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.

As it happens I do tend to buy costa vouchers for my bil's. One in particular quite likes his coffee and so it is an ideal present. I feel happy giving £10 and I know that that will get him 2 or 3 coffee's.

But I can't get my 9 yr old nephew that. I could get a voucher for a shop but that that defeats the purpose of not getting stuff and it is unlikely I will be able to buy an experience for £10. Even if I got a cinema voucher the parents would still need to fund the rest of the family.

Adults, I concur it probably is easier to buy something for an experience and you can do it with a wide range of budgets, not so easy for children especially when the 'advice' given is 'I asked my parents not to buy presents but to buy zoo passes instead' It is wrong to presume that 'experiences' are within people's budgets all of the time.

I don't buy much these days and have been quite lucky to have friends/family members who have replaced furniture and appliances, passing the old, perfectly serviceable, ones on to me. I hate clutter and I'd happily never buy any more plastic tat or flammable decorations for the rest of my life. My main issue is clothing - having lost and gained a lot of weight in the last few years, I have a mountain of clothes in half a dozen sizes that I'm loathe to get rid of in case I miraculously find the willpower to shift a shitload of flab few stones again.

coughing, I'm losing weight but I gained it in a fairly short period so it's a bit different.

When I gained, I bought an absolute minimum of new stuff and I said upthread, I want to literally hand that winter coat (the bigger one) to someone who needs it. I don't know if clothes shop are literally throwing clothes away any more but I guess they are?

I am going to keep a couple of pairs of jeans in a bigger size as that's what i use the most.

Definitely buying the minimum in this size; I was hoping to have shifted a bit before I had to bite the bullet and find a new winter tent coat but that hasn't happened, due in part to illness and not having any energy. It'll be from eBay though, partly because I can't face having to trawl the shops and fork out a fortune.

You are totally right. Consumer boom. Just had a DC birthday and trying to persuade grandparents to give days out rather than 'stuff' for Christmas as we have so much stuff they just don't use and sits until it goes to charity shop.

Shops like Tiger and Poundland mean people can look as if they are spending more.

They do, but as I said what that also tends to do is simply transfer the cost elsewhere. In that there's a cost to storing things, like for example the poster upthread who can't afford extra space to be able to store Christmas decorations, or my sibling who doesn't have the room to keep all the second hand clothes they've been given for their baby. I feel quite keenly, tbh, that when people buy my kids roomy crap they're basically forcing the use of a resource, space, that I don't have as much of as I like. I suppose as you live in Central London you will be or will know people who are painfully familiar with this concept.

It is wrong to presume that 'experiences' are within people's budgets all of the time.

It is, but no more so than to presume that they aren't, or to presume that cost is only about the money paid by the giver.

Although I can see that experiences are probably more difficult for older kids/teens. For younger ones if anything it's cheaper than adults, so I certainly don't agree that it's not possible for kids. I could buy a couple of hours at the softplay in our area for a fiver, swimming even less, a ticket for a child at our community theatre panto is £4. It would probably really hard for a 14 year old, although they're buggers to buy for in general aren't they?

Hyacinth - I don't live in Central London, I work there. I live in a tiny flat about 1hr 15 away. I totally take your point that there is a cost in space and there's lots of gifts I might have kept if I had space.

What I'm saying is, I don't know how we can address it because socially people don't seem to feel it's acceptable to give that £3 theatre token no matter how you explain it to them.

I've tried lots of explaining over the years and although some people have been fine with the "pointless swapping of a £5" concept, the ones who aren't are equally determined to buy stuff, as I found out on my 40th!

I do feel horribly ungrateful saying that but it did amaze me a bit that people who are here at my flat on a regular basis think that I've got room for clutter!

Oh sorry I thought you said you lived there. No, I definitely agree. I don't know how we address it either, because often the people who are most financially disadvantaged by frequent exchange of gifts are the people least able to get away with looking like they can't afford it. My generation in my family are trying to keep things lean but I could see that going to pot as the kids get a bit older. The effects of consumerism on all of us are so incredibly pervasive.

