There is an inverse relationship generally. And it is naive to think that because someone drives a fancy, expensive car he/she is rich. The only way you’d recognize that, though, is if you were familiar with the ways of the wealthy.

I take your point, but you would have to be a complete idiot not to understand that consumption is just an indicator rather than an actual measure of “quality of life”. Of course there will be exceptions, but they are the best measure we have in terms of broad statistics.

I think you are underestimating your audience

I really enjoy your blog and read it very carefully for tips and ideas:)Perhaps the choice of wording “standard of living” is unfortunate but I think it was originally meant to guage minimum necessities required for a good life. For example, in developing countries without adequate shelter, food, clothing, or sustainable incomes folks will not have a good standard of living. These things take money to buy. In USA this term has become interpreted as a race for who can buy the most goodies. You cannot have a good quality of life minus a minimum standard of living:)

“Of course, for recovering consumers it requires some time to learn to enjoy activities that do not revolve around spending money and shopping.”

I had to face this realization just this weekend. It takes creativity to find an activity that does not include spending money. In the end, I sat out at the community pool to chat with our mother’s helper ( $15) did some reading, cleaned my house and went to the gym ($26 per month). One day, I will watch my own kids at the pool and run outside: )

One thing is certain, to spend little to nothing takes not only creativity, but also organization and planning. I need to plan to have coffee so I don’t drive to starbucks, make time to clean the dishes so I don’t turn away and eat out or order in etc. The less time we spend ‘working’ the more ‘time’ we should have as time goes. This is still a difficult mental shift as most people normally don’t feel like they’ve done anything unless it includes getting in the car to drive somewhere and spend money.

I’ve always felt the phrase ‘standard of living’ would be more accurately renamed as ‘cost of living’. That way it factors in all the pain of extra work required to fund it over and above any ‘quality of life’.

“tone is full of righteousness and the people of the US have little tolerance for that tone.”
(borrowed from KD’s post).

This statement is very evident. I fully agree with it. One indicator would be the number of foreclosure notices on the front door of “those people with little tolerance” homes.

I suppose it would be rather “self-righteous” to limit one’s homebuying to one’s affordability income.

Well, I apologize to KD and vga for the collateral damage of this post which was inspired by an off-site comment. From my perspective, I find it irritating to be told either directly or indirectly how sad my life is because I am not spending money and not valuing or conforming to whatever consumers enjoy.

This reminds me of the great introvert/extrovert debate/debacle we had some months back.

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/etroverts-and-introverts-the-great-dichotomy.html

People really really don’t like it when what they consider neutral language phrased in a politically correct manner gets flipped around so they’re suddenly the ones being considered deficient. They do not like it one bit.

Well, neither do I.

So, I would say, if people need to state on a regular basis about how much their life would suck if they lived like I do, I feel somewhat justified in returning the favor from time to time.

“Of course, for recovering consumers it requires some time to learn to enjoy activities that do not revolve around spending money and shopping. It requires some time to develop one’s self-worth and the perception of others in ways that are not associated with the size of the house you or they live in or the particular vehicle(s) you or they use.”

I would love to see a post addressing exactly this. How to give someone a glimpse of what a non-consumer life is like and the freedom it brings. Reading only goes so far, I’d be interested in what kind of guidance one can give another to introduce them to a different perspective. It’s frustrating to see friends dig themselves into a hole with their spending.

@George

I like your fishing trip!! When folks can or when folks retire, I think the goal is to do things of that nature, as one has earned them.

Here is my low cost RV’ing experience:

One 2005 Coachman 28 ft Travel Trailer, paid for in cash on the date of purchase (2005).

Annual Storage at a quite nice RV park, including setting up on a site when I call them. Cost: Dirt cheap compared to “pulling the RV from home and back”.

Gas to drive my vehicle up to the RV park, and enjoy it for the weekend. Cost: Half tank of gas or so.

Wife brings along ALL meals, some prepared, some ready to grill. Cost: Extracted from normal grocery budget, actually quite minimal as we would have eaten these groceries anyway at home.

