The Art of Zen Living

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world…

Not too long ago, I got serious about the concept of frugal living. I put together a spreadsheet on which I listed the things I purchase on a regular basis (rice, beans, milk, flour, chicken breasts, etc - it’s an old list, going back to the pre-vegetarian days…), along with their prices at various places.  What I found was that (no surprise) Walmart was almost always the lowest price.  Price, however, is different than cost.

I know a number of people that take a measure of pride in the fact that they don’t shop at Walmart.  They’re Target shoppers. The problem is that Target is as bad or worse than Walmart.  Target does have a major advantage in being the second largest - the microscope isn’t on them.  They also have better marketing and PR.

In the meantime, I’d still like to live in a frugal manner, even if Walmart is trying hard to steal the idea of frugal living for their “save money live better” marketing.  That they’re using it for their marketing is enough to make you reconsider.  In this case, “save money” doesn’t mean “live frugally”, it means “be cheap”.  Have I lost you yet?  Bear with me, I’ll explain:

I could quote statistics for you and link in a bunch of stuff - there’s a lot of information about Walmart out on the web.  The quickest way to get a good, broad over-view is to just watch the documentary Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices.  If you just want a broad overview, here are the horrifying statistics. I do not use the word “horrifying” lightly or for shock value. Reading through this list of statistics, having already seen the movie, thinking about the real people that these statistics represent, I get nauseous. The amount of suffering that Walmart intentionally inflicts on it’s American workers and on the factory workers around the world is staggering. And it is, without question, intentional.

I’m not going to go on - if you haven’t already, check out The Story of Stuff. It’s 20 minutes, and will get you up to speed.

So now you have the set up. My desire to be frugal is usually at odds with my desire to not support the creation of suffering - especially not on such a massive scale.  Let’s face it, we get to vote at the polls, yes.  Every so often, anyway.  Our real power is in the votes we cast every day with our dollars.

We’ve been voting that way for a long time, based only on price, never considering cost.  Just how high that cost has been becomes pretty apparent when you start looking around.  It’s only been a few days, but when I look around South West Florida, what I see is a real lack of options.  Local hardware store?  The closest one is around 5 miles from me.  Local grocery store?  Not so much.  There are some smaller chain stores, but none I’ve been able to find that are franchised out to a local owner.  The best I can do is Publix or Sweetbay, both of which are headquartered in Florida.  Local bookstore?  Nope.  Just a few used book stores.  We’ve voted most of the neighborhood style stores that used to be what America was all about out of existence.  When they went, so did the good jobs they offered, and so did a lot of other things we all miss in our society these days.

Be frugal - consider the entire cost of what you buy. Did those raspberries get here by riding in on gallons and gallons of burned diesel fuel, over thousands of miles, polluting the air and water?  Then perhaps buy the blackberries that only traveled 150 miles (true story - my choices yesterday were raspberries, which I really wanted, from California, or blackberries from Winter Haven, Florida).  Check and see if there’s a farmer’s market in your area - or better yet, a farm that sells direct.

Don’t get frustrated - there will be times that it’s unavoidable and you stop off at Target or Walmart.  There will be times that you go ahead and get the raspberries.  Start small if you have to - every little bit helps.  Most of all, get educated.  The more I learn, the more I’ll try and share here.  I’ll leave you with the advice John Lennon gave his generation: Do what you can.

…Well, you know
We’re doing what we can

-J. Lennon