). If Iβve said it once, Iβve said it twice, seasonal living is about the art of joyful anticipation. If youβre decorating your abode in August for clicks, the autumn season is dead to you by October. And then what? You decorate for Christmas in October? Stop the madness.
As consumers, we do have a say, right? With higher costs, we could just stop buying expensive things. And we can also stop buying Autumn junkβpolluting our environment and filling up landfills. Climate change is real, but we can still embody seasonal living without all the stuff.
Underconsumption Core is βtrending.β Here, here! What is underconsumption core, you ask?
Buy less
Buy better quality when you do
Take care of your things
Make do with what you have (repurpose & reuse)
Itβs a cool minimalist aestheticβhence the βcoreβ
βItβs really pushing back against this idea that you need to constantly be buying things to have a happy and fulfilling life,β said Megan Doherty Bea, assistant professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.1
Revolutionary. We can still have a βhappy and fulfilling lifeβ without buying crap from Target & Home Goods.
Exhibit A.
Exhibit B.
How can we collectively spend less and experience more?
3 Ways to Underconsume this Autumn Season
Use What You Have
I have just a few items to decorate for the Autumn season. For Halloween, I have skeleton one of my children begged me to buy eight years ago, and two light up pumpkins that Iβve had for the same amount of time. And a few paper decorations that are my husbandβs favorite things ever. And some rickety orange lights. Reuse what Iβm sure you already own. Do you need a Halloween costume? Rewear, borrow, or get creative with what you have at home. I used to pay my kids $20 to repeat a costume. :o)
From Lurkinβ Mom:
Purchase Consumables Only
What if youβ¦cooked and ate the pumpkin you bought? Roasted the pumpkin seeds?
Permission granted to eat all the pumpkin spice and candy you want! Light a candle and enjoy pumpkin-scented soap.
Enjoy and experience the culinary delights of the Autumn season.
Focus on Experiences
Gather with friends, wander the neighborhood looking at other peopleβs decorations, visit a pumpkin patch or a haunted house, listen to playlists, and watch cozy or scary fall movies. The list is endless.
You have everything you need.
This Instagram account knows whatβs what.
*Deep Dark Confession:
After all this ranting (well before), I made a purchase recently.
Backstory: my friend bought a pumpkin brie dish for a friend. Then I bought one for another friend. Then I bought one for myself because itβs become a meme. All they had left was this acorn, which somehow makes me smile and laugh, and I plan to care for this acorn dish forever. I lapsed, I made a purchase, but it was thoughtful and it sparks autumn joy, dammit.
With that, I wish yβall a joyful fall.
Will you join me in taking small steps toward saving the environment, and your wallet, this autumn season?
Letβs under-consume the @!#$% out of the holiday season.
π Follow along on my Instagram in October as I undergo an under-consume and over-experience experiment. I would love for you to join along. 𧑠This October, the Seasonalist will have a 31-day challenge of Autumn Underconsumption and Overexperiencing. Find all the music, experiences, food, and living for your best sustainable and joyful autumn life.
A great book. The Day the World Stops Shopping by J.B. McKinnon.
A fantastic read, The Fetishisation of Fall (the author has moved over to Medium, RIP).
Can you Eat Your Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin? Yes, you can! I think we should all make this a holiday goal.
From The Guardian regarding Underconsumption Core:
It speaks to a wider cultural shift, with people looking for ways out of mass consumerism. βPeople are starting to realise that consumerism can make us feel lonely because it pushes us to seek fulfilment and happiness in material possessions, rather than meaningful relationships,β says Pare. βMany people buy things for fulfilment, but those feelings donβt tend to last long, so then they buy something again, and itβs a vicious endless cycle of consumption.β True happiness, she says, comes from diving into hobbies and passions, spending time with loved ones and being involved in your community β not from Stanley cups and viral hairdryers.
From the Seasonalistβs archives:
Love this!
Speaking right to my soul, and making me LOL at the same time!! I love this, all of this! π A few years ago as I was hanging plastic garland around my mantle I suddenly became thoroughly grossed out imagining all the toxic fumes releasing from the garland in addition to how utterly unrealistic it looked and decided right then in there that I would never again buy something plastic that I can easily get from nature and compost when Iβm done. I love collecting leaf branches and whatnot to use in vases as a seasonal decor and the best partβ I donβt have to store it when Iβm done! ππ I also love living in a home full of children who can make decorations for me too. π