To think we all need to learn to love second hand

[Ravenspeckingontheroof]

Second hand almost everything? Go onto eBay; there are 92000 used size 10 tops for sale, 4500 used travel systems, 1700 used Bluetooth speakers. Go to your local recycling centre and watch people throw perfectly useable furniture away.
We are literally drowning in cast offs many of which will go to landfill, but which are perfectly useable.
I’d say about 1/3 of my wardrobe is preloved and maybe 10% of our household furniture. I love going and choosing new things. But I think choosing preloved needs to become a first choice, and we should be incentivised to do so.
But if I walk down any high street, read any magazine, pick up my phone I am bombarded with ads for all the new things I ‘need’. Every single shop is rammed with more stuff to buy. Our society depends on us buying more stuff. How do we fix this?

I completely agree with you, and I the only things I insist on buying brand-new (apart from underwear!) are kid's shoes, to form to the shape of growing feet. It does take a lot longer to find the ideal item second-hand though, I can see how it's not always possible.

Grayson Perry did a documentary exploring the class system in Britain, and there was a whole bit about buying second hand stuff. To summarize:

High class: it's expected that everything is second hand because it's all antiques and pieces passed down through generations. It's trendy to wear great grannie's tweed.

Middle class: like to show off about how little something costs and feel smug about recycling.

Lower class: like to show off about how much something costs. Why logos are important.

Of course this is tarring people with the stereotype brush but I think had some truth and is interesting to think about.

Yanbu. I’ve introduced my dd to shopping, she’s 10. I buy her clothes on eBay Used, and I’m training her how to do this - there’s a knack to finding great deals. When she turns 11 I’m going to give her a budget for casual clothes and help her buy second hand so she can stay within it.

I do wish the concept of front yard sales was a thing in the UK.

Thanks for this OP. You've just inspired me to pop onto ebay. I've lost a lot of weight and need new clothes and second hand is a great idea.

The fast fashion industry is one of the worst polluters and I am more than happy for me and my girls to all to wear second hand clothes (either donated, charity or eBay).

DH doesn’t wear secondhand but still wears clothes from 15 years ago (so his own second hand lol).

Second hand is great when it's a choice and you just love to buy that way. I had my first new item of clothing as an adult and I felt the shame and embarrassment of second hand my whole childhood. Now I can buy new, I do. And I love that I can buy what I need whenever I want.

Clothes wise, I often go to charity shops if I want something generic, like black trousers, a denim jacket, blue jeans etc, as you'll usually find those there and they're not exciting to look for bnew anyway!

At the other end of the scale, second hand is great for occasion wear as a lot gets worn once and then given away so it's almost new anyhow.

It does take effort to find what you want second hand. There is a lot of tat out there. I could genuinely do with some plain ish round neck tees in a size 10. Was just looking on ebay and there's not much, the ones I opened, one had a hem hanging off and they still wanted £6 with the postage. I know I could get an arm load at discounted price from the discount mall later...

I agree in principle but it does take time and effort to trawl charity shops. I looked the other day (on maternity leave so have time) and honestly at least 75% of the size 8 tops were from Primark. I'm not buying second-hand Primark, whatever the price. There's also very little available in sizes smaller than a 12 where I am. As I said on a thread recently, I've only had luck finding really good charity shop clothes in London.

I think the pp who said about buying less to start with has it right. Occasionally you see posts here about not buying any clothes for a year or whatever to save money. People who can do that must have been buying lots for the last few years. After years of spending very little, when something of mine wears through I really do need to replace it. I literally end up with clothes with holes in them (not proud!).

@NeverForgetYourDreams

But there wouldn't be any second hand stuff if people didn't buy it new in the first place.......

But that's an issue for another day. At present people are buying too much and it's having a catastrophic effect.

Once fast fashion (and now apparently fast homeware too) settles down then maybe it'll be time to address that.

YABU to use the term "preloved". What's wrong with "used" or "second hand"? For all you know the previous owners got rid because they loathed it.

YAB very U for using the term preloved

Used will do just fine and is more accurate, how do you know the item you are buying was loved? Maybe the owner hated it and that's why they're selling it for almost as much as a new one would cost.

You're not wrong op, and I'm trying to source 2nd hand of most things we need/want now. Certain things like underwear I won't, and I'm really cutting down on buying things 'just because'.

@Zzelda

But if everybody loves second hand... whose buying it in the first place?

I'm so glad that second hand is trendy again. Apparently Vinted is good.

I’ve been furnishing my new flat & got a whole pile of stuff from my local British Heart Foundation furniture shop.

What I would really like to see is more emphasis on repairing things. I have been bowled over a few times by how easy it can be- my bread machine gave up the ghost at the start of lockdown and I took off the base on the offchance I could fix it. Turned out the belt was shredded, I bought another on Amazon for £1 and popped it on and it was as good as new.
I have sewing skills so have prolonged the life of a lot of clothes but my kids haven’t done textiles at school- DT lessons consisted of making weird and pointless objects from plastic, which is a lost opportunity. Though luckily there are YouTube tutorials for everything if they ever decide to learn.

Op most of my house is free cycle and stunning stuff at that.
Dc clothes when younger, from all sorts of second hand places, and baby equipment.
Toys..

I tend to buy everything second hand except underwear, socks, gym wear and kids shoes, but irl I don't go on about it to other people. For me it started off out of necessity when I was skint, now I'm not skint I just do it out of habit. But I know there's a world of a difference between trawling Facebook marketplace for something you desperately need but can barely afford and spending a few hours wandering around charity shops because you fancy it.

I think too much blame for fast fashion is put on the poorer people in society who obviously want to look nice and want their kids to look nice so shop in the places with the lowest price point for decent looking clothes and not enough blame is put on the multi national corporations perpetuating this business model.

I buy 2nd hand off ebay but am fed up of inaccurate descriptions. If a button is missing it needs to say, I know if I buy 2nd hand it won't be in as goof condition as if it was new but some sellers sell really poor condition clothes and aren't honest about it.

The issue with buying furniture from eBay, Freecycle etc is that a lot of the time it's collection only. So for bigger items I would have to hire a van, and then it might actually be cheaper to buy new.

@EmpressWitchDoesntBurn

I’ve been furnishing my new flat & got a whole pile of stuff from my local British Heart Foundation furniture shop.

Yeah they are good, great customer service too. I bought a wardrobe and they refused to deliver it to me as it fell apart on their lorry so was unsafe. It was really impressive that they cared.

That’s ok when it’s a choice. When it’s not, and you don’t have enough money and it’s a constant stress, it’s shit.

I’ve been there - and while I do still get some stuff second hand, I do treat myself and my kids to new stuff as well. There’s a balance.

Another thing to consider is to fix stuff that breaks rather than automatically replacing. Our oven stopped heating a little while back - just a case of replacing the element, which cost us about £35 and following a 10 minute video on YouTube.

Tumble dryer stopped working - we Googled to see what the problem could be and what the fix was (removing fluff around the heater element) and it's working perfectly again.

The cushions on our ikea sofa are looking flat and tired and the covers are tatty. So I've restuffed them and bought a set of new covers from Etsy. Cost me about £300 and I reckon we'll get a good few more years out of it now.