I’m a student so food wise I’m already on a ramen noodle budget but this year I’ve made the resolve to stop buying clothes, taught myself how to sew and my grandma gave me one of her old sewing machines (she’s a quilter and had 3 of ‘em) so slowly I’ve been working through my closet dying things I don’t like the colour of, cutting things up and sewing them together to make new outfits, keeping all scraps like my grandma does to make gifts for my friends, I’m moving soon to a place with blinds and I’m so excited to have old curtain fabric to work with!!! It’s been so fun and I’ve saved enough money to buy healthier food
Underconsumption to me is not consuming something that is necessary. Such as say not getting enough Vitamin D. Now throwing away things that have not been totally consumed is just pure waste. I grew up poor. We cut open the toothpaste tube down the side to make sure we got the last of the toothpaste. Shampoo and dish soap bottles got a few splashes of water when they got low to make it last longer.
All you have to do is listen to Dolly Parton and His Orchestra...then just watch those laxatives do their job! Talk about Cucumbers in Dill or Thick Cut Marmalade! Bell hop...take this luggage up to room 401 and ignore Bing Crosby's Great Grandmother...she doesn't mean it.
Under (or over) consumption is about balancing cost and utility. OVERconsumption is consuming so much that you're spending (cost) more than you can make use of (utility). For example buying a ton of food and not being able to eat it all and much of it goes bad. UNDERconsumption would be the opposite: consuming too little... you could be getting more use (utility) if you bought more (cost) but you didn't so you're underconsuming. The example would be buying too little food at the store and suffering some negative consequence (going hungry, or having to go back to the store a second time, etc).
Underconsumption to me, is just not buying more than you need. Use what you have, repair over replace, get creative rather than buy solutions. But that's merely because society has such emphasis on overconsumption (Keeping up with the Jone's).
When I was a kid my parents made me finish the whole box of cereal before we got a new one. I went to my friends house once and saw thwy had like 10 different kinds of cereal and I was in awe.
First time I was at a friend's house for dinner, they saw how fast I finished my plate, and they offered 2nds. I was floored, what do you mean, I can eat more?
Thanks for your response. That form of underconsumption would make my carbon footprint larger... Nope not for me. My form of underconsumption is buying fewer packages and using all of the contents of those packages.... I'm eating less snack food and loosing weight while I'm at it. The corporations can sell me fruit leather instead of candybars... I want my candybar consumption at zero.
