Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvet is?

Narrator: It's a comforter...

Tyler Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
Narrator: ...Consumers?
Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. We're the by-products of a lifestyle obsession.

~Fight Club

The movie Fight Club was released in 1999 but it was well ahead of its time. Project Mayhem is an anti-materialist and anti-corporate organization with plans to erase the debt and ultimately bring an end to modern civilization. This idea has been explored in numerous works since Fight Club, whether it is through the utilization of hackers or an organization like the one led by Tyler Durden. Based on the popularity of these ideas, it feels rather safe to assume the majority would not be opposed to the idea of the debt being erased and the end of consumerism.

It is no surprise that feeling exists among the vast majority of us who work 40 plus hours a week only to see our paychecks dwindle away in order to payoff these debts while keeping up with the latest products and gadgets and various array “must have” items that we honestly do not need. If I walked around my home right now and was able to exchange everything I have purchased that I have not used or ended up not actually needing for any practical need, I would probably have a small fortune. My intent is not to impress anyone with my collection of things I wasted my money on; it is to point out the fact that I was somehow convinced at the purchase point that I did actually need these things.

Ironically, I came to this realization in a number of attempts to save money that I feel resulted in spending even more money on things I did not need. For example, have you ever gone to Wal-Mart for one thing and left Wal-Mart with just that one thing? Probably not, and you probably justified those additional items based on the fact that they were only a couple bucks or some similar line of reasoning. The “just a couple bucks” rationalization is what led me to getting involved with the AMZ Review Trader. If you are not familiar with this, ask around. Chances are at least one of your friends is using this site. Amzreviewtrader.com is linked to internet giant, Amazon. The concept is simple. Consumers can obtain items for free or at a heavily discounted cost in exchange for submitting an honest review once the item has been received. The more reviews you have completed, the more sellers there are that will approve your request(s) for their items. That does not sound too bad, right?

The problem is “just a couple of bucks” has a tendency of adding up. This is especially true when you consider that you are now purchasing items because you can get them at a discounted cost, not based on necessity. A similar thing happened when I was introduced to Groupon. I was advised by a number of friends who all agreed that they had some pretty good deals every now and again, and that is actually true. However, it is another scenario that makes it way too easy to spend money on something you would not have otherwise purchased. I logged in one day and saw an offer for discounted tickets to see Michael Carbonaro. If you do not know who he is, here is a clip from his show, “The Carbonaro Effect.” I purchased the tickets because I thought it would be a fun time for my daughter, my girlfriend, and myself. Here is the catch, I did not even know he was coming to town nor had we ever discussed seeing him live. At a little over thirty dollars per ticket, this discount resulted in an expenditure of over a hundred dollars that I would have saved had I not happened to login to Groupon.

Now, there is a possibility that I am just really irresponsible when it comes to my finances. I have thought about that, but even if that were to be the case, that would not remove the societal pressures to have certain things or how extremely easy it is to login to a “discount” site or walk in to a “discount” store and fill your shopping cart, virtual or otherwise, with a bunch of items that you don’t really need. If it could all be boiled down to my own bad spending habits, I probably would not be writing an article about this. However, I have a strong suspicion that I am not alone here. To quote Tyler Durden once more, “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.”