Ask the Readers: Do Your Morals Cost You More?

The way I get around the issue of make-up and its cost vs. sustainability is that I don’t wear it at all, except for on special occasions. I figure I’d rather have people be pleasantly surprised when I put it on rather than shocked when they see me without it.

I also don’t color my hair. One day I was bored in church and was looking around at the backs of womens’ heads. I realized that about 75% colored their hair. Why is this? Why can’t we just be happy with the color with which we were born? And this is coming from someone who has dirty dishwater blonde hair. I think of all that cost and the needless chemicals. Plus the time. I’m sure now someone will chime in and say they do it because it makes them happy. That’s all well and good, but I guess I want to ask, “Why?”

I think in large part it is cultural conditioning. Plus we seek ways to give ourselves a pick me up. In theory, these small pleasures are fine, but they certainly aren’t free in terms of cost or time. I’m always amazed when my sister comes to visit that she spends at least an hour getting ready every morning.

My mother-in-law gets her nails done twice a month. That’s another one I don’t get. In my mind, that’s $100 a more a month she could have in the bank. Sure, she can afford it, but….why? Then you are constantly worried they are going to chip. For women, I think the bar keeps getting raised and/or changed. We develop patterns that last a lifetime and in the end cost lots of money.

Or maybe I’m just a hippie at heart. But I wish there wasn’t all this pressure to have sculpted eyebrows, hairless everything, and picture perfect hair. In my experience, the expectation is certainly not coming from men.

I have slowly evolved my consumer choices over the past few years to match my values as much as I can. The main lesson I have learned is that in order to live a more moral life I have to change my way of living.

Over most of the twentieth century Americans have developed habits that negatively affect the environment (driving, factory farming), animals (ditto to the factory farming) and their own health (office work, commuting by car, “convenience” foods, etc.) This is not to say that we have not made some major gains too. These changes have developed over generations.

They cannot be undone by buying “green” products that correspond to the harmful, chemical-filled products many of us grew up using. I think the author found an important solution in home-made beauty products, rather than paying bank for “ethical” ones that still use oil for plastic packaging, etc. It is truly amazing though how successfully advertisers have ingrained some of these “needs” into out heads.

I have found this with cleaning products too. I laugh at the notion that some people will shell out $7 for a bottle of Seventh Generation toilet cleaner. My great-grandmother used vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice to clean the house. Those products cost next to nothing and worked for centuries. I got into an argument with my sister last week in which she insisted that vinegar does not work to clean and bought Clorox green solutions instead. Her reasoning was that it did not foam. Marketing executives have spent the last 50 years convincing us that products need to foam in order to actually clean! They have convinced us that we need to use face cleanser and toner! That we need different moisturizers for night and day!

My point of this rant is that sometimes we have to make our lives look and feel different- and less convenient- in order to really live a life aligned with our values.

I stopped eating meat and, don’t eat meat substitutes, so my meals look different. I bike instead of drive, so I have to plan my trips more ahead of time. I invest in socially responsible mutual funds. I shop mostly at thrift shops, so I can’t get what clothes I want when I want them. I am by no means perfect at any of these things. Just last week I got tired of my six month quest for a tan sweater and went to Target and bought one. As a commenter said above, you have to do what you can.

Trying to make your life more ethical without eliminating any of the convenience of modern products will absolutely cost you more. Making changes in the way you live, like the ones I listed, may actually save you money.

When it comes to values, I prefer to support small local business. By no means am I even close to 100% on this but I try to be conscious of it when I can. I mostly stay out of chain restaurants and support local independents. I try to support the local appliance store when needed, as well as home improvement but I do my fair share in the big box stores as well.

My husband and I have also made sure to back our medical bills in full even when we were urged to declare bankruptcy. We took advantage of the services and feel that even though the six figures was overwhelming it was our responsibility to pay it back.

We also made the decision to purchase a foreign brand car because it was being built in our state and supported the workers of our economy.

Money Moral decisions are never cut and dry, especially now since you can not ignore the global economy.

So far my morals have never cost me more, but that is just because I shop on autopilot. I don’t mind animal testing, but I work in research and development for medicines so that is probably why.

