A critical reflection of my consumption habits.

I am very much the type of person who lives their life in accordance with a strict routine. I’m a creature of “habit” (Clarke et al., 2003). That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy trying new things – I do, but I may take a little more convincing than others until I start to integrate something new into my day-to-day life.

(Slater, 1997, p.132) labels all consumption as being cultural, but as for my consumption habits, they tend to be governed by a “tried and tested” mantra that is ingrained in many aspects of my life. While I do concede that the options available to me are entirely based on my culture, for the sake of analysis in this blog post, I think it is will be easier to separate the things I enjoy from the culture that I am a part of. I like to know I will enjoy something before consuming it because I am a perfectionist by nature and tend to judge things in life harshly if I don’t feel completely satisfied afterwards. The tried and tested ideology mentioned before feeds into this way of thinking, if I know I like a particular brand of clothing or a particular type of food for example, prior to consumption, then satisfaction is all but guaranteed.

Before completing this assignment, I don’t think I have really ever thought too long about my consumption habits and practices, at least not with such a focused lens anyway. Across the past three or four weeks I have been taking a mental note of my buying habits and my decision-making process when consuming, as well as my conservative approach towards things of significant cost.

MY MORNING

Regardless of if I spent the previous night out partying or if I was in bed by 8:00 p.m., my morning always starts at 6:30 a.m. I start by making my way over to the designated coffee corner in my house (yes, my housemates and I are that snobby when it comes to coffee) and make myself a cup of filter coffee with my AeroPress. I have a coffee subscription with Timely Roasters where they send me 250g of coffee beans every week to keep me firing on all cylinders throughout the day. There are certainly cheaper options out there and ones that perhaps a student in my situation should be considering, but the quality is worth the extra cost in my opinion, even if it comes at the risk of appearing as though I have serious case of “affluenza” (Hamilton, 2005). This is a product from a roaster that I have come to love and trust and have been consuming from since the day a friend put me on to their amazing coffee. “We now form ourselves primarily through consuming things – in particular, through our taste for consuming certain kinds of things” (de Solier, 2010, p.110).

From there I head straight for the beach for a swim; rain, hail or shine. A swim at the beach every single day of the year has been a New Year’s resolution of mine for the past few years, that has proven to become somewhat of a thorn in my side. For the past few years I have failed to get down for a day in September or October for whatever reason, so I am determined to beat my personal best in 2020. While I’m not exactly “consuming” the beach by going down and having a swim I still think the fact that it has become a significant part of my morning now for some time, ties in with my well-established consumption habits. It’s something I trust in, something I never regret doing and just like anything else I regularly do, has become something I strictly rely on over the lure of other things such as sleeping in or going for an early morning run like some people might do.

WHAT I BUY AND WHY

I am an avid shopper, I’m always buying new clothes, purchasing new skin care products and updating my collection of shoes – they are my real weakness. Fergie et al. (2016) suggested that “people's social media practices are likely to be influenced by a range of individual, social and environmental factors” I find that targeted advertising has little to no effect on my purchasing habits as I generally play it safe and only consume from labels I have prior experience with. My favourite brands are Assembly Label, Charlton, Handsom, Kloke, Lululemon, SCRT, Stepney Workers Club and Venroy just to name a few and I have been shopping with each of them for a number of years now, perhaps just simply out of habit. For me to ever consider consuming clothing or shoes elsewhere, it generally needs to be bought by my brother, worn by him and observed by me, before I sheepishly ask: “Hey mate, do you mind if I try that on?”. As I mentioned at the top of the page, my buyers caution is heightened as the price of items increase, almost to the point where I will talk myself out of purchasing an item simply based on the fact that I don’t already own something from that brand and don’t feel convinced of the fit and quality of the garment.

As mentioned previously, once a brand can convince me of its quality or in the instance of fashion – its style, then I’ll consume the product as much as anybody, but until I am won over you will never meet a more closed off and sceptical consumer. Aside from simple stubbornness, the title of the “decision maker” (Gabriel & Lang, 2006) could be applied to my consumption habits. I want to purchase clothing at my own discretion because I want them, not because the latest trends are telling me to do so. At age 23, I feel as though my mind has been made up as to what products I know I will enjoy and those I will not, so if anybody knows of a stylish label that wasn’t listed above, then good luck trying to make me a consumer!

I don’t necessarily think I have a desire to rise up the social hierarchy with the clothing I wear. If I’m happy with how I look, then nothing else really matters to me, which operates in complete contrast to Featherstone (1982, p,21), who labelled awareness of one’s appearance as being sharpened by comparison”. When I think about it though, I don’t wear my pyjamas to University because I would think people would think I’m weird so maybe I do care? This idea of dressing a certain way based on how you feel you will be perceived feeds into the belief that “an image serves as a stimulus… that drives cognition, interpretation, and preference” (Shroeder, 2002). So maybe my level of care only lays within reasonable constraints based upon “an active compliance to social norms” (Clarke et al., 2003).

BEER AND WINE SNOB?

The confronting thing about this assignment is that I feel as though the more I write, the more stuck up and snobby I sound… I can justify this in my own mind by saying: “I’m not a snob, I’m just particular”, I blame being brought up in Margaret River for my consumption behaviour. How different can one bottle of crushed up grapes be to the other? Don’t get me started…. what I will say so though, is that this is the area of my life where my consumption habits are at their most adventurous. While I remain very loyal to my preferred wine makers in Dormilona, Las Jaras Wines, LS Merchants and Ochota Barrels to name a few, I have a few close friends whose opinion I trust and will often turn to them for recommendations.

This particular group of friends and I will often get together for dinner and wine parties where we all bring a bottle of something special and cook up some food that we feel pairs well with our beverage of choice. While the evening is all about catching up with friends, I won’t deny that we do all try and outdo one another from time to time, as nobody wants to look bad by bringing the cheapest bottle of wine. Hamilton’s (2005) study of affluenza can be related to in this situation as each member of the dinner party is generally trying to “out-snob” one another if you will, without acting like they care too much. We all want to impress each other with our contribution in the same way that we are all desperate to not disappoint one another if we bring an average bottle of wine or beer.

As I look back upon the last few weeks, I notice that I’ve thought about certain things regarding my consumption habits and consumer behaviour that have never really crossed my mind before. I kept coming back to the idea that I stuck with products I trusted or only consumed things that were recommended to me from a trusted source. I often take this high and mighty approach that I am hard to market towards and that I can’t be fooled by advertising tricks, but somewhere along the way I fell in love with the products I use today and perhaps part of my loyalty to products that I consume is born out of successful marketing. At the end of the day, if I continue to consume the same products in the same manner at a regular rate, then I suppose the brands have done their job by retaining a repeat consumer who has developed an unwavering loyalty to the consumption of their product.