Aibu to think everything is such a waste?

[AlpineButterfly]

I went into a home type shop this morning. There were fluffy blankets, ugly mirrors, elephant pictures,.dancing Santa's, colourful rugs, word signs. So much stuff. So much tat.

I'm right now babysitting a friend's boy. The telly is on. My god, the rubbish. Adverts, trashy tv. What a waste of time.

How much of life is a waste of time and materials? I'm right now on MN, also a.waste of time.

I wouldn't even know what to do to stop the waste of time and materials. We do buy mostly second hand but... I don't know. I'm not even able to articulate myself properly right that second

Quality over quantity. I have just heard a grandmother say each of her 4 grandchildren must have 75 presents from her for Christmas. She then photographs it for Facebook. This is a woman who had bailiffs chasing her a couple of years ago.
What are they going to do with all that tat.

Thanks

I've just started a new thread over in ethical.living. I don't know if anyone can kindly link? For now I'm off to build Duplo trains with my boys

Ugh... Just watched about 30 seconds of that Xmas video. 29 fucking minutes long it is. Why on earth would you video (for so long) such a thing? Baffling. It's not as though you're going to watch it over and over.

A lot of it has to do with living in the UK. I have only been back here a short while and 2 things that I noticed first were a) the amount of shit we all have and b) the amount of negativity we are daily fed. It is like having the radio, an alarm, the TV and other noise on all at the same time. One of my other pet peeves is the constant feedback on oh, this companies profits went down by 0.000001% in the last quarter. Doom and gloom. Why should we be bailing everyone out by spending money we don't have?

I went to stay in one of my DH's relatives in the summer who lives on the med. He made a joke about her house not changing in 30 years and she doesn't have a lot of stuff. I noticed that about all their houses. They don't accumulate shit, they go out and about and are very sociable. It is we Brits and Americans who are consumer junkies. I'm just not sure if we have been conditioned this way or our economy is reacting to our insatiable needs which we use to numb the anxiety we all have from our stressed out lives.

I'm dreading Christmas this year. I've already been told by one of my parents that I can buy them X, Y and Z when they need nothing. I have another friend whose child I buy for and every year if I ask what she is into I get told to buy her this, that or the other or do her a stocking to go with the other 10 million presents she will be getting.

Every year I pair it back a bit. It is a work in progress. I am doing better than most people but it is not at a level that is acceptable to me.

NotToday
I hope everything works out for you.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/ethical_living/3417701-Anyone-ready-for-an-anti-consumerist-movement

We are conditioned to want more and are bombarded with advertisements. We have to keep up with everyone else and get our kids what everyone else's kids get.
I don't think people realise how brainwashed we are.
In the past ten years I just stopped buying stuff unless it was necessary. I see what my kids are spending and wasting in their families and homes and its shocking.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3417737-No-Spend-19-join-us?watched=1

No Spend 19 thread. Please join!

Limensoda I agree about the conditioning.
When I was at peak consumption I was like a zombie.
I ended up really ill.
And I still slip back into zombie mode regularly!
No Spend 19 is going to sort that out. Hopefully.

Ive name changed from user (whateverethenumberwas) btw

I don't think people realise how brainwashed we are

Yes, definitely yes to this.

Completely agree OP.

I work in the environmental field and feel because of this I have always been very conscious that way. So it often infuriates me looking at all this needless spending.

We don't have a TV and I think because of this the dc aren't subjected to adverts so I get away with only buying them decent presents at Christmas and birthdays. There is a lovely tiny toy shop in our town that sells a nice range of lego, playmobil, sylvanian families and teddies and little else. The dc choose their birthday toys from there not a big plastic filled toy superstore. I know lego and playmobil are plastic...but they get so much use out of it I can't view it as a waste! I am lucky though that dc go to a tiny country school of only 50 kids and so we have managed to get ds1 to age 12 with him being happy with toys from that shop. I imagine it's very different in a more urban area. It is an hours drive for us to get to a toy or book shop that is not tiny 😊

I love your username @DayManChampionOfTheSun

I know how you feel, I'm 28 and do wonder what the fuck we are all doing with our lives, I worry about the state of the planet for my 3yo too 😞

Also, are you a master of karate and friendship for everyone? Aaaaaahhhhhhh 😉

Today's tiny act against the tide of consumerism: going through my social media accounts and unfollowing companies, unsubscribing from marketing newsletters. I don't want to see adverts for things, it only makes me want them.

