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.

There's also a counter-culture of upcycling, ebaying, growing some of your own food, etc.

I buy a fair amount of 'stuff' but it's usually (though not exclusively) good quality brands second hand on eBay. No-one would ever be able to tell that it's second hand.

Likewise anything of mine I've gone off is sold on eBay. I very rarely throw anything away.

Even if a clothing item is ripped I can usually make something else from it like kid's clothes or a dribble bib or at absolute worst something for the cats to sleep on or a duster!

I've got a clamshell ibook at least 25 years old that still works.

I have 3 macbooks- my main one is 4 years old, the other two are getting on for 10 years. One did break after 3 years, which is why i replaced it, until i took it into apple and they fixed it, no charge as it was deemed a manufacturing fault.

All 3 are obviously not up to the spec you can buy now, but they still do everything i need.

I have just got rid of my sony crt tv. Getting on for 15 years old and still fine. Great for kids too as the couldn't push it over.

re not having a Christmas tree, we didn't have one due to the fact that we'd have to just throw it out and it was pricey... so what?
I had lots of toddler friends come round and say "you don't have a tree!" in horror. People are more reluctant to say "no" to their kids I think.

I also only got one present - an LP usually!! - and I had to listen to my kiddie friends telling me all about what they got. Didn't matter.

I had a big backed TV - is that a CRT? - for about twenty years, kept it till it packed up.

re the threadbare towels, I know there are MNers who wash towels daily and also I think there's a type of person who will change towels due to what they look like, i.e. a bit worn.

I'm quite reluctant to give to charity shops when I know so many people are directly in need. I gained some weight which I'm now losing, so had to buy a bigger winter coat. This winter I am literally going to just hand it to a homeless person directly.

Sometimes we buy new clothing, sometimes charity shop or preloved online. Generally when something is past its best I try to reuse, rather than pass on 'tatty clothes' - so using for making into other things, stuffing for knitted soft toys, quilts, other clothing/dolls clothing, rags for cleaning etc. Its easy to reuse things, much easier for us than trying to get bags of stuff to charity or rag bins without a car. Its pretty disgusting how much crap there is and how many people have to 'buy all the things' - when some folk can barely afford to feed themselves. The world has actually gone mad.

Brilliant thread, thankyou Luna!
Agree totally... far too much stuff. Not sure what the answer is. I don't particularly feel that I am contributing to the problem but I'm not an eco-warrior and I do have a reasonable amount of "stuff.
I try not to waste things. I'm shocked by how much people DO waste.

I think as consumers we don't always have all of the power. I do have a fancy pants coffee machine, and apparently the pods are not recyclable. Gah!
And today I heard that coffee cups aren't recycled either? Really? I don't buy takeaway coffee often but always believed paper cups to be recyclable!

My son was born at the end of September. 9 years ago heavily pregnant and a few days overdue I stood in a shop and quietly sobbed because "Christmas has arrived before my baby". (To be fair it was Costco rather than a normal shop but it was still a shock!)
BUT... before December one of the mum's at the school gates will announce "I have done all of my Christmas shopping already". People like THAT make it come out earlier each year!
We ended up going away last year and it was lovely. Completely un-commercialised, just a few Christmassy little bits to remind you, and children very happy with just a couple of gifts.
But I was equally shocked by how fast it vanished... no chance of having a post-Christmas Christmas back home. It was all New Year party stuff. And then Easter.

We cut down dramatically on tat and compared to many our children don't get an awful lot but they are grateful for what they DO get.
I bought loads of second hand toys, often older things that were still working well. Newer stuff does seem to be fairly rubbish and break too easily. When outgrown it was sold, passed on or given to charity.

Recently I have discovered selling pages on facebook and I have bought a lot of clothes off there. Sold a bit but mostly pass it to charity if I don't want it (eg as part of a bundle). Will also spend money on shop items, but try to think about every purchase and never just because it is a bargain!
Decluttered a lot when moved house (a long time ago) and again when had kitchen done. (Old kitchen - needed doing, not just fancied a change!!!).

Instead of a party, DS agreed to a weekend away, which was lovely. Cost about the same as a party would have done, but was much nicer all round.

Our coffee machine has just broken, it wasn't a pod one, just a normal filter. I've bought a used cafetiere off ebay to replace it

lore I have holes in some towels. I figure they get us dry and no one else sees them so I'm not fussed. The DC's use their baby towels for their hair.

My mil & sil are terrible for buying everything new. My nephew is 18 months old and sil is pregnant. They've got rid of all the baby stuff... jumparoo, moses etc. because they'll be newer updated versions available for new baby.