Weekend fishing at the lake, off the RV dock, or renting a small boat and motor from the RV resort. Cost: Nothing, or $15.00 for boat and motor, per day. I bring my own bait along.

Movies and magazines and newspapers or music festivals at the RV park. Cost: Nothing.

Sitting on the swings facing west and watching the sunset over the lake with friends from the RV park and sipping a cold Killian’s Irish Red.
(PRICELESS!!!!!!!)

@Theevildrsin – I find that contrary to what many people say, they actually don’t like freedom very much at all.

“Well, I apologize to KD and vga for the collateral damage of this post which was inspired by an off-site comment. From my perspective, I find it irritating to be told either directly or indirectly how sad my life is because I am not spending money and not valuing or conforming to whatever consumers enjoy.” -Jacob

No need to apologize. I completely understand where you are coming from. I too get told the same thing and find it irritating.

But your tit for tat attitude won’t help you reach to the audience you want to preach and change. They will be put off and won’t buy your book :). If you want those very overspending folks to listen to you, you may need change the tone.

I like your blog a lot. I have found it illuminating in many ways and you do have lot of great things to say.

People who agree with you are easiest to reach. It is people who “need” to listen to you that you may find difficult to reach.

In terms of outreach strategies, I’ve always resigned to reaching the “sergeants” rather than the “soldiers” so to speak. I’ll tell you guys. You, in turn, will tell others. I don’t want the limelight. I’m doing this because nobody else seems to be stepping up.

It’s pretty much a known fact that I (my personality) does not have what it takes to empathize with the vast majority of humanity. A few other nontypical personality types get misunderstood as well, but I guess I belong to the type which has been considerate (not surprisingly perceived as condescending due to the nonstandard means of delivery) enough to actually write a manual
(http://intjcentral.com/manual2). That oughta indicate something 😀

Now, I could read this
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1565541464/?tag=oildepletio03-20
That book is rumored to be quite popular amongst other lifestyle bloggers, but I gotta ask myself … and I guess I gotta ask you too … is this really what you want? Should I learn to play the audience or keep calling it as I see it?

Well played. Very well played. Standard of living wise, I currently stand extremely poor. But my quality of life is absolutely fantastic. There’s not but a couple of things I would desire to change from it being something I wouldn’t have any other way. And they’re small realistic things, too!

Hear hear, it bothers me that people are so hung up possessions. As if a person’s status has any bearing on quality of life. People are maxed up on credit, and trapped in mortgage hell, all because they are chasing a better quality of life. Madness, give me the quiet, debt free simple life any day.

Personally, I used to be terrible at empathizing — God awful. That is alot better now that I have been studying Nonviolent Communication (NVC) for a while.

We are all human and have the same needs — although we use different strategies to try to meet those needs. That is the core principle of what NVC has to tell us.

Another bit of wisdom from them is that being judgemental (especially in a harsh way) is a very good way to put people off. I want to contrast that nonjudgementalism with the idea that we must never disagree with someone else’s point of view. Remove the emotional assault and MOST people can hear that you have a different point of view with equanimity. And since they haven’t been driven in to the mode of having to defend themselves, they are also more likely to hear you.

A third bit of wisdom from NVC is that every need has a multitude of strategies by which it can be met. Bringing that notion into Jacob’s contrast of ERE strategies with the usual materialist strategies of modern culture, we can understand that both are, of course, attempts to meet needs. The usual strategies come with a side-effect of locking oneself into the often unpleasant system of working to earn money to pay for them. ERE strategies come with the side-effect of reducing that dependency and thereby increasing the degree to which your need for autonomy* is met.

*Autonomy is one of those little spoken about needs that nearly everyone craves and is very hard to meet within the standard work environment.

Standing within the ideas of NVC (at least the ones that have managed to sink in to me), I can look both at myself before ERE and those still in such a spot or worse and say, “Well, that is the best I/they understood to do at the time.” AND thereby have a degree of compassion for myself/them.

It is quite a common phenomenon that we make errors from this sort of dynamic. AND very uncommon (in my experience) to be accepting of this part of our humanness.