Hyacinth "I don't know how we address it either, because often the people who are most financially disadvantaged by frequent exchange of gifts are the people least able to get away with looking like they can't afford it."

that's a really interesting observation. In my circle there's no way anyone would lose face for this kind of thing. I did have a friend, in the past, who was very of the "keep up with the Joneses" thing and she felt her job and social standing depended on it and ended up going bankrupt. I'm not saying that was entirely due to buying stuff but some of it was.

my old flatmate came on holiday with me and told me she was £30k in debt for "stuff". I was really floored. I knew she spent a lot from living with her but I hadn't realised how bad it was. She looked at bankruptcy at one point but in the end she decided to get a second job and pay it off - she still would be but she got a boost because her grandma left her some money which reduced it.

One thing I say get a child you want to spend around £5-10 on. Swimming goggles. Mine need them to daily and school swimming and they often break or get lost!

Swimming goggles is one of those practical gifts that a child needs )if they swim) but is hardly excited by. A good experience gift could be a small movie gift box - cheap DVD, bag of popcorn, bag of sweets and you have something the family can enjoy without any need for Travel money and can be done for under a tenner.

summer that is a great idea and one I may just use. I know the dvd is still stuff but I think realistically it is very difficult to get away from that with children. My older nephews are happy with money (and I am happy to do that) but the younger ones I still prefer to get a present (as do they)

Sorry I haven't rtft. It's not only about people being wasteful, it's about a whole design and manufacturing system that's broken and short-sighted. I wrote my dissertation about planned obsolescence; check out Annie Leonard's film 'the story of stuff' and FB campaigns, it turns the way you see everything on its head!

Oath, planned obsolescence is a problem with some things for sure. but it isn't connected to the fact that people often enjoy giving endless hand creams, ornaments or buying different Xmas decorations each year because they like to have a different colour scheme.

Oat not oath sorry!

DVDs are only small so I think they make good presents. Dcs used to receive some cash from gps so I saved it in an account for them, more useful.

Wood - we don't own a television ( or DVD player), so a DVD wouldn't be great here

The DVD was just an idea of a cheap experience gift art, obviously you wouldn't buy it for somebody who has no tv. A cheap gift box for a family with no tv could include something like a pack of playing cards, a box of dominoes and a few sweet treats (if age appropriate).

I have actually picked up a game for my parents so I might make that into a 'game night' pack.

I just won't put it in a box otherwise the box will be still sat there 5yrs later (that is not said in jest)

Just need to think what I could put it into. (maybe a carrier bag)

Yes not so great thenbut when mine were younger it was preferable to plastic toys which took up loads of room.

I quite like jigsaws and board games though.

storyofstuff.org/
www.zerowastehome.com/
www.mrmoneymustache.com/

Three websites that have inspired me. Then we bought a house, got pregnant and it's all gone to pot a bit. Will be revisiting and tying to stop the inevitable avalanche of stuff when baby arrives....

I think just giving cash is ideal for children, my DS loved getting a £5 note - he could choose exactly what he wanted and when he was younger that made him feel quite 'grown up'. He did used to save most of it and now has quite a healthy bank balance.

He is a teenager now and all his aunts/uncles/Godparents give him money or vouchers - vouchers can be difficult though as they are sometimes for shops he wouldn't go into (WH Smith ) so often I end up having to 'buy' it off him and then get myself uselss expensive stuff from WH Smith.

I only give cash now to my neices & nephews and have stopped exchanging gifts with other adults.

I agree 1000000%!!!!

its disgusting- really. there is no other word for the waste & greed that our society perpetuates.

and for everyone saying "well I don't get sucked in" and "not everynhe buys it", you are literally walking on by and refusing to take any degree of interest in the issue- IMVHO!

and I don't know what the answer is unfortunately, I can try and consume relatively responsibly- but across the social and racial divide in this country its a huge issues. Just go to a shopping centre on any Saturday and see people buying vats of SHIT

anyway- I'll stop now but I really agree and if you work out a solution, please tell me!!

It is though lorelei; if for example Christmas decorations were made to last for decades, it wouldn't be affordable to buy new ones every year. Fashions play massively into it. There is a website which only sells stuff that has a lifetime guarantee (le crueset, klean kanteen, etc) but I'm afraid the name escapes me just now