Now that is wasteful dinosaur. I got rid of all my baby stuff when ds2 was about six years old as I was fairly certain we were done having babies but when ds2 was 12 I found myself pregnant again and had to buy everything. It was very annoying to think that I was buying stuff that I had donated 6 years ago. I really don't understand why anybody would get rid of stuff when they are planning another baby within a couple of years. Even if you had no storage space it would probably be cheaper to rent a garage or storage unit than to rebuy everything, especially if buying brand new.

I know summer mil can't get iver the fact that most of my purchases are 2nd hand and dc have many hand me down clothes. She tries to compensate for this by buying them lots of new clothes and toys everytime we see them. So I think me buying 2nd hand for the kids is futile

dinosaur, I'd hand the new stuff back. That is bonkers!

i can't believe anyone wants to buy new stuff for a baby when there's stuff sitting there from only 2 years ago!

I could not agree more with the sentiment of this thread. I'm so fed up with stuff.

It's at the point that I'm dreading Christmas for the stuff that we acquire.

When family ask what we might like I try to ask for wearable or edible things. I don't need ornaments or other bits. We've all so many hats, scarves & gloves but I bet we all get more at Christmas.

No more stuff!!

A lot of parents do the 'buy on ebay -sell on ebay' thing with baby stuff. I know we did. Most of the stuff we got was second hand and sold on at a similar price for what it was bought at. That's the kind of thing that counteracts all the 'stuffication' that goes on. If you bought everything you needed/wanted for a baby brand new you'd be seriously out of pocket. Buying it twice in two years is just bonkers, but I suppose someone has to buy the new stuff that eventually ends up being recycled on ebay.

I do agree about the built in obsolescence in clothing and electrical goods, and the riles me because it's so wasteful.
However, I am slightly amused at the hand wringing on this thread. It's not really a "challenge" for me to not buy anything new to wear for a year..I didn't buy anything new to wear for about 7 years! (Cos I was too poor). I do buy from charity shops occasionally, but only when I am browsing and come accross an actual bargain. It's hard get the things you actually need from charity shops, as most of the time they are stuffed with Asda shite at twice the price it was new!
Ideally, I would spend a weeks wages on a really good coat, or boots, and only buy excellent quality wool, leather etc, but I can't afford to, and neither can most people.
Part of the reason disposable fashion and pound shops are booming is that, for most people, those fripperies, and "tat" are the only nice things they can have. They can't afford "experiences", trips to Nepal, Spa days, horse riding...same reason the masses like a big telly. If you can't afford to go out, you want to watch your film on a decent sized screen.
And like a pp said, it's much easier to be minimalist in a lovely big house with original features. I live in a crumbling council house. It takes smoke and mirrors to make it look ok, and even then it's a bit like polishing a turd (well, you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter...)
I don't actually buy a lot of anything , but I can understand why, if you are actually struggling, you don't want to send your kids out in worn, tired looking clothes. You want new, because you don't want people thinking they are neglected. That's definitely a big thing where I live, whereas down the road in the big houses the kids barely look clean, but they go to Italy on their hols, so their parents arnt worried about it.
Yes, some people go crazy with the Xmas presents, and get into debt, and they shouldn't, but the anti "stuff" lobby also shouldn't be a way for well off people to play at poverty and diminish those for whom a glittery Xmas candle feels like a bit of a treat.

Someone said
It feels like Boxing Day right now, we've all been overindulging for ages and need that enforced period of "January" where we are all slightly poor and deprived but ultimately feel better for it

Well, no. I have never, ever felt better for being poor and deprived. Because I have actually been it, and not in some 1970s distant nostalgic childhood memory either, but recently and while responsible for a child.
So by all means refuse to buy more stuff for eco reasons. But don't make it a puritanical excercise where the actual poor are made to look foolish and tacky.

Oh lorelei I'' fighting a losing battle with mil.
She's absolutely lovely but this does drive me mad. I've had to accept it, although she has got better in the past 7 years since my ds was born.
Luckily we only see her once every couple of months so it's not constant.

Her and sil live close together and are out shopping atleast twice a week in to their local city. I find that in itself bonkers. Mindless shopping for the sake of it.

Ifnotnow

people don't need to spend lots of cash to have nice experiences. The best things in life are free. You can create a lot of your own fun very cheaply! Happiness is bigger then materialism and consumerism. People seem addicted to buying. All this pointless stuff only elevates people's moods for a few minutes.

Love the shit rolled in glitter though!

On towels: the old ones which have gone thin are actually really useful as travel towels. They aren't bulky so you can pack a large one without it taking up much space in your bag, they dry quick, and it's not a total disaster if you lose it. The smaller older and thinner towels are also really good as hair towels, as you don't end up with 1000lbs of fluffy towel on top of your head when you wrap your hair up in it! And if you dye your hair then you are not ruining a posh towel.

(I have some towels that are decades old, including ones which I have inherited from a much older friend. She was downsizing and gave me a pristine towel that her daughter had used swimming at school. Her daughter was at school maybe 40 years ago...)

