To suggest that people should buy less stuff

[Noras]

i just think that the mess we are in is because we get stuff from overseas that we don’t really need. People buy a lot of tat and junk eg cheap clothing, rubbish confectionary and artificial tat for homes. If we all just cut down on huge chunks of it we could cut out our balance of payment deficit.

Also people need to buy less from overseas owned companies. People need to check each and every company they buy from and go for smaller independents etc There needs to be an online list of stores to avoid.

This is a great thread, although I haven’t read every post. I do agree with the op. However, I have lots of clothes. I am though, sat here in a pre owned dress I’ve had several years, along with an M&S jumper which I must say, isn’t great quality.
I do try and buy second hand clothes for various reasons and I love selling my clothes on vinted. It gives me a buzz that my cast offs are not going into landfill but to someone else who will wear them.
For the second year in a row I’ve made a resolution to try and buy less ‘stuff.’
Im using the products I have. So far I haven’t needed to buy perfume/tablet soap/body lotion/ make up ( with the exception of a new foundation) for over 16months now-I am using up all my stocks.
I won’t lie, I have bought some new clothes and shoes but at least it’s a start.
I also don’t buy from Shein id rather buy something from Vinted.

Nail on the head. That's exactly what's happened in our large village over the 30 years or so that I've lived and worked in it.

People bemoan on Facebook that two of the three pubs have shut - the same people who admitted in those posts that they'd not been in those pubs for years, but have rosy memories of going in a couple of decades earlier when they were young!

A brand new Co Op opened and then people bemoaned that the newsagents, post office and smaller Spar shop closed down - well they'd not have closed if people had continued to use them rather than going to the Co Op instead!

Same with some more specialist shops, one a cycle shop, one a pet shop and the other a sewing/craft shop. All closed down due to lack of customers/sales, and again, loads of Facebook posts whingeing about it, but admitting they never went in themselves! Doh!

Use it or lose it people! If you don't use it, then you have no right to complain/comment when it's gone.

Oh that's everywhere ith pubs
"oh no! Why are they closing, such a shame, haven't been since 90s but used to be nice place"

It would take nearly a lifetime to pay for it though

It makes me bloody furious.

Has anyone seen the documentary on this where they shpwed that the poor countires getting our donated clothes can cope so it's creating landfil?
That was bit of a wow moment (fist was whne I worked in sorting centre and found out two thins. 1-the good clothes don't make it there, 2-people donate shit stained undies)

I know what you're saying but I cannot justify paying about £18 more for something when I have an option not to. I compared prices of stuff I needed on Amazon, and found the whole lot about £60 cheaper. I won't pay that.

You can do what you like. So can they.

You're free to do that, but you lose the right to complain about the demise of the High Street and closure of local shops.

The problem is that it is broke - or will be soon, @Lovebirdslovetea. The carcasses were clearly not particularly good quality (NotMeNoNo is right about differing quality chipboard carcasses), so we have sagging shelves, drawers starting to come apart, doors starting to sag.

Unfortunately these issues are not going to get any better, and painting the doors/replacing the worktop would not mend the issues - it would just be putting lipstick on a pig.

My point was that, if the kitchen’s carcass had been good quality, we could have revamped it, but a poor quality carcass has pushed us into needing to replace the whole thing.

I've not read the full thread yet, but came along to say exactly this.

Just ordered Less from the library. There's a waiting list but worth waiting.

My DP’s have a gorgeous pine kitchen, handmade cabinets made by a carpenter in the 80’s. Shaker doors. You could refresh by painting.
I would love to find a make do and mend cafe. Would love to learn how to darn socks etc. My DM use to make her clothes fit better when I was a child. The waistband was always too big. A couple of darts or something and fitted it was like magic .Jar of buttons, nothing wasted.

There was also a brilliant programme about built in obsolescence on BBC years ago. Very interesting. Also about how paying by card or one tap, doesn’t feel like spending cash. I don’t think I would ever buy a new iPhone etc if I had to count out £1000 in cash. I would feel slightly sick. Not so paying by card!
Our tv doesn’t support Netflix or iplayer etc. so I have a chrome cast dongle. Because I refuse to buy a new tv because of software updates.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.
It's in that order for good reason.

There's the 'buy cheap buy twice' thing, then there's throwaway fashion.
I don't think the people buying from Temu & Shein can't necessarily afford something closer to home or better quality.

They must wear the cheapy stuff very little, then replace it very quickly, and if they aren't just building a stash of cheap clothing on their bedroom floors, then they're chucking it out, or into a charity shop. I doubt it would resell online.

I don't imagine the people who can't afford to buy new clothes are constantly buying from these places either, so the anecdote about a poor man buying cheap boots ultimately spends more on boots in a lifetime, than the rich man who buys a quality pair that last for years, wouldn't apply here.

