How do you stop yourself wanting all the things?

I don't even understand the question. I never want to buy all the things. I guess it just comes down to who you are? If they will make you happy and you have the money, knock yourself out, but why not donate the old ones?

My friend feels down because she’s really skint, so she says she wants to go shopping and treat herself - she needs a “pick me up”. I express surprise at the cure. It’s only £30 that won’t make a difference!
What can I say - I’m baffled!

Being broke for a few years really focuses one's mind on what will genuinely enhance one's life and what won't. It also makes you quite frugal by nature; it's been a while since I had to worry about money but I still don't like spending it and if I think something's a rip-off I will not buy it.

Moving house from houseshare to houseshare in my 20s was a very effective cure for wanting to own material possessions at all.

Getting older involves getting more self-knowledge, particularly about what "luxury" things I actually really want and which I can live without. I'm happy to spend money on fancy restaurants but absolutely nothing on interior decorations, because I don't care about the latter and get a lot of joy from the former.

I think about where id have to store them the other 11 months of the year and then I don't want them as much

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻^ This

It’s utter tat, don’t be a sucker.

Think about who has made it. Such a high chance of exploited/child labour in the tat supply chain. For clothes, look up the retailer on the Good On You app.

There's no point lecturing and wagging fingers at the OP, they aren't listening!

it's like telling someone who drinks too much that alcohol is bad for their liver, it matters not.

This, absolutely nails it. The older I have gotten, the less stuff means to me. Instead, I treasure time spent with family. Christmas is usually the only time we are all together as our grown up DC live hours away, so this is what matters.

It's a moment .. yes you like it but you don't need it ... stay away from shops that's what I do they're ful of crap.

I have no trouble ignoring it / admiring stuff in a shop without feeling compelled to buy;

1. the disgusting state of landfill across the globe caused by many things - one is people overbuying cheap but overpriced tat / clothing they don’t need
2. where would I store it?
3. I resent the big shops shoving Easter, valentine, summer, Halloween, book day, autumnal, Christmas stuff in everyone’s faces to make the ‘buy now’ ‘buy more’
4. i refuse to line to pockets of Tesco bosses etc by being fooled into buying stuff I don’t need or even want
5. it doesn’t fill me with joy
6. i easily remind myself and my children of the pollution caused by making all this stuff that we don’t need, shipping it, disposing of it etc
7. i hate dusting

I hate going to the shops at Christmas for this reason. There's also a sense of get it now or it will be gone.

I find buying one really Christmas thing and using it lots helps, like a jumper or a mug. One chocolate novelty thing I haven't tried.

And yes totally agree about clutter. One mug or jumper I can live with!

I think you're more materialistic than you want to admit

No because I want to get all the things out of my house and have lovely clear surfaces and extra space. My DH however keeps shoving more stupid crap.

No,no,no. Don't waste your money on cheap rubbish, especially if you've already got it anyway. Best to buy edible treats, then they'll disappear.

I’m like this only with yarn. I write a list of all the things I want to buy and see what I have first and use up. I will allow myself some purchases but I like to plan what I will need things for and do it that way. Also clutter stops me from overbuying. Try writing a list until the urge passes.

I think as you get older, you’ve accumulated enough stuff not to want more.

Couldn’t agree with you less, OP. I loathe Christmas tat, can’t bear the excess and piles of crap in the shops especially the junk food. Who decided we need a metre of Jaffa cakes fgs?!

I’d very happily spend December in a snowy log cabin away from “civilisation “ with my DH and our dogs.

Absolutely this and nobody ever talks about it. I can buy whatever I want and suddenly I don't. Things are only alluring when they're slightly out of reach.

This! 👌🏼 🙌🏻 👏🏻 💚

I have a couple of nice Christmas mugs, one with a robin on and one with little animals around a Christmas tree. Both good quality, but i use them all year. I also have Christmas pyjamas, but again I wear them all year round.

What do you do with the old stuff?

Oh heck you sound like me I wind my husband up I buy new every year & it pissed him right off but I love Christmas x

I like having money more than I like having stuff 😁

I have collected a few things over the years but I certainly wouldn’t be going out and buying all new crap every year.

part of the fun of Christmas for my DC is getting the boxes of decorations and stuff down from the loft and seeing all the old stuff they’ve grown up with, it brings back lovely memories.

one of the things they love to get out is a set of mismatched Christmas mugs I got from a neighbour one year who was giving them away. We use them all through December and put them away after new year. I would replace one or two if they broke but I wouldn’t actively buy new ones every year.

Not at all. I hate seeing all these things for sale and the mindless drones buying them in bulk all due for landfill. I dread receiving this sort of Christmas gifts and have stopped buying people stuff so that I don’t get stuff in return. Clogs up my house and my life.