Anyone else not use their ‘nice’ stuff?

[Fairylightstwinkle]

I have things that are nice but I never use. For example, I have some pretty cleaning cloths and sponges, nice shower gel etc.

Always feels like they’re too good to use, which is so silly.

Is anyone else like this? I want to start using my nice stuff! How do you get over it and use your nice things?

I am like this. It’s a really hard habit to break, I can’t quite work out where the mentality comes from, but I did have a tricky childhood, so I’d guess somewhere in the history I don’t delve into.
I’m also terrible at spending money on myself, I am generous with others, possibly a bit too much sometimes, but very rarely spend on me.
My New Year’s resolution is to be more relaxed about the things, and enjoy what I do have.

I've always been like this, I think it comes from growing up pretty poor (lower working class, council flat, single parent home)
I hate using the last of nice products or eating the last fancy chocolate or biscuit because then I won't have it anymore. Even though now I could easily afford to replace whatever it is.

It's a real conscious struggle to use something fully and it drives me mad!

I lost both my grandmothers this year. They were both great believers in using your beautiful things, pouring the good wine, wearing your best jewellery. Better something gets broken or lost while you're enjoying it, than shoved away in a drawer forever. I have lovely memories of them using their nice things and if stuff is chipped or lost then who cares now.

We have a best dinner service that I use whenever we're celebrating or entertaining and sometimes just because. I get the best champagne flutes that were a wedding present out every Christmas. I used some expensive bath stuff last night because I felt sad and it made me happier.

I used to keep stuff for best but since my DM passed away 5 years ago I use everything now and live for today.

When my Auntie in Dublin died, I was over with my parents to clear the house. After spending a lot of time looking at the sack of mass cards for people we didn't know, and who had died literally decades ago, we finally got the courage to bin them, (not disrespectful, although it felt that way).

Anyway, after that, I started picking at the cover on the settee I was sitting on. Ended up taking off 3 layers of covers, to find some very old, quite charming, patterned furniture. The coffee table was similarly covered, looked as good as new but never appreciated. It was being kept for best, but they never got to enjoy it.

That's when I realised keeping for best is pointless. Not to say I haven't done it myself, but I can recognise the futility of it, and that gives me the kick up the backside to go back and use things, currently rushing through some Occitane bath stuffs my son gave me last year. And I do use the vintage perfume I love (to the dentist today!)

Another weird thing my auntie did - she carried coal from the basement of her block of flats up four storeys from the 1930s until the 1980s. Everyone else had gone over to gas/electric, but she wanted to leave the flat as she found it and was proud of doing so. She could have afforded the upgrade too.

I use the nice stuff first. Tomorrow is never guaranteed.

My colleague wears stunning stuff every day - she looks amazing and says ‘you’re a long time dead’ so doesn’t save stuff and I am a convert.

I used to save the nicest things. I “saved” an expensive perfume and then one day when I decided to use it it had gone off. When my mother died we found lots of things that she’d been saving for a special occasion…

These days I use my nicest things all the time! I got rid of my everyday cheap dinner service and now we use our “best” plates all the time. I wear my expensive perfume every day (ditto the matching shower gel and body lotion). I always have my wine in my nicest glasses.

When my time comes my children will know that I’ve had as much enjoyment from my things as I could.

Also from having parents born in WW2

They sound wonderful and I'm sorry you've lost them. Some of us (me) could learn a lot from their attitude!

I am terrible for this. I have some lovely clothes that I'm loath to wear on an 'ordinary' day, but I don't really know what I'm saving them for! It makes me think of Carrie in Sex and the City sitting in her flat working on her laptop in one of her bonkers but beautiful designer outfits. Why not?

I can remember my mum telling me as a kid that I couldn't 'keep anything nice'. I can't really blame her as she's from a time/class/family that really didn't have much and worked their fingers to the bone to have anything, but it does stick with me.

But I'm inspired by this thread. I'm going to take out my gorgeous green heavy cashmere jumper tomorrow and wear it just for sitting about reading!

Like many of you, clearing my mums house after her death was one of the hardest things. Almost harder for me than nursing her through her final few weeks.

