Is it time to cool the jets? Photo: RNZ
First person - I didn't know when I picked up my new TV cabinet that it was the beginning of a problem.
"Classic 1970s" the Facebook Marketplace ad had crowed. I travelled severely out of my way during school time traffic to get it and it was, if I say so myself, bloody beautiful.
A solid wood extendable table followed, and shortly after then a baby gate. I don't have a baby, but my 3-year-old nephew was coming to visit for a day so why not spend $20. Anyway, it was only a 15-minute detour there and back to collect it. A wooden bed headboard would be nice too, so I had to get that. I was very confident I would be able to fit it in the boot of my hatchback (I couldn't).
By this point the app was showing me items I could want, and you know what? I did want rollerblades, and the seller was in my area, a third vacuum cleaner could be convenient, and it was going cheap.
For the uninitiated, Facebook Marketplace originally launched as part of Facebook in 2007, but never really picked up. It was relaunched in 2016 with better positioning on the app and exploded in popularity. Nowadays it's filled with people's second-hand goods, as well as the occasional scam. Facebook claims it has one billion monthly users.
It was the week I had three marketplace pickups in two days (outdoor storage box, the infamous third vacuum, a postmodern style Talking Heads Poster) that I saw a pattern emerging. Scroll Facebook Marketplace to kill some time, find an object for sale for less than $50, purchase. I wasn't about to leave myself destitute, but I was wandering all over Auckland and my house was getting quite full.
I wondered what itch this was scratching in me and decided to consult an expert. Rachel Stansfield did her masters in social anthropology on thrifting and said the people she spoke to viewed op-shopping as bit of a rebellion of sorts.
"They think that it's better to repurpose reuse than it is to buying new, and on that theme, they also thought that it could represent a rejection of capitalism from a sort of political perspective.
"There's also some eclecticism, where people want to create their own style. They're sick of shopping malls pumping out the same stuff for everybody ... so that's more along the lines of the rejection of mainstream."
On top of that, the urge to thrift could go a bit deeper.
"There's a couple of people who've written a lot about the scarcity brain, and as hunter gatherers in our ancient sort of amygdala brains, we're actually wired for scarcity, but we live in a time of plenty now.
"I don't know whether that's just an excuse for consumerism, or if there's more to it, but there is definitely something."
Maybe my absent-minded scrolling on weekday afternoons is satisfying a primal instinct to hunt for a deal?
Bay Financial Mentors general manager Shirley McCombe said there's another psychological trick at play with Facebook Marketplace, too.
"It's time dependent, so you've got to buy it because someone else might bid on it and get it then you become so focused on everything that comes through, it's like, 'oh, that looks really good. We better bid on it, or we better get it because it might disappear'.
"That pending event encourages us to make decisions very quickly because we don't want to miss out on something, and it doesn't give us the time for the reflection that says 'okay, well, we've got one of those, do we need two?"
This is all starting to add up. The Talking Heads poster mentioned earlier is a great example. I saw it, realised it would be a nice piece of decor that wouldn't be one of the many mass-produced prints available at the mall, and thought the price was an absolute steal. On top of that, everyone around me said they wanted it, and I panicked I would miss out.
It was on my wall within the day, but I bought it on an off-pay week and had initially been planning to hold off on decorative items while working out what fits best in the space.
So maybe it's time to cool the jets, but how do I do that? McCombe has some advice.
"It doesn't matter what the tool is, it doesn't matter what you call it, it's about giving every single dollar that you earn a job.
"Going through, creating yourself a spending plan and in amongst that plan identifying some money that is either for just having fun with or it is for fitting out the house or whatever it has to be and sticking within that.
"So you know that you've got X amount of dollars per week that maybe is going into a separate account that is for fitting out the house and you know that if you've if you've bought three vacuum cleaners that's a problem because you might not be able to afford a dining room table."
It's time for some financial planning and a new hobby then. I do have a pair of rollerblades I never intended to buy that could go to good use.