Today's tiny act against the tide of consumerism: going through my social media accounts and unfollowing companies, unsubscribing from marketing newsletters. I don't want to see adverts for things, it only makes me want them.

Please do this anyway everyone and also delete emails that are not essential to keep. The environmental cost of running the servers to store all of this rubbish is massive.

This. I've been getting more despondent about it as time goes on. It seems to be getting worse too.

I've pretty much furnished or house with good quality second hand solid wood furniture that will last forever. I really cannae stand MDF stuff that has limited strength once taken apart reassembled and seems to me a mainstay of out recycling centre.

When the kitchen was redone the good quality wooden units were taken out, sprayed and reinstalled.

I'm stopped DS7 from buying comics with plastic shite toys that get used once then recycled. I tend to nudge him towards Lego etc that will last and can be passed down on to other kids or sold.

Things like kitchen utensils, blenders, pans etc again I try and and buy the best quality I can afford - stuff I can repair if an element goes etc.

I picked up a load of Le Crueset pans for next to nothing as the wooden handles were damaged. Took a couples of days to replace but they'll out last me noo (I'm 44!).

Party bags do my head in. The amount of crap in those is heartbreaking.

Clothes I largely buy for the family from second hand shops. I'm fortunate there are half a dozen a stones throw from my office so I can pop out at lunchtime.

I wish there was a decent greengrocer in our small town as food packaging is just ridiculous.

Feel your pain OP, feel your pain.

It's also difficult because you always come round to thinking what can my tiny personal amount of no spending/recycling possibly do to improve the environment etc. when do much waste and damage is going on around us.

Kids’ magazines irritate me immensely - very little content and every issue has a gift. When I was little, the gifts were few and far between and treasured more because of that. I still have a plastic (ok, it’s plastic so not great from that perspective) necklace from Misty comic! DD3 has the Phoenix comic - not to everyone’s taste, but when it arrives she reads it cover to cover. I wish that there were more mainstream comics like this (eg a younger one, and a more “girly” one for girls who do actually want fairytales and make up unlike mine who prefers bogies and aliens)

@Sitranced so one of the greatest literary minds of our time then

Thought it was a right famous insightful saying (it still is even though from a film mind) but I just couldn't for the life in me remeber where I'd heard it.

Try reading " goodbye things " by a Japanese author can't remember his name. Truly life changing attitude to "stuff" . This Christmas it's specific needs only for kids plus something fun to do. They have a running joke about what kind of experience i will get them. Don't do presents with partner at all and home made for everyone else. We are all drowning in that and it doesn't make us happier. Just bought a second hand sofa after old one also second hand "collapsed" during teenage party !!!. Using the difference I would have spent. to take youngest to paris....
..

I like stuff. maybe because we are so broke and have been for years. not talking plastic tat but things like plants, vases, kitchen things. and I like random tv that can just be on as I do other things or after a hard day and all I wanna do is veg out then so it. people shouldn't be too judgey.

I like stuff. maybe because we are so broke and have been for years

Do you buy a lot of 'stuff'? Is there a correlation between 'liking stuff' and being perpetually broke?

As long as it's not day of the triffids - I can't imagine anything much more lovely than your "too much stuff" being plants.

People don't seem to have tons of house-cleaning anymore. I remember visiting the houses of my mum's hippy friends in the 70s and it'd be like a visit to the botanical gardens.

Jesus. House-plants not house-cleaning. How the fuck has my phone become obsessed with cleaning. Proof AI is not yet fully with us. If it were my phone would get cracking in with a duster itself.