r/Anticonsumption • u/Level_Dimension_3661 • 1d ago
Psychological How Trump made me more concious of superfluous spending.
Aussie here.
With the craziness of Trump's economy management it really finally hit me somewhere harder than my pocket: my peace of mind.
I went through all subscriptions I had and trimmed it down: Netflix, Apple music, LinkedIn (for jobs), Amazon prime.
I did keep YouTube as my wife pays for it as a family and she won't stop paying so that's it.
The hardest one, and also last was doordash which I used mostly for McDonald's.
The prices on doordash are outrageous. 18 dollars for a double big Mac with badly mixed coke and wet fries as usual made me very upset though I hadn't cancelled until today.
the overnight price hike of the bundle for two which had two price hikes in the last 6 months, from around 30 dollars to 32 and this week from 32 to 36 dollars was the final nail in the coffin.
I'm still in the process of replacing Coca cola to LA cola / aldi cola but detaching yourself from products you consume all your life is a process somewhat similar to addiction, in special with cola drinks.
My peace of mind is directly linked to how much of an hypocrite I am and I truly can't keep funneling my paycheck to companies with values that actually hurt me directly with outrageous practices and prices. It makes no sense.
I won't be able to enjoy any of these services / food while my brain hammers me with guilt for financing this entire circus.
I'm better off without them.
Sorry for the rant.
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u/luisapet 1d ago
I am in the process of doing this myself. I can't believe how neglectful my husband and I have been over the past decade. So much crap, too many subscriptions, so much waste.
I feel like it's time to cut wayyyy back, for sanity almost as much as economy. Once you realize the glutton you've become, it really eats at you!
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u/sleepy_holographic 1d ago
I applaud you for doing all of that cutting back! Every bit helps. I know exactly what you mean about peace of mind, I’m American and I’m terrified for how I’m going to feed my family, not even buying stuff just food! Everything that’s going on is horrible and I wish so much I’d been able to convince more people I know to vote.
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u/Mushrooming247 1d ago
I’m an American boycotting the American economy as much as possible at the moment, and this has really made me aware of what and where I make purchases.
I’m boycotting Amazon and Target of course, and have been boycotting Walmart for 20+ years, (you truly do not need them, fellow Americans, don’t send your money to that lazy trash family in Arkansas who has never worked one collective day in their lives.)
I am going to see just how little I can buy over the next four years, and I get most of my food for free from the woods, so jokes on you capitalist pigs.
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u/yodamastertampa 1d ago
Good to cut back. This is what the world needs right now. Personal savings is very low and is important to overall economic health. Spend less save more invest more. The US has been spending insane amounts and it's high time we became fiscally responsible. The same goes for the rest of the world.
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u/throwawaygamer76 1d ago
Just don’t invest fully into SPY 500 for now. Hold onto cash. Dollar cost average invest and hold onto those jobs.
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u/CaregiverNo3070 1d ago
So how, not out of intelligence, but just out of sheer laziness and luck, my savings account is just in dollars, and no stocks. I'm still kind of sick thinking how much food is going to cost, but not thinking that I have no savings now.
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u/CalmConversation7771 23h ago
S and P is fine if you’re holding for a lifetime.
There has never been a point in history where it was down in a 10 year period
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u/kibbe_curious 21h ago
We’ve never had a President who wanted to deliberately tank the economy so it could be taken over by tech oligarchs…
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u/CalmConversation7771 20h ago
How will tech oligarchs take it over if their offshore labor now is going to cost 230% more?
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u/kibbe_curious 19h ago
Their goal is to create their own independent slave states in the US, per Curtis Yarvin.
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u/tpodr 1d ago
The less superficial material bullshit I waste money on, the more I have for booze to help me survive. My household is dependent on a US federal civil service job and Musk’s ax went ripping through. We survived, but there’s always the return swing.
Fuck their economy. I’m redoubling my efforts to make sure all the products I use in my daily life are from companies who have successfully lead me to believe I can respect them.