I agree.

Especially as DH has just said he wants to buy Jessica Jones DVD box set for no other reason than he wants to own it. We have watched it. It's on Netflix and as it's original to them, will be for the foreseeable. It's ridiculous.

archery I agree with your point re beach/travel towels. I have lovely thick beach towels that are an absolute pain as they take up so much space - we only UK (in a car) so not that much of an inconvenience but I generally refuse to take a towel for both dh and I down to the beach and if we both decide to brave the north sea we can just share.

I do however have a towel that must be at least 25 years old, it was really really cheap and yep it is probably a bit rubbish as an everyday towel but it is just perfect to slip into the bag if we are planning an hour or so at the beach (we don't live that far away from the coast) as it takes up such little space.

Mind I am still using my terries as mop up cloths.

I do get the idea that 'the best things in life are free' - a trip to the beach is good fun but having an icecream, maybe a little game of crazy golf and using the cliff lift to save on the walk just makes it a little bit more enjoyable, but then it isn't free.

I remember, a few years back, a colleague who had, in the family kitchen, all the small electrical appliances colour matching. Then the kettle blew - and he wasn't aiming to replace just that but everything because the particular colour was no longer available and everything 'needed to match'.

They weren't at all well off either. I was perplexed at the needless expenditure.

IfNotNowThenWhenever I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.. very few people have talked about not buying anything, and nobody is "playing at being poor". The point which is being made is that ALL of us have too much stuff and being conscious of that and thinking more carefully about what you are buying has to be a good thing. Nobody said not to buy a glittery Christmas candle - just that if you have 6 candles already, and are chucking out all of your candles every week to replace with new ones, that's probably not a good thing.

As for experiences being spa days and trips to Nepal - that's ridiculous. None of the posters have mentioned anything like that at all. Things that have been mentioned are cinema tickets, zoo passes, theatre tickets. Nothing hugely extravagant, and gifts less than the £50 mark, certainly nothing like the price of a new massive telly.

This thread has helped me OP, thank you.
Today, I am taking back an air fryer that was a 'bargain' as it is going to consume space in my kitchen and in 20 years of cooking, I have survived without deep frying anything.
Yesterday, I saw a dress I loved but resisted.
And then I went into JoJo Maman Bebe and bought a totally unnecessary outfit for DD.
It's a slow process, but I am trying harder.

"people don't need to spend lots of cash to have nice experiences. The best things in life are free."

I don't really agree with that. What I like to do on the weekend is go for meals or drinks with friends. A picnic won't cut it unless it's a very hot day. Going for a walk is all right, but I'll want a hot drink afterwards sitting down in a warm place.

IfNotNowThenWhenever I do get your point, in that it's different - or at least feels different - when it's a choice and not a necessity, and that a bit of glitz in the short term can occasionally make up for a severe shortage of glitz in the long term. And I find it, paradoxically, often easier to pass on DS's old clothes to richer friends than to poorer ones (not that any of us are "rich", per se, but there are degrees) because there isn't the same connotation of "charity".

But the reason I find it automatic to not buy stuff new, to make use of other people's hand-me-downs, and to mend (or live with) broken things and only replace them when they are so broken and unfixable that they are not usable at all, is because it's an ingrained habit born of necessity: I grew up poor, and in adulthood have experienced stretches of being very poor indeed. (And my mother - who had me late - grew up in the war as very rural poor, and was an inveterate string-saver, etc, and I learnt at her knee.) I am now pretty comfortable - for certain values of comfort (still pretty hand-to-mouth, no pension, etc) - but it's a comfort that I can only maintain because I don't often buy actual new stuff. Eg, I can have an occasional coffee or meal in a cafe without thinking too much about the price because I cannot remember when I last bought any clothes for myself. (I literally cannot remember. I will have to soon, though, because the inside seams in my best work trousers are about to go...)

I love markets, craft fairs and all the rest of it, and sometimes I do really want ALL THE THINGS. I am most strongly tempted to buy tat in places like Hema and Tiger, but since I go in for biscuits and felt-tips, that usually satisfies the must-buy-something impulses. I'm not immune to desire for things, and if I won the lottery, well... But usually I can resist, through a combination of not having the money, and not having the space to put it if I did buy it, and realising that anyway I would not use it even if I did get it.

PS - my best tip for charity shops, if you live in a city, is to take a bus to the oxfam in the poshest area you can get to... (My best bargains include a BIN-BAG full of playmobil, all in excellent nick, for £4!)

Gwenwhyfar I agree with you. I also think it's confusing experiences with stuff. I would much rather spend any cash I do have on a series of coffees in cafes, rather than say, a new set of coffee mugs for my kitchen at home. One is an experience, the other is more stuff.