To disagree re: charity shop shopping

[toconclude]

Read an article in a student newspaper saying better off students (we are talking Cambridge here) should 'check their privilege' and not buy clothes and homeware from charity shops so that poorer students and townspeople can buy them. But honestly almost no one I know who is on a really low income wants to shop there - they prefer sales, fewer clothes or hand ons from friends and family. So is the writer right(YABU)) or am I to carry on shopping in charity shops for the odd item - which often aren't that cheap anyhow?

The more people who shop at charity shops the better surely.

We'll be having the fucking thought police next.

Shop where you want.

@KnightsofColumbusThatHurt

What a load of patronising shite. These people are so obsessed with appearing kind and compassionate and woke that they never actually stop to think about what they are saying.

:-) You're saying what I'm thinking

I refuse to donate to charity shops anymore. The prices they charge now are plain greedy.

I donate on freegle and to our local clothing bank instead

Brazenly I've had Jack wills hoodies for £20 in the 70% off sale. The tag always states the original price. So chances are whoever bought the hoodie didn't pay that price originally.

Our town centre has a lot of charity shops, most are still closed and not accepting donations here.

@Grendalsmum

If that's true why are the charity shops declining donations? They exist to make money for the charity after all so any sale is a good sale.

They have to decline donations due to having to quarantine donations for 48 hours (some shops are still at 72) my dh runs 2 shops one of his shops has only one pen that he can use for quarantining so can only accept donations 3 times a week, so if he has donations on Monday he cant touch them until Wednesday, therefore he cant take any donations on Tuesday as he has nowhere to quarantine them

@ladybee28

This reminds me very much of that time a woman on Twitter strangled herself with her own wokeness by saying that showering was classist.

Well, you must have ‘some’ class to shower and if you don’t I agree, you have no class whatsoever.

Anybody using the phrase ‘ check their privilege’ has just immediately invalidated any opinions they may express. Also, how patronising to assume charity shops are for the lower classes.

Shop where you like, make the charity shops happy by buying their stock.

When I take my old hand me downs to the charity shop, nothing would give me more pleasure than some young student plucking up my cast offs and selling them on Depop in order to pay for their rainbow coloured gin, 5 inch coffin nails and Spotify subscriptions, and giving someone else a treasured vintage Depop purchase to feel fabulous in at 90s night in some awful night club where they meet their future husband, or whatever. Stories like that make me really fucking happy. I'd love to think of my old crap off having a new life much more interesting life somewhere without me. Enjoy my pretties!

Anything but landfill. Please don't let anymore shit go to landfill or get dumped in the ocean.

I have a disability and have never really been able to work and I love charity shops. Basics like leggings, briefs etc I'll get from Primark or Peacock's, but I'm always shocked at the cost of the dresses in most 'real' shops. I get some great stuff from charity shops and often get compliments on my dresses.

The article you read seems a bit thick though to be honest. Charity shops will want everyone's custom/money. The more people who shop there the better for their charity, and it helps keep them open for everyone else.

One thing more well off people could do is donate if they have some good items.

In my town charity shops seem to be aimed at the very privileged who don't mind paying sky high prices for mismatched,chipped crockery.
Well it must depend where you live , where I live it's cheap but I never buy clothes as yes I admit £4 for a t shirt I can buy 1 new from Asda .

Yanbu. Charity shops aren't there to clothe people on low incomes (though if that's a help to people, of course that's amazing). They're there to raise money for the charity. Anyone can buy from them, the charity shop will no doubt be delighted.

It's also better they get sold off to students then end up being sent as aid to LEDCs and crippling the local textile industries and supporting a system of sweatshop labour at one end and aid packages at the other. Plus it makes the charities money.

So actually, this is exactly what we want. Students buying up all the charity shops. It's the most green most ethical way to shop, and selling it on is also ethical and green. I can only conclude that this journalist must not have thought this one through very well

I agree that anyone who chooses to buy things from charity shops should do so. If anything their problem is that they have too much stock particularly at the moment. The more they sell, the better.

@Totickleamockingbird, @PatriciaPerch, @tectonicplates... anyone else asking about the showering being classist thing...

It's a journalist called Sophie Weiner who writes for Splinter, who tweeted to say she doesn't shower more than once or twice a week and when she does, she doesn't wash her whole body with soap. Fine, whatever.

But then she said that she wanted to acknowledge that as a middle class cis-white woman, she has a lot of privilege to not worry about stuff like body hair. And then she said that if people thought she was stinky in real life, she's open to feedback, but she thought that the obsession with cleanliness was weird and classist.

And this landed really badly with a lot of people.

