Hear me out on this one. We’ve been living in a van for a total of 8 months out of the 14 months we’ve spent here in Australia. It’s time to reflect on how living this way has affected our consumerism. Spoiler: I think it’s been good for us in more ways than one.
Fun for the planet
Before you go on at me for our diesel consumption, I’ll admit we do a lot of driving, but I’m not so sure it has been more than our combined yearly average than what it was in the U.K. We used to get around 10,000 miles per year for both Ben and I. That’s 20,000 miles compared to the approximately 25,000 miles we’ve racked up on the van. So we’re already on to a good start.
Over the 5th November 2023 and the 5th November 2024 we didn’t take a single flight. Why would we, have you noticed the gigantic land mass that is Australia? There’s so much to see, and if we want new scenery we can just drive elsewhere. Compare that to the same time frame between 2022 and 2023 I took a total of 18 flights. Now that, I’ll admit, was quite excessive, but hey, I was making up for my traumatic near death experience. I don’t think any of you can blame me for that.
Fun for the mind
Since 2020 the availability of online products has soared. It’s so easy to mindlessly consume, consume, consume. Just click click click and you’ve bought something new from Amazon. Click click click, click click click. We’re all guilty of it. But not only does it destroy the planet, it’s detrimental to our connection to the world, the mind gets its dopamine hit by clicking “order” but what now? You’ve got more stuff but did it really make you any happier? I’m not saying I’m free from impulse buys, but there have been extra steps between click click click buy, namely our big space issue. Or rather, our little space issue.
Fun for the luggage allowance
If you want a taste of how we’re living, imagine your entire belongings fitting in the size of a transit van. Everything you buy, you also need to find space for. There’s no junk draws, garages, closets, places to throw unused items that you don’t want to look at again.
Everything we buy has to go somewhere and it’s coming with you, to the next destination, to work, to the gym, to the beach. We carry everything we own pretty much everywhere we go.
And if we want to buy something to take home, meaning back to England, well then the space limitation went from a transit van to a backpack.
Each purchase comes with decisions to be made:
“Do we have the money for this right now?”
“Do I want to take this all around southeast Asia?”
“Is it worth the space it takes up in my backpack?”
“Will I genuinely use this enough times to make it worth it?”
Most of the time, the answer is a hard no. We’ve learned to restrain ourselves, and in this immediate gratification culture, it’s not an easy feat. Hopefully, one of the lighter things we’ll bring back with us is this mindset “do we really really want it? Do we really really need it?”, which will certainly help us in our time-to-save-for-a-home era.
Fun with a medical appliance
As well as thinking whether it will fit in my backpack, I also need to account for the months worth of stoma bags I’ll need to pack for when we leave Australia for Asia. It’s going to take up about the entire size of my hand luggage, same as it did on the way here, so when I say “will it fit in my backpack”, it is truly just the one backpack I’m going to have space for all my belongings, because the other one will be full of medically necessary items.
Fun until you calculate shipping costs
Of course I’m privy to entertaining the idea of buying something and shipping it home, in fact, just the other day in a charity shop a beautiful painting caught my eye. Picturing a lake at the base of a mountain during Autumn with the loveliest colour scheme of oranges, ethereal blues and golds. We’re a long way off buying a house but damn it would look so good in a bedroom or hallway. I got the darn painting at $25 but now I realise the shipping is approaching $300, I think I really should have listened to Ben when he told me to refrain from buying it.
Oh well, I never said I was perfect did I?
