To think that buying "stuff" is getting out of hand?

[LunaLoveg00d]

Let me preface by saying I am not a lentil knitting vegan eco-warrior. I buy stuff, I drive, I fly abroad on holiday and we don't grow our own food.

However. Since I have had my first child - only 13 years ago - the culture of buying "stuff" seems to have boomed and I don't think it's positive. Supermarkets and other shops are full of (mainly plastic) tat which people are encouraged to buy for every festival imaginable - Valentine's, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter, New Year, Christmas, Halloween - the list is endless.

You can't just have a pumpkin lantern for Halloween any more - you have to have fairy lights, cupcake cases, scary decorations, glow in the dark skeletons, adult AND child costumes, bunting, paper chains, etc etc etc. And nearly everything sold is poor quality or designed to be used once or twice and thrown away.

Clothing is the same - chains like the supermarkets, Primark, New Look or H&M are all about churning out clothes as cheaply as possible, designed to be worn for a few weeks or months and then chucked.

It's just all so wasteful and crazy. We are filling up landfills at a rate of knots with all of our plastic crap and disposable clothing and teaching our kids that celebrating festivals and special days isn't about being nice to each other or spending time making or finding a special gift, it's about buying as much "stuff" as you can as cheaply as you can and then chucking it out when you're finished.

All a bit depressing really.

My dm uses chipped mugs at the bottom of garden pots for drainage.

So slow at typing. Cross post with everyone!

Keep posting everyone. I'm loving this thread. There may be a revolution coming on!

I'm out of energy, so I'm relying on the rest of you to take this forward.........

The tide is turning on all this crap. I have a toaster that is completely repairable with all the spares easily available. I have a steam iron which is completely repairable and I know I'll have both for life. I rarely buy anything which is made of plastic and destined for landfill and I know I'm not the only one who is refusing to buy Chinese made crap. Everyone is sick and tired of it.

I totally disagree about it being money orientated. Most middle to upper middle class families I know would never buy cheap disposable tat. It's all quality stuff that gets reused and passed down to siblings and other family members. In my experience it's lower income families that justify spending 'on the kids'.

That's good to hear thing which brands are they ?

Yes they are definitely more worried about not depriving their kids materially. I never really get the overspending on the Dec at Christmas. I have rarely spent more than £100 each on my Dcs at Christmas.

I would like to buy better quality items. I even have money to do so. But which toasters available locally will last 20 years like the ones I grew up with, and which will die in a year or two? The cost isn't much of an indicator of anything other than how fashionable it is. See also kettles. And non-stick frying pans. I've had to replace three of each in the last 8 years, but had one of each for about 16 years before that!

I bought a bunch of Tesco flannels a year ago - how bad could a flannel be anyway? They have worn through in under a year. For comparison, half my towels are the ones my mother got as a wedding present in 1958 - some have been re-dyed and one has ripped, but they are so lovely and soft and absorbent. Modern towels, even the same expensive brands, don't use long yarn and wear through in a few years.

How can I tell which clothes will wash well and not bobble, and which are more expensive but will look like dishrags after six washes? There's no pattern to it, and knowing which branded items are still good after a decade only tells you what that brand was like 10 years ago! Though after wearing through a pair of Next trousers within 2 months last year, I'm disinclined to chuck any more money their way.

citrus you just reminded me that we have been through 3 kettles and 3 toasters in six years and none of them were particularly cheap (£40-£60 each). Maybe I should just buy the cheapest ones next time as clearly spending extra hasn't paid off.

My toaster is still going from 10 years ago, kettle about 4 years, was expensive but love it. Oven went wrong but dh ordered a new thermostat and fixed it.

Sad to say but I haven't read all of the thread so this comment may have already been made.
To me, it's not so much the spending but the lack of value placed
On anything purchased? We certainly seem to live in a throw away culture but what really saddens is the lack of
Value people place on things, on each other - a lacking mentality.

YANBU. It's somehow as if shopping has become the weekends main activity for many people. Is it a lack of imagination some of the time? - Cant think of anything to do, so lets go into town. And each purchase leads to another need - OK got this lovely sweater and trousers but my shoes/bag don't look right with it. So off to look at bags and shoes.