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u/Jmsjss2912 1d ago
Let’s talk about the tariffs and the effects it has on the manufacturers of this country. Assume for a minute that you wanted to bring back some manufacturing to the USA, which of course is a huge assumption compared to manufacturing outside the country like we do as a company. Which I will get to in just a moment. This week alone the stock market lost over US$9 trillion which means every single manufacturer that has a US corporation is part of that loss. Which goes to show you that Trump‘s logic is about as efficient as his spray tan. If these companies even had a thought of coming back to the United States, all of their cash has now evaporated because of the loss in the stock market so who’s going to finance these new manufacturing plants that Trump keeps talking about, that are going to come back here make the economy great? Now goods have gone up in price in some cases doubled already this week which means the consumers are going to be buying less. Companies are going to begin layoffs, because they’ve lost a huge portion of their cash reserves. Their businesses are going to be diminished some because of the lower purchasing rate and the higher pricing. Bringing manufacturing back to the United States at this point with this approach has been almost completely eliminated. All you have to do is go back and look at what happened during the depression when they tried to institute tariffs causing the depression to take even a further nose dive and adding years into the depressive point. It’s such a joke that they used it in the movie Ferris Bueller‘s Day off where the teacher was talking about how bad tariffs are and how they caused the depression to go down, which goes to show you that if they use it as a punchline, then it obviously cannot work. With our business, we were building some manufacturing plants in the United States and now have had to put it on hold because of the tariffs. As an example, each of our production lines has a manufacturing cost of a little under US$5 million, we did try to price it in the United States but we found quotes anywhere from $12-$16 million for the same exact production line that we are having made in China. So we couldn’t make the equipment in the United States, but we were going to import it and set up manufacturing plants. One of them was in Arkansas where the state is somewhat depressed. Now we have put that project on hold with approximately 1800 people we were going to hire. The reason for that is not just the tariffs, from the equipment if you think about it a piece of equipment that cost me $5 million is now going to cost me about $9 million. Each production line generates about US$35 million of revenue so it’s not just a tariff in my situation it’s the fact that for $9 million I can have practically two production lines generating $70 million of income compared to the same $9 million generating $35 million worth of income, with a much lower profit margin because of the labor cost in the United States along with all the taxes and liability issues that you carry because of the litigious nature of the United States operating. So tariffs do not work, they hurt the economy. The only thing that they do on the surface is generate more tax dollars for the US government, but they diminish and wipe out the middle and lower class. Do you want to bring manufacturing back to the United States? You’ve got to do something about all of the litigious actions, you have to lower healthcare cost, lower pharmaceutical cost, have to educate more so that children can grow up and learn trades. You have to find ways to lower the cost of living and once you start doing that then laboring jobs will become available again. The next problem is the taxation situation is off-balance. We have structured our tax code so that the wealthy and the publicly traded companies that offer stock options instead of salaries, which is taxable make it almost impossible to collect tax. Take Musk for an example from Tesla. They talk about his $300 billion worth but it’s all in stock and that’s unrealized gains paying no taxes. What he does is he goes to the bank and he borrows money against that stock portfolio, borrowed money is non-taxable income and then he uses that money to live and buy things like he bought Twitter for $44 billion with borrowed money, no taxes paid at all. And then what he does from there to pay off those loans is he borrows against other portfolios and he just keeps borrowing deferring the taxes. $300 billion and no taxes paid whereas the employees that work for all those companies have taxes taken out of each paycheck. Just look salaries up of the top executives around the country and you look at their income, you’ll see that their salaries are generally between one hundred and two hundred thousand US dollars but they earned anywhere from ten to a hundred million dollars a year all in stock options and then they keep those options in stock and then borrow against them so their tax base is almost nothing. you want to fix the economy. You have to find a way to tax the rich, you’re not going to make them poor, you’re just going to make them help to strengthen the economy.
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u/BenReddit_ 20h ago
Well analysis. Thanks. Here from Indonesia which country that hit 32% Export to US.
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u/Jmsjss2912 18h ago
We’re building a facility right outside Jakarta now, but thankfully, most of our production is going to stay in the Indonesian market
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u/SelkieLarkin 1d ago
I'm a grandma who really enjoyed Facebook, Instagram, and tiktok. Although they are free I have cut my need for vitamins, creams, t-shirts, and dog toys by getting off social media. Isn't it funny how that works?
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u/Mr_NotParticipating 1d ago
Yeah McDonalds is BAAAAD. I refuse to eat there, I could eat at decently nice restaurant for the same price or cheaper. DoorDash just adds to the bullshit.
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u/ScientistPhysical905 1d ago edited 20h ago
I have been trying to cut McDonald’s out of my life for years. Soooo hard. It’s everywhere, it’s yummy but so bad for you. It took trump to say he was going to take my country to dorms eating there.
I have stopped Amazon, Netflix, Insta, TikTok, never had Facebook. Stopped shopping at TJMax stores (an addiction of mine). Just buying what we need to live and being very careful it’s not American.
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u/random_handle_123 14h ago
It absolutely is not yummy anywhere in north america. The EU mcd is serviceable, but in NA it's unqualified garbage tier food.
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u/Ok_Relationship3515 1d ago
I bought powdered butter and a bag of rice the other day in fear of a fallout. I hate it here.
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u/mama146 18h ago
We all need to cut back to basics and stop funding billionaires. They have broken the social contract with ordinary citizens.
This is no longer left vs right. This is about corporations abusing their customers. It's us against the ruling ultra rich.