She'd collected stuff all her life and as the only girl in her large extended family she'd inherited family heirlooms too. Im afraid I share certain hoarding traits too. So it was a terrible challenge to discard so much.

She had drawers full of beautiful tea towels and glass cloths. Napkins. Table cloths. Tray cloths and lacy doilies and anti maccassars. Hand embroidery. High quality linen.

And the cutlery. At least four canteens. Silver. Bone handled. Fish knives. China. Glass. Silverware. Doulton figurines. Wade Whimsies. Venetian glass.

Mostly packed away. She collected petrol station coupons for cheap chunky crocks. Yet had beautiful dinner services in boxes.

Most of it went to the sale house where it probably got a fraction of what she thought it was worth.

But I kept the nicest crystal. A few serving plates and tureens and the tablecloths and napkins. And I'll look forward to using them over Christmas and thinking of her.

I'll never forget a friend telling me when she cleared her DM house after her passing, she opened cupboards and found stuff she'd never seen before, all saved for 'best'. So sad.
But made me decide we would never save stuff for best again. And we never have. In fact this year we've had two friends both aged 64 (same age as me) die this year. So DH and I have agreed we will make time to do the things we want and have what we need, within reason.

I made a New Year's resolution some years ago not to save things for best and I've stuck to it since.

My mum and sister died too young and I'm blowed if im going to save things for a day that doesn't come.

Oh use it. I grew up like this. My mother has some beautiful things. A lovely handbag. Decanters. Etc. They just sit there in boxes. No one allowed to touch. What is the point??
At the tail end of Covid, I had dinner in a friend's new house. The glassware was gorgeous and we all commented. It had belonged to her recently deceased granny and had spent its life in a cabinet. I use the good things now; you could be dead next week.

My mum died this year. When I took her to a hospital appointment a month before her death, she wore a vintage silk coat and I joked she looked like she was off to a wedding. She felt fabulous though and that's what life is about. I buried her in that coat, because I know that she'd have been wanting to wear her best like she always did. She taught me never to save anything for special occasions. Every day is a blessing.

I've stopped waiting for the 'right occasion' to use things, otherwise they collect dust for years.

If not now, when?

I tried using my nice new tea towels. Then I forgot some bread in them and the bread turned the tea towels mouldy.

So I’m back to hoarding away the nice things 🤣

Omg OP. When you read this get up and go and put the nice shower gel in the shower so it's ready for tomorrow. The sky won't fall in. Have a nice treat Christmas shower.

I was like this until about age 21 and then thought WTF am I saving them for? Eg waiting for an occasion to wear my fave jewellery/clothes.. I have lots of them. But not tons of occasions to wear them to. So I wear them daily and feel amazing daily.
Toiletries.. just use them. I could die tomorrow! We deserve to use what we've bought and damn well enjoy it.

I won’t lie, the cleaning cloths are not what someone would not normally classify as nice or good stuff. Those are just bog standard cleaning cloths.

i tend to use everything, however I’ve just been inspired I’ve some expensive crystal and hand blown glasses I got as a wedding gift over 25 years ago still boxed up, will unbox tomorrow and use for crimbo

I also started wearing my nice clothes round the house,or for day to day wear. I realised I was always slobbing round and my nice clothes were going out of fashion eventually barely worn. So now everyday I put something good on, be it skirts, dresses, jumpers, tops. And enjoy wearing them.

I totally agree that using the ‘nice stuff’ be it wedding gifts, or the inherited China/glasses, always makes me think of the person it came from. Which is why, when we had our kitchen done, I insisted on one glass fronted unit despite the fitter railing against it ‘spoiling the aesthetic’!!!
Younger me would have agreed with him but he’s wrong. There’s a lot of love on display in that unit.

The cleaning clothes and sponges are now in the drawer ready to be used, alongside my lovely Christmas t towels that have never been used!

This thread has inspired me and I've taken the never used by us, second hand, posh dinner set out of the box and washed it ready for use.
It was wrapped in newspaper from 2010 and we've moved house 9 times since then and I've never unpacked it!

What a nice thread. Really inspiring.

Just do it. As others have said - life is too short!