The podcast Reply All did a whole segment on it (I've lifted a bit of the transcript here, because they broke it down really well):

PJ: Like basically, it sounds like what she's saying is that cleanliness is something that belongs to like rich people. And so shaming people for not being clean, is unfair and it's like class warfare. And a lot of people chimed in and they were like, "Dude, as a person who grew up like really poor. Please don't argue for my right to be stinky. Like you are not helping me. You are not on my side."

ALEX BLUMBERG: The argument that cleanliness is classist, is a classist argument.

PJ: The argument that she’s accidentally kind of making is that you can’t get mad at people who stink, because they stink because they’re poor.

ALEX BLUMBERG: Yes.

PJ: And then she was sort of like, she realized she stepped in it. And she was like, "I get it. I'm the asshole on the internet this week. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please stop at yelling me, whatever." But it was like too late. It was like thousands of people. And there was also–I think the other thing about it, it's just there's so many times on the internet, particularly like in 2019, where your last acceptable prejudices get taken away from you. Like, you're like, "I don't like this thing." And somebody's like, "Well, there's like an intersectional reason why your dislike of that is like not cool."

ALEX BLUMBERG: Mhm.

PJ: But she had overstepped that. And I think people were excited to be like "No, no, no. We don't like smelling body odor. That's fine. You are wrong."

ALEX BLUMBERG: Uh huh. She like privilege checked too far or something–

PJ: Yes! She like aimed the wokeness gun wrong and it exploded and hit her.

ALEX BLUMBERG: Right.

We both donate to and buy from charity shops. Even though we can afford to buy new, we prefer buying second hand (either charity shops, eBay, FB marketplace, Gumtree) when we can because it's much better for the environment. Particularly toys and books. DC's main Christmas present this year will be second-hand, is that awful ? He won't care that it's not new and we just don't see any point in adding to the 'plastic mountain'.

I must say, I'd never really thought about charity shops as being for 'poor people' only (how patronising...!). There are much better ways of getting targeted help to those in need than not shopping in the very places that raise funds to help. Round here, we have an excellent food bank and clothes bank who are always asking for very specific donations (fresh fruit and vegetables, work wear etc.) because they know exactly what the people they are helping need.

For those who complain about high prices in charity shops, charity shops are big business now. They’re there to raise money, not provide bargains. Every shop will have weekly targets to reach, and if they don’t make money they will be closed. So whilst you personally may find them over priced, clearly not everyone agrees with you. Charities can’t afford shops that don’t make money. Basically, there are 3 options 1) accept the “high” prices knowing that the money is going to a good cause, 2) volunteer in a shop yourself and try to have input into the pricing and maybe influence it or 3) shop elsewhere

the most offensive bit of your post is assuming that all students in Cambridge are well off.

ahem the street behind the Grafton Centre in Cambridge is full of charity shops - at least 12 I would say & bang opposite Primark - guess which is busiest?
Second Cambridge has another uni - Anglia Ruskin whose students don't tend to be rich! It also has several colleges who have local students

Well my DD used local charity shops while she went to Cambridge Uni. We aren't well off and being able to pick up cheaper work clothes for her internships/vac schemes and balls was a massive help. She is now a trainee lawyer in London and continues to use charity shops and always will so no doubt they would condemn her.

Seriously though me and my DC's go to charity shops for multiple reasons including bargain hunting, contributing to charity, ethical and sustainable benefits reducing landfill etc.

Today I bought an immaculate Hobbs wool and cashmere blend winter coat for £12 that will keep me cosy for years and a smart 100% wool dress from The Kooples for £8.99.

Even when my DC's were little I would give them a £1 and go to the charity book shop where they would buy 4 or 5 books. The week after they would re donate the book and buy some more.

Nobody should dictate or judge where you shop.

The clue is in the charity's name over the shop doorway.

Such-and-Such Animal Shelter isn't running a charity shop to provide cheap clothing and random bric a brac to the local poverty-stricken.

Everyone should be able shop in charity shops. I like going to the shops in more affluent areas because the quality of the goods are better. It’s great having a rummage, and everyone wins: the shop gets revenue and the buyer gets a bargain.

S*he like aimed the wokeness gun wrong and it exploded and hit her
*
I am so using this from now on. Thanks

I read this out to DH who runs a charity shop and he was horrified. He says clearly this person has never seen the back room of a charity shop - the idea that they might run out of stock is laughable especially at the moment. More concerningly he points out that there is a lot of stigma amongst working class people (like himself) about charity shops and they are trying to break it down so that the people who need cheap stuff the most feel comfortable shopping there. Idiots like the article writer are undermining those efforts.