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u/random_handle_123 14h ago
This is no longer left vs right. This is about corporations abusing their customers
It always has been this way, and some of us were being called irrational for pointing it out. Or socialists. It's bittersweet to see class conciousness emerge, but only because society is at a breaking point.
Also, will these lessons actually be learned, or will everyone go back to mindless consumerism after the tiniest change?
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u/crsh1976 23h ago edited 22h ago
As Canucks, we have already parted ways with Prime (thanks Amazon for shutting down 6 warehouses and sacking thousands of locals back in January, on top of everything else) & Netflix by switching to self-hosting, Apple Music (switched to Deezer), and anything related to orders online like are out - use local shops and stores when it cannot be done in-house. We are shopping for home appliances and we’re checking into where assembly plants are located (kind of a fun challenge actually), I expect eventually replacing phones will require some adjustments (no more iPhones).
As for the rest, we already don't drink soda or alcohol, don't smoke, don't own a car, etc. Part of it is for health and lifestyle reasons, but also a strong desire to eliminate unnecessary spending - and I don't see a limit to what I can cut out just yet, can always do better.
It’s easier than I expected, habits and laziness just need a kick in the bum to get moving.
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u/SaturnCITS 1d ago
I'm seeing the results of the opposite side of this, I've made money on games on Google Play / Steam since 2012, and since Trump's first recession it feels like people just don't have anywhere near as much throwaway cash as they did pre-Trump.
I used to make plenty, but now I have thousands in credit card debt for the first time in my life, and I'm selling off my pokemon card collection to pay the $100 a month water bill.
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u/MiscellaneousWorker 1d ago
Fast food is NOT worth it anymore 90% of the time, if ever, ESPECIALLY for ordering. It's become so consistently trash and low quality with everything you've said, especially the awfully mixed sodas and wet fries.
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u/cactus_oil 1d ago edited 1d ago
Also have been cancelling subscriptions (Netflix, Amazon, audible, Uber) and not buying from US companies, and saving a lot of money 😁
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u/Round_Try_9883 16h ago
I cancelled Audible & they kept giving me monthly subscription deals. Just took their 99 cents per month deal for 3 months. Put it on my calendar to cancel my subscription again before the 3 months ends.
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u/SoggyInsurance 1d ago
You might enjoy The Art of Frugal Hedonism. It’s an Australian book, and a guide to living well while consuming less. I borrowed a copy from the library!
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u/readingwanderer 19h ago
I second that recommendation. the art of frugal hedonism is one of the best books on lowering consumption I’ve ever read.
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u/kloomoolk 1d ago
Just so you know, there are ways of watching yt without ads or subscription. Brave browser for one.
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u/Euphoric_Sock4049 23h ago
12oz coke has about 10 teaspoons of sugar. All you're doing is purchasing diabetes.
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u/CalmConversation7771 23h ago
It’s nuts think, but with this end of the second era of globalism overconsumption will start to plummet.
TVs potentially going from $300 back to a more realistic price around $1500. Consumers were more incentivized just to buy bigger and bigger screens because of the low prices.
Consumers now have to be concerned about value, and consider product that will last.
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u/Fit_Bus2028 12h ago
Trump is teaching other countries how to be richer, safer and stronger, all while we get weaker and more stupid.
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u/LeonardoBorji 22h ago
You are actually helping Trump. Trump is executing project 2025 (he accomplished 109 of 302 objectives), part of project 2025 objectives is the reduction of the supreme power of the oligarchy and the giant monopolies that control peoples lives. (https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-30.pdf )
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u/normanapolis 15h ago
Ditto! I no longer feel like I’m less than because I’m not “keeping up” with overconsumption.
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u/Background-Draw8563 10h ago
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u/Cartoony-Cat 1d ago
Look, I get why you’re cutting back. The world's a mess, and our wallets feel it. But dropping Doordash because Trump? That’s a leap I'm struggling to understand. Don’t get me wrong, breaking away from overpriced junk delivered to your door is a big win for your mind and your wallet. Switching colas, trimming subscriptions - all cool moves. But if we’re blaming political figures for our spending, we’re hopscotching over the real issue. It's companies' insane pricing, not just political shenanigans. Make choices for you, not because of some US president’s shenanigans. Anyway, nice job on ditching the wet fries and watery coke. Keep doing what's good for you.
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u/naxos83 1d ago
Good for you, keep it up. USA here. Watching things unravel in shock, horror, anger and intermittent feelings of hopelessness… but I’ve cut WAY back on Amazon after being on Prime for maybe 15 years. Spent $50 at Target so far in 2025. Will never buy a Tesla. Shopping local grocery delivery instead of a big chain that I now realize is in Trump’s big donor column. Every little action helps.