I’ll be honest: I’m a little bit of a curmudgeon. A scrooge, my husband sometimes (affectionately?) calls me. So when we got engaged, it was no surprise that I decided that I didn’t want to spare the money for an engagement photo shoot. It seemed like a waste of money and time, since we would be getting wedding photos in a few short months anyhow. I’m still glad we didn’t get them, but I remember we were probably the only people in our friend groups who didn’t.
The same thing happened again when I got pregnant. I don’t particularly understand the allure of maternity photo shoots, and I honestly didn’t really care to have pictures of my 9 month pregnant self out there. But again, I felt very much like I was in the minority! Then there’s the newborn photo shoot, first birthday photo shoot, family photo shoot, Christmas card photo shoot, 100th photo shoot photo shoot… you get the picture (pun not intended, but very much appreciated).
Keeping up with the Joneses
Look, I’m not here to rag on photography. Okay, maybe I am a little. But what I would like to talk about is the fact that even though I don’t care to have lots of pictures, and even though I don’t like spending money on intangible things, and even though I hate taking pictures, I still felt pressure to get all of these photo shoots! Fortunately I’m usually able to overcome it, but the pressure is there nonetheless. How does a person survive in a world where “keeping up with the Joneses” is not just a personal desire but an external pressure?
I think part of the problem is that “the Joneses” are no longer just your neighbors. They’re your Facebook friends or the people that follow you on Instagram. The desire to keep up that perfect persona is amplified by the digital sphere in ways our parents never experienced. You see the perfect lives of other people, and want to present a perfect life yourself. In some small, rational corner of our brain that’s left we may recognize that those other people are probably editing their lives to look better, but it’s so hard to actually listen to that when all the happy pictures are staring us in the face!
The Joneses’ Experiences aren’t even Real
Taking it back to my earlier example of photography, we can see how much easier this staged form of life has become. In the past if you ate at a really great restaurant you had to personally brag to your friends the next time you saw them. Now, you take a quick picture of your meal, tag the restaurant, and post it to Instagram. Boom, now all your friends know that your life is worth being jealous of. None of them will even know if you didn’t like the food.
The sheer volume of “Joneses” that you have is also an issue. In real life, I spend time around a grand total of maybe 25 people? Sure I see more at church, but that’s about the amount of people who I actually talk to in an average week. It’s possible one of them went on an amazing trip or bought a new car or got a puppy, but the odds are reasonably low. If I log onto Facebook, on the other hand, I have 352 friends! The odds of that jealousy-inducing, impulse-purchase-causing story just went up by like 1000%.
Now I have not only my personal envy issues to contend with, but just the sheer social pressure of dozens of my friends doing something. I may not be all that interested in visiting the Mall of America, but if lots of people I know visit it, by the end of the 2 dozenth album of what so-and-so did on their visit I’m going to feel like I have to go!
Our Experience
As an example, we had a baby roughly 6 months ago. One of the options AT THE HOSPITAL was to get a newborn baby photo shoot. Look, I’m sick and tired of feeling like I have to get this newborn photo shoot. I’ve considered it, a lot, but they’re just not for me. We have nice phones and can take perfectly good pictures ourselves. But the minute I decided I wasn’t going to get one, I felt bad because everyone I know got one.
Do they know something I don’t know? Will I be missing out on something? What’s it going to look like if I don’t get this photo shoot even if everyone else did? Why do I feel bad for not buying something that I don’t even want? I don’t like that it feels like my monetary decisions (and even my decisions that aren’t monetary) feel like they’re being dictated by other people. Being freed from that feeling that you need to follow the crowd is not only good for your soul…it’s good for your wallet as well.
As conscientious consumers, we need to be working to make the monetary decisions that actually bring us joy. That’s going to take work, and a decent amount of introspection. Don’t just do the thing you think you should do. One of the main tenets of FIRE is to work to spend your money on what is actually important to you. So start spending it on things that you truly care about. And maybe stop spending it on photo shoots lol.
What do you think? Did I rag on photography too much? What are you sick of feeling pressured to do/buy? Let us know in the comments below!
David’s Note
Yeah Courtney is a scrooge. She doesn’t even like multicolored Christmas lights all over the house! But she’s my scrooge. She does have a point though about feeling bad for not buying something that everyone else buys. I feel it too even though I don’t care what most people think of me. The fear of man is a powerful force (Proverbs 29:25). We have to work hard to overcome it.