How to Get Materialism Out of Your Life

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Materialism-noun:

preoccupation with or emphasis on material objects, comforts, and considerations, with a disinterest in or rejection of spiritual, intellectual,or cultural values.

The bible is extremely clear on what God thinks of materialism.

Luke 16:15 says: You make yourselves look good in front of people, but God knows what is really in your hearts. What is important to people is hateful in God’s sight.

It’s pretty straightforward if your intentions are not pure and are not seeking after God. But instead of trying to please the world, you will not be rewarded by the Lord for your actions. 

The way, I believe that the Lord wants you to show the world how to be modest and humble is by living simply. While it’s okay to dress up once in a while I don’t believe in dressing up every day. I try to keep my wardrobe to simple and functional. Most of my wardrobe consists of a few pairs of simple, but tough jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies. In about 5 colors that I like. Nothing fancy, but just right for every day.

When I lived in the tiny cabin with my ex-husband, I wore about the same amount of clothes that I do now, but the difference was that

I owned close to 60 lbs of clothing.

Yep, you read that right. I lived in a 300 sq ft cabin with my husband and between the two of us, we have 60 lbs of clothing. It was ridiculous. After an entire day at the laundromat, and $20 in quarters I realized how much I was wasting.

I had spent so much time trying to copy the Patty Pinterests and the Holly Homemakers, who had much bigger houses and much more stuff to fill it, that I neglected to recognize what filling my house with all of this stuff actually meant.

Not only was I always buying us things to keep up with the trends, but I was neglecting my Bible for shopping. If I was upset or frustrated, I would shop. If I was worried about money, I would shop!! (No, I can’t quite logic that one out.) But the point is, instead of relying on God, I was becoming a bad wife and daughter to the King through my shopping addiction.

I will say that my spending habits did not look like hundreds or thousands spent at once, but it was little $20 purchases here and there that started adding up quickly.

I could easily justify it with, well, it’s just a small purchase, what could it hurt? But after looking back, considering that none of those purchases were in our budget, I was doing so much more damage to our finances than I could have realized.

Since my divorce, and becoming homeless, I made it a point to work towards minimalism. Am I perfect? No, not by any means, but I understand that I don’t need things to be satisfied and that having a lot of items in my home actually makes me more unhappy than it helps.

I still find myself sometimes trying to justify spending just small, un-budgeted amounts here and there, but now I know that that’s the devil talking and I know better than to listen to him.

If any of what I’ve said sounds familiar to you, I would encourage you to keep reading as I talk about what you can do to create a simpler life without materialism at the forefront.

My words of advice for you shopaholics like myself is this:

1 | Create New Habits

If you have a habit of going shopping every Saturday or doing laundry only once a week, or even cleaning out your closet once a year…change it.

• Stop shopping. Period. If you shop a lot there is no more reason for you to shop at this very moment. No clothes, no toys, no mocha lattes.
• Instead of doing laundry once a week, do it twice or three times a week. Not only is it a lot easier but it will really help you reconsider if you need all those tops and jeans.
• As for cleaning out your closet, I’d say clean it out about every three months. Yep, you heard me. Every time a new season comes, so it’s time to see what you’ve worn in the last. This will help you quickly eliminate any clothes you’re not wearing and not going to wear.

2 | Toss What You Don’t Need

Along with getting rid of occasional clothes every season, have a major goodbye party for your clothes right now. Take each section of clothing out at once and go through what you wear, what you need, what you don’t need. (i.e. tops, jackets, jeans, skirts, etc.) Let me give you a *bonus* tip: You don’t need more than 5 pairs of pants/skirts max….that’s one of the biggest wardrobe killers I’ve found, that and tops.

3 | “For Every Action, There is a Reaction.”

What I mean by this, is that every time you do end up going shopping and you buy an item, get rid of another item you don’t need. This way things don’t pile up and get crazy all over again.

So when temptation comes knocking again: stop, think, reconsider. Do not give into that small voice of temptation.

Are you having issues with materialism in your life? What’s the biggest problem for you? Leave a comment below! 

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