The Price Of Quitting The Game

[hmwut]

college no cop commences

today is the first day of the rest of my life

[bels]

What's the limits on your college no cop hmwat?

I'm beginning to get that "I don't have anything to wear" feeling

It went away when I actually got dressed though.

[schiaparelli]

so. it's only been a few days into no-cop but now i'm wondering

i need to buy socks. is that ok? can i buy socks?
i need to buy a pair of tights. do i need it? what is "need"?
multitudinous questions present themselves

i've sort of been treating no-cop as a general "try not to buy unnecessary other things" so i've been trying to not eat out from laziness
so actually that's been going well, except i spent $30 on art supplies yesterday my professor said afterwards "actually, we won't do that project after all"

i've been mentally converting everything into percentages of my jacket cost and going "nope, not worth it" though, which is good

[RycePooding]

I've been buying basics on no-cop. White tees, socks, undies.

Donated 4 trashbags of clothing today.

[bels]

The "what is need" question iswhy I think a strict no cop makes more sense. It gets rid of that loophole in your will power.

[Prince of Scandinavia]

I really want some drapey hoodie/jacket à la Individual Sentiments, Damir Doma, Viridi-anne etc. but they are all too damn expensive or too big for me on sufumarket..

[Syeknom]

stylezeitgeist best place for that sort of thing

[schiaparelli]

obligatory suggestion (edit: here's the )

[teck]

have any of you done a total No Cop? Like, "for X time, im going to spend zero dollars" and just try to hold out as long as possible?

my artist buddy has a very insightful view on it. he says what he values most is "time, creativity, autonomy" and any expenditure that doesn't maximize that is a waste. so if you spend $200 but it "cost" you 5 hours of labor and 4 hours of research and 2 hours of shopping it wasn't worth it, according to him. he's also a big green person so he resists buying as a way of reducing his eco footprint.

this thread is about no cop clothes but what about other stuff? i spend a TON on going out, and a lot on drinking. my buddy doesn't drink at all (tho i think for health reasons) but i realized if i didnt drink i'd save a bunch of money.

thoughts?

edit: also, any of you ever fast?

[schiaparelli]

teck, very thoughtful. the "time, creativity, autonomy" considerations are so vital, i think.
i think just considering no-cop as "let's not buy stuff" is seeing only a fragment of the picture

the big-picture idea is: how do you want to interact with the stuff in your life? how do you seek out and find value in things? money can give you freedom from concerns or introduce new ones. and i think money is something that affects people's psyches and sense of self so intimately, and really clarifying how you interact with money and buying and ownership and acquisition can be valuable.

i have moved on from the ideas of "minimalism" and "frugality" to "active ownership" and "maximum utility". i realize that minimalism/frugality are both things that have been conflated by quite a few online communities/dialogue into these extremist things: minimalism = throw out all your stuff, and frugality = make your own detergent. i don't think that's what those terms should mean, but it is nice and freeing to adopt different terminology in my head that doesn't have all those associations

"active ownership" for me is this idea that you acknowledge that every item in your life exacts a cost. clothes need hangers. shoes need to be conditioned and cleaned and resoled. you need space to fold all those t-shirts. and in your mind there can be this friction if you own stuff you don't like and have to constantly encounter and deal with its maintenance in all these small everyday moments; similarly, there can be this contentment if you own stuff that is perfectly suited to you, where the maintenance and logistical hassle of owning it is outweighed by the value it brings to your life. so recognizing that every item exacts a cost over the lifespan of its time with you…

"maximum utility" is pretty obvious. it's derived from thinking about clothing costs by costs-per-wear instead of receipt cost, but there's also this component of trying to figure out which method of spending is most valuable to you. everyone makes priorities and has different emotional/intellectual benefits from different kinds of things, so trying to find a way to reflect those priorities in how you spend, instead of spending in a way that is incompatible with what you want and what might make you happy

xxx

as a side note, i have been much more financially sober since i started comparing the cost of different things to the cost of my tuition. it's kind of like "well, this costs a month of tuition at college. is the value respectably meaningful in my life compared to the value of my education?"

it's not always about guilt-tripping myself. recently i've been wearing my HL jacket way too much and thinking about every other garment i come across, "this costs 20% of perfection". i really just want to efficiently use my funds so i derive suitable contentment from spending (or not spending)

[teck]

yes i like this idea of active ownership. there's tons of externalities to purchasing -- clothes, food, whatever. think about it long enough and you find yourself in this vast web of capitalism that you literally cannot disengage from, only negotiate with.

i def dont think its about guilt tripping. i think there can be a lot of pleasure derived from objects, a lot even from buying things. its about a different mentality -- what are my values, how much control do i have over my purchases, how much control do i have over my very life

[bels]

I don't drink anymore but I don't think I'm saving much money from it because I never drank much to begin with.

I think right now, the majority of my excess expenditure is buying food instead of cooking it.