The ease and convenience of huge outfits like Amazon and ebay make buying so quick. Bit bored so go on Amazon - you buy something and then loads of recommended purchases come up and as you're still a bit at a loss for something to do - you buy some of those too. Once you have those, you soon find something else to complement them. And so it goes on. Gaps in people's lives are being plugged with buying more and more stuff.

I come from an immigrant family. My grandparents saved and looked after everything they owned. It was taken to the nth degree - curtains closed on sunny days to protect carpets and furniture from fading, every paper bag and rubber band kept. But they'd come with nothing and had to work like buggery to buy the things they had here and it had to be cared for.

My Dad owned an electrical repair shop. If he were alive and still working now, he'd be stuffed, because it seems so unimaginable for us to take our faulty kettles, radios, hairdryers etc to someone to fix. He said in his latter years that electrical stuff was made with built-in obsolescence. He said the plastic on my Dyson was as robust as that on kids toys.

I have very little. I live in a tiny flat with 1 storage cupboard. I have what I need. My wardrobe is a small single one so I can't buy outfit after outfit as have nowhere to keep them. My brothers and their partners live very modestly too - they have what they need and no more. I think how we were brought up and by whom we were brought up has had an influence on our buying/owning behaviour.

I try not to buy things, but I often fail. I am currently trying to de-clutter, like already mentioned I have sent bags and bags of stuff out the house but it barely shows, that is how much stuff we have in the house.

I don't know how to stop the tide, they certainly seems to be a current thought that they only way to have an 'experience' is to have stuff to do it with - the Christmas Eve boxes are a prime example. I occasionally wondered if I am making my children miss out by not doing it, but then I realise that we are making our own Christmas Eve memories, bit it is so tempting to slip up.

We will try and cut down at Christmas or buy things that will be used up - such as toiletries. I have started to do this for my parents, they are drowning in stuff (Mum won't throw anything away) so I but things that will go, last Christmas we got them a Tea for 2 voucher.

I do have a little issue with the 'ask people to buy an experience' - but this costs and is outside the budgets of the people who buy for my children, so I am not sure of the answer to this.

I could do a magazine subscription for my parents though she will keep them for years

Stuffification is a SUPERB word.

Cake smashes - I had never heard of this until a few months ago when someone was posting about it on here and it seems to be an American thing (aren't they all) whereby you bake/buy a lovely big cake for your child's first birthday or other big occasion and allow your toddler to smash it up so you can take pictures of their face covered in cake. Epitome of wastefulness if you ask me.

And don't even get me started on baby showers.

This year my kids have all asked for expensive presents. One wants a new Xbox, one wants a phone and the other wants a bike. We will get them what they've asked for but that's it apart from a stocking which will have things like socks, bubble bath and chocolate in it. I'm just not getting into buying extra stuff just because a phone in a wee box doesn't look impressive under the tree.

This is a topic that interests me a lot, because I think consumers are being hoodwinked.

A few years ago, I came across an old sample catalogue for a 19th century silk mill in our area. The quality of the samples, even though they were 150 years old, was incredible. It was actually quite bizarre to think that middle class people (the bulk of the demand for these textiles at the time) wore clothes and upholstered their houses in these materials.

Then a month ago, there was a Marni dress in our local TK Maxx; originally retailing for over £300. It was unlined, made out of man-made fibre, and had no tailoring at all, just two bits of this fabric sewn together at the sides. Even the hem was just a rolled hem, and you could see the stitching.

And this all started making me think (which is very dangerous because it means I get a bee in my bonnet and start doing research).

I couldn't find any costings for Victorian ladies clothes, but I could for the 1920s in the USA. In the late 20s, an all-silk crepe-de-chine dress would have cost $8, which is about $104 in today's money, which would be about £81. A yard of cotton fabric equated to about $2 in today's money, which is about £1.50. A man's three piece suit would come in at about $286 in today's money, so about £221, and you were talking about 100% wool, tailored and lined.

So I had a look at Zara at men's suits and you are looking at about £150 for a two piece with 33% wool. Throw in a waistcoat to make it a three-piece, and you are not too far off the prices for a three-piece in the 1920s. Cheaper suits in Zara had no wool in at all and were still £90 for blazer and trousers.

