Spending Time: An investigation of the relationship between emotions, time and spending

The significance of exchange within our daily lives encompasses not only the economic exchange of physical commodities but more abstract entities such as knowledge, skills and beliefs. This research investigation developed from a desire to understand my personal engagement with money and the design of money, through the exploration of shopping and spending habits. The activity of spending and everyday provisioning is one which has come to form a large component of our everyday lives and is partly informed by the non-economic aspects of exchange described above. This has led researchers, such as Daniel Miller (1998), to investigate the cultural phenomenon of consumerism. As our ability to consume has expanded to an almost unlimited wealth of products to choose from, a consumer has been able to form an imagined relationship with their purchases and may even regard it as a physical manifestation of various emotions. This level of constant spending and provisioning demands further examination, as the systems designed to enable us to consume are the same which have capitalised on our emotions. By making use of ethnographic methods of investigation (specifically interviews and qualitative survey tools), this research explores how an increased level of monetary literacy could be developed towards a consumers everyday spending. Through the design of a research tool, The Spending Map, a process of critical reflection is encouraged where it is possible to exhibit a dialogue that can capture, catalogue and critique the emotional engagement a consumer has towards their spending.