[omgimacarrot]

[ddd]

its easy to say "next semester" isnt it

[omgimacarrot]

[Capt]

Teck, the best way I've found to handle it is not to think of it as a no-cop, but just to limit when you actually buy things. I'm big on saving throughout the year and just spending on big purchases twice a year, once in the summer and once in the winter. It keeps me from spending wildly and gives me something to look forward to. When you think of something in a negative you'll never be able to live with it.

Sadly this year clothes won't be part of the big purchase. :C

[ddd]

it's worth it (if you [your parents] can afford it) to enjoy yourself and spend a little money for stupid shit like alcohol and junk food in college, get as much out of it as you can.

on the other hand, its very easy to say "just after i buy x and y, i will not buy anything else"

[bels]

Welp I'm out. Bought some Trickers boots that came up on eBay. Not particularly gutted about it. I was going to buy Bexley Enfields come January, but this seemed like a better deal so I pulled the trigger.

[Syeknom]

What did you get them for in the end?

[starfox64]

Ok I am looking for a jacket. Specifically something warm but not too bulky, which I guess means that it's got to be down. Basically, I need something to wear when it's cold (like 20 F/-7 C) to bars and stuff that isn't oversized but is still relatively warm. Price is probably like under $300.

I was looking at those Uniqlo stretch down jackets because they are on sale right now, but every time I try one on it looks worse than I imagine it will.

[bels]

Those ones with a collar, no hood look good to me but I'm convinced that stand up collars make my face look amazing

[teck]

sorta is the opposite of a no cop but i've been "saving myself" for the last few weeks to get some geos or ramones. with the holiday and such the earliest i could possibly get them is late january/early feb.

i havent waited this long for a cop ever. its like waiting to sleep with someone you're dating, which, as an adult i havent had to do in forever. its quite harrowing forcing myself to wait, and very uncomfortable. i think the urge to get them might dissipate but the worm might be too deep now.

[RycePooding]

Who's not buying anything from sales season with me?

[jrisk]

haven't purchased anything because I won't be getting another paycheck until mid-Jan. thus I haven't even looked at any sales (except for COS because I've had my eye on the jersey bomber for a bit).

edit: fuck, I lied. I grabbed a pair of shoes from urbanoutfitter's sale a week or two ago.

[Stingray Sam]

forgive me lord for i have copped

[maj]

there are a couple of 'practical' things i'm eyeing for mid February so i'm having to limit my spending in all areas of life to make my dreams happen. been living a bit lavishly (for me anyway) over the festive period with eating out/gifts/drinking/yolo cops so it's time to purge this out my system and get back into my former tight pursed self. i'm even going to stop have a cream cake from the bakery at lunch and had my last Starbucks for a month this morning.

[Syeknom]

[Stingray Sam]

i didn't have a set period of time that i wanted to no cop, i just wanted to save my money. I'm often torn between wanting to have money so that i can spend it when i'm with my friends or wanting to have more clothes, sometimes i also think that i may be too generous. Honestly though i think i'll be satisfied with these purchases. I'm looking for a new direction in my wardrobe and i think these will be a good place to start. I bought some public school black skinny jeans, some grenson wedge sole derbies and an apc sweatshirt.

[bels]

Did you save the amount you wanted to save?

[whinefields]

New Year, No Cop. I spent way too much this past year (and especially the last quarter of the year) on items of clothing, DVDs I didn't need, furniture for my new apartment, etc. It came to the point where I knew that I would run out of money but figured that if I were already this much in the red, fuck it, why not go further? (As an aside, do not do this!! So dumb) Basically, I got a bunch of stuff over the holidays - some from my parents, some from "me" - and now that it's the New Year, I am resolved not to spend anything on clothing, extravagant food (either going out or ordering in) and DVDs and the like.

The thing that gets me the most is that coming into this year, I was fairly confident in the way I dressed. Then I moved literally all the way across the country. For a variety of reasons, that produced massive bouts of insecurity which resulted in lots of purchases as an attempt to project confidence/build a slightly new persona/cope with my anxiety. Looking back on all my purchases, even though I like all (and love some (as I finally got some brands that I've been waiting to purchase for a long time)), it's not exactly like I needed any of them. While they enhanced my style, they didn't radically change it. It wasn't as if I was filling in any major gaps in my wardrobe. Which leads me to no cop.

The more I reflected on what I bought, and thought about future purchases, the more I started to question why actually my attention turned to clothing. The way I see it now, entering graduate school brought about commitment fears - "was I actually going to invest in myself and say that I will become, or at least head down the road to becoming, what I've always dreamed of being?" As a way to move around those fears, as a distraction, I started to become more and more interested in my "style" and others' as well. The more time I spent looking online for purchases, the less time I spent actively engaged in my schoolwork. Thus, much of my anxiety abated.

So, for me, no cop isn't just about not spending money. It's more about a refocusing - by eliminating what is probably the biggest distraction in my life, I can, for better or for worse, turn my attention back to where it belongs: graduate school and the world that I will be entering upon its completion. So, for me, no cop extends until May 11th of this year.