Conscious Choice: Simplicity for Sale

October 1999

Simplicity for Sale

by Larry Roth

A while back Oprah Winfrey aired a show on simplifying our lives. I had seen an Oprah show that featured Vicki Robin, one of the co-authors of Your Money or Your Life, and that show had been very good. Robin had explained, to the visible shock of the studio audience, how much of their lives they were giving up for things they could do without.

This time, though, the show was different. Among the guests were Rachel Ashwell, author of Shabby Chic, and Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of Simple Abundance. And what a disappointment the show was! Ms. Ashwell was shown shopping a Los Angeles-area flea market, where she paid what seemed to me outlandish prices for things that here in Kansas City don’t usually sell at estate sales.

One example that stands out in my memory was a wooden table, probably from the 1920s, that had been painted an off-white some years ago. The paint was chipped in places, revealing the original dark wood stain now hidden under that paint. She paid, I believe, $119 for this and commented that it was a "steal." (Shortly after this show, I passed up something very similar at a thrift store for $5.) I figured she was at least going to strip the paint off, but I was wrong. She used it, as was, as part of an assemblage of similarly shabby items. She explained that the cracked paint was chic, hence the term, "shabby chic."

Although I was reminded of Vaughn Meador’s 1963 parody of Jacqueline Kennedy’s White House tour in which everything, including the dust, is left "just the way it was," Oprah’s studio audience seemed to accept overpaying for shabby things and using them as decorative objects they would soon tire of as emblematic of "simplifying their lives."

Then Ms. Ban Breathnach of Simple Abundance fame unleashed her suggestions, most of which included either buying or making things I found busy, bothersome, and certainly not within my definition of simplifying one’s life. What seemed to fly over the heads of the audience with both of these authors is this: You can’t simplify your life by going out and buying a bunch of things to simplify your life. But you’ll never know it by listening to the Madison Avenue bunch, who have decided since they can’t fight frugality, they might as well exploit it. I have seen ads for Rubbermaid’s storage boxes in which a woman explains how she simplified her life by putting all her spare stuff in these boxes. In words you won’t hear in the ad, she bought stuff to store stuff she didn’t know what to do with! In this case, it would have been far cheaper to get rid of stuff she wasn’t using. Simplifying our lives means making do with less — not buying something to help us deal with our excess.

Last September, the Wall Street Journal noted in an article titled "How to Sell More To Those Who Think It’s Cool to Be Frugal" that many firms are now trying to approach consumers with the idea to "buy less, but buy our stuff." And for those who want to buy new but affect the look of wear-it-out frugality, J. Crew offers $48 chinos "stone washed until the edges begin to fray". In other words, Madison Avenue has taken frugality so much to heart that they’re willing to sell you fraying chinos to help you think you are being careful with your money. In short, you can now have all the cheap that money can buy.

I don’t know where all this will lead. Some people, faced with buying new chinos or these pre-frayed ones, may decide, with justification, that it’s nuts to buy something that’s already beginning to look worn out. That may be the end of their flirtation with simplicity. By definition, you can’t buy simplicity. You can’t make simplicity. Simplicity comes from within. It’s a human quality. It’s not a product, for heaven’s sake! Develop your own simplicity, and don’t be taken in by those who will be happy to sell you all the cheap your money can buy.

Larry Roth is the Publisher and Editor of Living Cheap News, which contains really useful ideas about how to really live inexpensively and simply. For a sample copy, send a SASE (from the USA) or a self-addressed envelope with one international mailing coupon (from Canada) to Living Cheap News, 7232 Belleview Ave., Kansas City, MO 64114 USA. Or visit their web site.

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