Somewhere on your feed right now, someone’s showing ‘things that make sense’ in their ‘girly bathroom’. The hand soap has been rehomed into an amber glass bottle with matching hand lotion, and the toothbrush has been swapped for a cute pastel-coloured one that sticks to the mirror. None of it works any better, it just looks right on camera, and increasingly, that seems to be what matters.
It’s not just bathrooms. How many times have you seen a decanted pantry with matching labels, a beige highchair, the fridge restock videos where every yoghurt gets transferred into a clear plastic tub, the perfect flat lay of a handbag’s contents? Somewhere along the way, our criteria changed from “does this work?” to “would this look good in a grid post?” – and most of us didn’t even notice it happening.
The aesthetic tax
Now listen up, because this is costing you real money.
The aesthetic version of anything is almost always the more expensive version. The glass storage containers to replace the packaging your food already came in, the colour-coordinated cleaning products, the linen everything, the ceramic bottle for your washing up liquid. None of these purchases are outrageous on their own, but that’s exactly why they slip through. If you add up what you’ve spent making things look nice rather than making things work, you’ve found your aesthetic tax.
And unlike most taxes, this one comes with a renewal fee. Aesthetics go out of fashion. Butter yellow gives way to chocolate brown, the curated shelf needs re-curating, and the storage jars that matched your old kitchen don’t match the new one. When your belongings are chosen for how they look, they expire the moment the look changes – which, on the internet, is roughly every six months.
Your fave cup can stay
Let’s be clear about what we’re not saying. If your morning coffee genuinely tastes better out of that one beautiful mug, keep the mug. If fresh flowers on the table make you happy every time you walk past them, that’s money well spent. A budget done the Financielle way has room for joy in it – things that make your everyday life feel lovely are a completely valid use of your flexible spending.
Owning nice things was never the problem. The trouble starts with thinking every corner of your life needs to be styled – that a normal sink with a normal tube of toothpaste on it is somehow a failure. It isn’t.
So pick your things (the mug, the candle, whatever brings you actual joy) and let the rest of your house be a place you live, rather than a set you dress.
What would you buy if no one could see it?
Take a second to sit with this question. Deinfluencing your life means noticing when you’re buying something for how it’ll look to other people (or to some imaginary camera) rather than for you.
The money you’re spending on the aesthetic tax could be doing something far better. It could be building your emergency fund, topping up a sinking fund for a lovely holiday you’ll actually remember, or growing into the kind of breathing room that no amount of matching storage jars will ever give you. Your peace of mind matters.
So, be honest – what’s the most aesthetic thing you’ve bought that the boring version would have done just as well?
