Minimalism is a Revolutionary Way of Being in the Age of Climate Change

Why I am vowing to stop buying so much stuff.

My mom was a shopper. I learned early how to answer our phone with a smooth, polite tone and calmly notify the debt collectors that she wasn’t home, despite her sitting on our couch watching the television. She stole a work credit card once so we could go to San Francisco, spent our food money on perfume and dresses, and, when she was older and I was out of the house, spent her 500k divorce settlement in less years than I can count on four fingers. She loved money but spent it like it might eat her up, and it kind of did.

I learned my money management skills from her. When I got my own bank account and checkbook, I immediately began writing bad checks at the grocery store so I could get cash back and spend it on weed. My stepfather, who had saved her from herself debt-wise, lectured me on the correct spending practices, but it meant nothing. Not when my mom still spent money the way she did, buying new things to replace the newish things that now bored her.

Near the end of my mother’s…