By buying less, one Minneapolis woman saves money and deepens relationships

By Emy Young

A suicide outside the Mall of America four years ago and the sad faces of people loaded with shopping bags inside the mall were in no way connected, but for Minke Sundseth, 37, that day helped inspire her to stop shopping.

The sad event and faces crystallized her feelings about the constant pressure to buy, buy, buy during the holiday season.

“I just felt like I needed a reset button,” the Minneapolis woman said.

So in 2007, Sundseth decided to participate in a small national movement known as The Compact. The Sundseth family started a second round of The Compact in mid-January.

The Compact is a pledge to not purchase anything new for one year. The idea is to do less harm to the environment, reduce clutter and simplify home life.

The Compact allows “fair and reasonable” exceptions such as food, medicine, cleaning products, toilet paper, underwear, and clothing for children.

Sundseth, a wife and mother of twin 6-year-old boys, hoped to accomplish many things: save money, have lighter impact on the earth, make it a habit to buy used items, depend more on friends and neighbors, and clear out clutter from her house.

“I wanted to learn to rely more on other people and have other people rely on us, instead of just (finding) a consumer solution to every problem,” she said.

Instead of buying a new sleeping bag for a camping trip, they borrowed one. Instead of buying a new hose when hers sprung a leak, she learned to patch it. Instead of buying new books, the family went to the library.

Sundseth’s boys, Oliver and Noah, do get new shoes, underwear and socks. But their clothes and toys are bought second-hand or inherited from other families.

Patty Selly, 38, a Minneapolis environmental educator who’s done The Compact, purchases used toys for her two young children. Selly said her one-year-old, when she first did The Compact in 2008, never noticed toys weren’t new.

Selly, a friend of Sundseth’s, was nervous about not being able to buy books while following The Compact. But she managed to get her family spending time together at the local library.

Sundseth’s husband, Joel, is a piano teacher and church musician. The biggest sacrifice Joel made was not buying new sheet music for pleasure. He did allow himself to purchase sheet music for his work.

The Compact didn’t put a strain on the couple’s relationship, but Sundseth knows couples for whom the challenge has been hard. To keep marital harmony, she recommends creating a clear list of exceptions. Selly and her husband planned for six weeks before they started The Compact.

Aside from a hot water heater and car part replacements, the Sundseths followed The Compact pretty strictly the first time.

This time around, they gave themselves more exceptions, including purchasing new items that benefit the environment, like a rain barrel.

Her biggest challenge was finding gifts. For Christmas 2008 – a year into the family’s first time doing The Compact – Sundseth spent six months collecting nice but used picture frames, and gave framed photos of her twins as a gift to family members. “It was lovely, but hard to repeat,” Sundseth said.

This time around, Sundseth will try to find second-hand gifts, but will allow herself to buy new gifts sometimes.

Not all second hand shoppers do it for environmental reasons. Richard Zajicek, 61, of Minneapolis, thinks second-hand shopping is a thrill and shops for his necessities at local thrift stores. He once bought a set of encyclopedias for 40 cents a volume, found a nice bathrobe, and is currently on the hunt for an electric lawn mower.

Most people were very supportive of the Sundseth’s efforts to not buy new. “I was surprised at the level of interest about it,” she said.

One woman asked Sundseth if her children were embarrassed to be wearing second-hand clothing. While living as a child in Fridley in the 1980s, Sundseth would have been embarrassed to wear used clothing, she acknowledged. Her current neighborhood in south Minneapolis is more economically diverse. She also feels the recession has chipped away at stigma against buying used items.

Once the recession hit, she started seeing more and more friends at Savers, a local non-profit thrift store with locations around the metro area.

Some of her neighbors were already sharing things through email listservs. At the family’s church, Faith Mennonite, parents listed items available to be borrowed.

Sundseth and Selly found The Compact had unexpected benefits. It allowed Selly to spend time more meaningfully with her family. Before, when they visited the Mall of America, the family would spend time searching for souvenirs. With The Compact, they just spent hours riding the merry-go-round.

Sundseth stresses the spiritual value of consuming less. “It was incredibly liberating to go … to a gas station and pay for my gas and what was on the counter was irrelevant,” she said.

“I developed a habit, while out and about, of praying for people I saw. Part of that was the consumer noise disappearing, allowing the voice of God to appear.”