It just seems people like to buy new, even if it is rubbish that's going to end up in landfill.

Googled it, I couldn't remember where it came from, it was popularized by the great Terry Pratchett!

This statement refers to the "Boots Theory" popularized by Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, where the character Sam Vimes explains that a poor person buying cheap boots that quickly wear out will end up spending more money on footwear over time compared to a wealthy person who invests in a high-quality pair that lasts for years, illustrating how poverty can be expensive in the long run due to the need for constant replacements of inferior products.

You certainly would have trouble living here (NZ) and not buying things made in China as almost everything is. Makes sense I guess as they are our largest trading partner. I agree with you about Trump.

So by this logic we should just settle for stuff we dont like, is overpriced and only pick from 1 or 2 variations cos 'local is better'

if these small local sellers read the room, they would stock what sells and what people can afford

I think there are plenty of people who try to find things in their own high street first but when they can't then of course they're going to order it online.

It's a vicious circle. Before the domination of chain stores, retail parks, huge supermarkets, etc., everyone really could get everything from local/independent shops. The proliferation of chain stores and out of town retail massively damaged that. Now the internet is here that is damaging the viability of chain stores and out of town retail!

It's noticeable that small independent shops are still in existence in places that don't have retail parks. Lots of large villages and small towns, in, say, the Cotswalds and Yorkshire still have independent hardware shops for example - simply because the big sheds like Wickes and Homebase never opened in those more rural areas.

Trouble is that once a B&Q or Wickes opens, then it's the death knell for independent hardware stores within driving distance. Same with Pets at Home which will close most private pet shops within driving distance.

The internet is just finishing off what chain stores and out of town retail started 2/3 decades ago.

Smaller shops simply can't survive with competition from the internet, chain stores and out of town retail. Overheads are too high, they're paying more business rates per square metre of space than Asda or Amazon because "High St retail" space is charged higher for business rates than warehouse space - the rules simply havn't changed to reflect the changing shopping landscape over the past few decades. Rents are insanely high. Then you have all the local councils trying their hardest to ruin their High Streets by stupidly high car park charges, one way systems, pedestrianised/bus only zones, etc.

If "we" want to keep smaller independent stores, then "we" have to support them. On an individual level, that means buying stuff from them. On a national level, that means dealing with the unfair business rate system, insane rents, higher utility costs (always higher than residential!), ever increasing employment costs (NIC!), etc.

There is a small hardware shop in a town local to me.
It was at risk of closing down and lots of people were on Facebook saying use it or lose it......I actually find it's cheaper to buy hoover bags there than elsewhere however the type and frequency of items I need from there is pretty sparse.
On the last few times I've been there I've bought
Hoover bags, descaler, tupperware containers, screw type things to hold shelves in place etc. It's my first port of call for those items....but I buy them extremely infrequently. ...

Do you prefer it when income from rates and rents drops so that there's less money to spend on local services, or when boarded up shops attract street drinkers and drug addicts, or when the only things opening in town are things like Turkish barbers and nail bars, which are often a cover for money laundering? Thriving high streets are more of a deterrent to shop lifters.

It's an established fact that every £ spent locally remains in the local economy benefitting local communities instead of disappearing off to line the coffers of chains.

I don't disagree with you about choice, but it's a vicious circle. If shops were confident that stock would flow reliably through their stores, they'd invest more in stock, and there would be more choice.

Plus of course there's the insane amount that councils are charging for town centre car parking.

(edited for additions)

But ultimately if the high street doesn't have the item I need then I can't spend that money there.

As I say, it's a vicious circle. Before small shops were hammered with higher costs and unfair competition, you would have been able to find a shop stocking what you wanted. Now, because you're not using the small shops, the few that remain are struggling and likely to close too, meaning even less things able to be bought locally.

Trouble is that a lot of people don't even try to shop locally - some will never have been in their local shop(s) so won't know what they stock, their prices, etc. They just lazily default to Amazon for online or for Wickes for DIY or Halfords for cars/bikes.

We had a bike shop in our village. For a small shop, they had a really broad range of bikes and were competitively priced, but the owner just couldn't get enough locals through the doors to actually look at his range and his prices! He used to get really annoyed when local people brought in bikes bought from Halfords or online to be serviced/repaired that he knew cost the same as the bikes he sold which were better quality! They'd just "assumed" he'd not have the range or that his bikes would be a lot more expensive!

It's that kind of thing that small shops are up against. Some customers seem to be frightened of actually going into a shop and asking for something and seem to prefer the anonymity of huge impersonal shops or laziness of online ordering.

That;s up to them, but they lose the moral high ground to whinge when the High Street is dying and small shops are disappearing at a rapid rate.