Absolutely, spending in line with our morals costs us more. In our case, it’s one of the reasons that we practice frugality, so that we can afford conscious spending. We joined as CSA and get all of our organic, local veggies from that. However, we drive our vehicle 20 mintes out to the farm once a week (in summer), or twice a month (winter/spring) to pick it up. We could have chosen to pick it up at the farm rather than in town because we want to expose our child to farming life. We buy whole chickens from a friend (happy, organic) and use every bit of it. We buy eggs from my coworker, and just purchased a 20 lb box of grassfed, organic beef from a local farmer. It’s worth it to us and our food is delicious, healthy, and locally grown. Skipping the stores and going straight to the farm does help save us some money.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned it yet — “free-range eggs” is just a marketing term:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) requires that chickens raised for their meat have access to the outside in order to receive the free-range certification. There is no requirement for access to pasture, and there may be access to only dirt or gravel. Free-range chicken eggs, however, have no legal definition in the United States. Likewise, free-range egg producers have no common standard on what the term means.

So if you’re paying extra for free-range chicken eggs, you’re wasting your money. There are probably companies that sell ethically harvested chicken eggs, but the label itself is meaningless.

It’s all good and well to want to do this type of thing. But when your budget just can’t make the stretch, it’s hard to read posts like this that make one feel bad about oneself for not being able to afford to be a “good moral person”.

I am lucky to live in a state where all this is possible – for a price. If I wanted, I could have fresh farm milk every day (at a cost of around $37 a month). I could have farm raised, grass fed beef, lamb, and pork from down the road – at a cost of around $1,200-$1,400 for the year – that would give me about 2 servings-3 servings of each type every month. I could go pick out a chicken and get the eggs, then the bird, at a cost of $10-12 a month for the eggs and $240 a year for the chicken. I could get farm fresh veggies (local or organic and local) for $30-50 a week. I could bike everywhere – at a cost of 3-4 hours of my time each day (at LEAST – probably more like 5-6 since I work further out than DH does). I could pay another 4 cents per kwH and get wind power instead. I could pay out $3-4k for solar panels.

I can go on, but you get the point – with money, I live in a place that makes it really easy to be “a good moral person”. But I don’t have that money, my family is trying to finish advanced degrees instead, to better our future prospects.

So please, while it is possible, it is expensive, don’t make us poorer folks out to be “not good moral people” when we can’t afford to be.

In order to honestly answer whether your morals cost more, don’t forget about all the government subsidies, environmental costs, and other less-obvious costs. Yes, my grass-fed beef costs more than the stuff at Safeway, but part of that’s due to government subsidies, heavy use of antibiotics, and poor living conditions, which I pay for in other ways.

I find that in some ways, my morals are actually cheaper. Because it’s so hard to figure out where something came from, it’s an easy excuse to not buy something.

It all boils down to what we value.

For some, the ethical implications of buying mass produced, immoral products is more painful than spending more money for a different source.

For those that can’t afford to do this, (or choose not to), there are so many other ways you can combat things you find immoral. With your time, talents, resources, etc.

I would also recommend Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should (and Shouldn’t!) Cook from Scratch to Save Time and Money by Jennifer Reese. It is part cook book part memoir and fun to read. She has a great chapter on raising chickens for the eggs and attempting to do the same with goats for the milk and she gives loads of details on the costs associated.

I think “morals costing more” can go either way. I have a lot of friends with land who have their own chickens and plant and tend their own gardens with their own organic veggies and they all admit that in the end, it is not so much a cost savings as a desire to have less toxins in their bodies so yes, not actual $$ savings in the beginning but potential for less medical issues down the road? We might never know of course.

I hate Whole Foods. Ok, I love it, but it is a hate love. The ones I have been to are all so badly designed so there is no room to pass anyone in the aisles and they are crowded and everyone is rude and miserable and I end up wanting to punch someone.

Plus of course, it is damned expensive.

That said, I found that I can buy large bottles of their generic brand unscented shampoo/conditioner and soaps for $2/bottle. They are free of the parabens and fragrances, etc so if I just go in there for those things, it becomes a bargain.

I agree with the folks who say do your best, whatever that means to you, to go with your morals. I joined a CSA for the first time this year. It is not organic but it is local, the farm has been in business for over 100 years, and they practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM) to control insect pests and diseases on crops by combining several complimentary strategies such as sanitation, soil enrichment, variety selection, pest detection, and biological controls.

The cost for a week’s worth of fruits and veggies through this has been about $12 and it tastes good and is grown the next town over. I feel like it was a good financial and moral decision for me. Some friends thought it was a poor choice because it is not explicitly organic.

You do what you can do and you make the decisions that can exist within your moral compass and finances.

Oh and there is no way I will ever stop coloring my hair! I went gray at 35 (I am 42 now) so every 6 weeks I have a date with my coupon discounted box of home hair dying kit – you will have to pry it from my cold dead hands!