So, in honor of that HUGE critique that we’re all going to have next Friday, I’ve been writing and reflecting on my project and all the stuff I’ve made so far. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been collecting my receipts since our first meeting this semester for senior project. It’s all the spending I’ve been doing since the beginning of 2010. The reason why I started doing that was because I felt it’d be a good starting point. During all the databasing I’ve done, I’ve written down totals, categorized spending, and reflected upon various purchases I’ve made. I’ve been doing it ever since, hoping that somehow, somewhere, something will come out of all that data.

Well, after doing a TON of writing, reflecting, and even a bit of research, I came up with some of the following ideas, thoughts, and conclusions regarding receipts:

• Receipts are an acknowledgment for money received towards goods or services. They are, in essence, legal documents (duh!). They are proof.
• Most of the time, receipts give detailed breakdowns of transactions.
• I find that I get receipts more often when I buy things with a credit card vs. spending with cash. Cash just doesn’t leave a paper trail.
• Do we really need receipts? A lot of people out there seem to debate this. Other people feel they need receipts to keep track of their spending, they need them for tax deductions, retailers print their warranties on them, etc.
• And speaking of ridiculous receipts, would it be fair to say that it could be a reflection of our own ridiculous spending habits as a society?

However, my intention with the receipt-collecting, was for my project not to be about the receipts but the transactions themselves. Was there something I didn’t see that wasn’t immediately on the receipts themselves? Well, OF COURSE THERE ARE. When we buy things, not only are we using up our money in exchange for goods, we’re also using up our time, health, hope, and emotions. This is where VALUE comes in. Things are of different value to different people because of factors such as money but also time, happiness, health, etc.

A prime example I would like to bring up is my undergraduate education. My undergrad had been the single biggest ‘purchase’ so far of my life. I feel that my education is more valuable to me. Not only did I have to pay for tuition and room and board, I also sacrificed a lot of time for classes and classwork, time for homework, and time work to make money to pay FOR classes. I’ve spent my health with the amount of time I work on the computer and spend having anxiety because I constantly worry about school (including the Zoloft—I’m so not kidding about this). I bring it up to my fiance from time to time that my education is more valuable to me than his because of the sacrifices I’ve made for it versus the almost non-existent ones he’s made (sorry honey!). I’ve spent so much more than money on my education.

But anyways, I feel like I’m going on a tangent now. To break it down and simplify with a couple examples:

• When I buy fast food (assuming that it’s unhealthy), I’m not only spending a couple bucks, I’m also sacrificing my health. It may not seem like a good idea…but at the time it may seem like a good value because the food was fast, and cheap, and tasted alright. It’s a bad value later when I find out that my cholesterol’s high and my pants don’t fit anymore.
• Buying video games is another example. Video games are expensive, they also cost a lot of TIME and they can cost health too. A video game is more valuable if you can put more time into it? An example of mine is a video game I played one summer that I spent 100 hours on. It was only 15 bucks so I thought it was a good deal however I gained like 25 pounds that summer (which was due in large part to being sedentary and that game) and I have been unable to lose that weight ever since. That video game cost me A lot of time and it cost me my ability to be a size 5.
• I collect graphic novels/manga/books and have 500 books in my collection. Every time I buy a book, I’m buying into my long-held fantasy of having a huge-ass library in my future house (hoarder?). I’m buying happiness and, psychologically, I’m also buying satisfaction (I’m a completionist and a lot of the books I buy are in a series so I also feel the need to complete series EVEN IF THEY’RE BAD). However, not only are these books costing me money (and I spend a lot of money on books) they are costing me space. I’ve been putting them away in boxes in the basement because there isn’t enough room in our bedroom. It also costs me my boyfriend’s patience because all my books crowd his shelves.
• Gas for my car kills the enviornment! IT COSTS THE ENVIORNMENT! And I’m sure somewhere in the atmosphere, all those fumes are slowly destroying our health…
• When I have to make a big purchase for something I need (versus something I want) I usually cringe. I think about how many hours it costs me working…ugh.
• I don’t like corporations but I went to Disney World in January, so I guess you could say I was paying with my beliefs :[

That’s what I mean, when we make transactions, there’s more to it than exchanging money for a product. We are also paying with our time, health, hope, beliefs, stress and a number of other things. All those factors change the values of things for all of us. I guess you could call it relative value?

I found this funny little image off of Strategic Self Management that categorizes those values that we may sacrifice sometimes:

—

And I think about money A LOT. In this society, it’s definitely something to be concerned about.

All of my writing was sort of a long rambling but it’s certainly shorter than the pages of notes I’ve written in my journal regarding my thoughts.

—

I saw this piece on good.is regarding if we could achieve being a receipt-less world. I thought it was quite humorous and it linked to a Slate article that discussed how we could rid the world (or transactions) of receipts. Because, you know, receipts also costs us trees, the chemicals used to make them, the products used to print them etc. etc. etc.

I also found this article about a TED talk by John Gerzema. He talked about the trend from “Mindless Consumption to Mindful Spending“. He talks about how people are becoming more aware with what they buy and aligning their purchases with their values. I think that’s what I’ve been trying to get out of this project, thus far, myself. With my project, I now want to try to find the true value of things that we may not be aware of from our initial purchases/receipts.

—

Now I somehow have to condense my thoughts into a single paragraph for Monday.