We are constantly being told that clothes are cheaper than they have ever been. I really question that. It seems to me that prices are pretty similar to what they were in the past, only we are paying for poorer materials and construction and we've moved the textile industry from Western producers with pretty harsh conditions and low pay to the Far East with conditions that can be downright disgraceful, may involve child labour and utterly abysmal pay.

Put it this way, there's a reason why the founder and chairman of Zara has a net worth of £80 billion, and is the second richest person in the world.

The whole cake smash thing is crass and obscene imo. Watched a report on the situation in Yemen with one year old babies weighing less than they did when they born and kids dying from malnutrition every day. I know whether someone lets their one year old smash up a sponge has no direct influence on this horrendous crisis, but it just seem so very wrong when we already have so much.

Stuffification is a bit of a hoodwinking game in general, Werks.

Cake smash makes me think of trash the dress
I just think the bride doesn't want the dress, okay, why not give it to a charity shop or eBay for a low price to get a lovely dress to someone else?

I've managed to reduce Xmas to just two people but really I'd like them to stop, they just get so upset when I suggest it. One of them brought me something really practical from his last holiday so he's learning, at least he bought something I'll use.

Wow, thank you so much for this thread.

I have my 3 month old dd sleeping on me, waiting to transfer her into her crib. Growing up, we didn't have much money - we would go with my dad to find old bits of wood for our fire (which he always made into a fun game), our clothes were given to us or from charity shops a lot, we only got a few birthday presents etc.

There were difficulties at times, but we were happy with what we had. My best memories are playing silly games with my sisters. I always vowed not to go overboard on buying things for dd, as I know you can be happy without so much 'stuff'.

But since she's been born it's just to tempting to give her more than I had. Today I boxed up her clothes that don't fit to put into the loft. Granted, a LOT was brought for us, but I was shocked at just how much there was. I have brought her 3 Christmas presents (early, I know but there was a good deal and we are being careful with money right now), and have been worrying if that is enough. Of course it is, I know that, it's just been hard to not get caught up in it all. Plus I love our planet, and feel sad at how much ends up on landfill. Has anyone here watched 'man' I think it's called, on YouTube.

Thank you for opening my eyes once more to the madness on consumerism. It does not make you truly happy and I feel I was starting to forget that.

YANBU. Many of my dresses are 5 to 8 years old and cost around £30 each. Some are second hand, about 8 pounds each. I have 10 dresses for work so I have a different one every day for a fortnight then start the rotation again (bit OCD, but I am). Today I scored a dress for £1! Charity shop sale - awesome. I have 3 'going out' dresses and a ballgown that was free from Freecycle that I wheel out for the school prom (teacher).
I love charity shops and my two sons have been brought up rummaging for bargains. We don't buy disposable tat.

I've been giving the family youngsters birthday presents which are modest in value but I try to fit them to the person and their interests and I include a little note to the youngster about the present. Interestingly, I discovered - from an overheard (but not private) conversation which was told to me - that they're valuing the notes almost more than the presents. Keeping them and all.

Consumerism doesn't triumph all the time. Thank Goodness.

Woodland - "When you throw something away...there is no away. "

I love that statement.

OP YANBU at all. We have so much stuff - I feel like as soon as I remove it from the house, more somehow morphs into being...

Dualit is one brand that makes repairable toasters - very few moving parts to break, and casings designed to be unscrewed and put back together

Olenna our Dualit toaster is more than 20 years old and we've only had to replace burnt out elements twice, and the timer switch once. It gets used every day. Spares were a few quid off eBay and to be fair we could have had a new cheap shitty toaster for the same price, but I was loath to bin it when it still had loads of life in it.
I have towels that are also over 20 years old and still ok. We enjoy a good rummage in the charity shops and have a ritual where every year we take the kids to a really nice garden centre a few miles away and they each choose one new decoration for the tree. Again, we have decorations that are years and years old now and we really enjoy unpacking them and rediscovering well-loved bits and pieces.
I've been poor and spent, spent, spent on cheap crap. I'm not poor now but hopefully older and wiser and my attitude to "stuff" has completely changed. Such a wasteful society we live in.

Yanbu , not rtft so may have already been mentioned but here is an interesting book on the subject called stuffocation . Advocates spending (our precious) time / money on experiences instead of stuff.