Don't Be A Diderot

I never knew there was a name for this, but I recognize it fully. It's stunning to absorb how purchases lead to more purchases.

Like many others, I have fallen victim to the Diderot Effect. I recently bought a new car and I ended up purchasing all sorts of additional things to go inside it. I bought a tire pressure gauge, a car charger for my cell phone, an extra umbrella, a first aid kit, a pocket knife, a flashlight, emergency blankets, and even a seatbelt cutting tool.

Allow me to point out that I owned my previous car for nearly 10 years and at no point did I feel that any of the previously mentioned items were worth purchasing. And yet, after getting my shiny new car, I found myself falling into the same consumption spiral as Diderot.

http://jamesclear.com/diderot-effect

I feel like I have too much STUFF in my life. In some ways, I'm combating it: I am adamantly against gift-giving among my friends and family to avoid receiving more, and I have managed to stick to a rule of tossing out an item of clothing for every item purchased - but the same cannot be said of other accumulated stuff. Furthermore, I find myself coveting more stuff on a regular basis.

Time to re-focus on simplifying, and I feel certain this article will help me with that. I believe that seeing this so clearly laid out, and having a name to identify it, will help me avoid spiraling into such spending in the future. Hope it does the same for you.