am sick and tired of this. What is wrong with everyone?

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

I've had enough. I'm packing us all off to live in Yemen. I want to get the world and knock its head \link{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5071222.stm\together}

More money than sense. Preposterous. And distasteful.

Were they child-free weddings? Or only children wearing in excess of £1000 worth of vulgar, lurid tarty crap allowed in?
[wooden spoon emoticon]

OMG, i read heat....

but i still bought all my clothes for my bump so far from an NCT sale and bought a pushchair that was in the sale...

i know that babies cost a lot, and im under no illusions, but really...

I realise that caring about fashion and caring about the world aren't mutually exclusive.It's not the individuals involved, its the whole direction of society thing. (of which I am a part). I too like looking nice and I like my dds to look nice (but spend a fraction of what I could). But I just think there's something all wrong. something we as a society are missing out on. I think it every time I go shopping. how have we become a society where shopping - so we believe - makes us happy (ref article about what makes women happy - apparently shopping doesn't but we think it does). why do people shop when they could go for walks in the park. why do I shop when I could go for a walk in the park? I sometimes feel like I'm on a bus, or rather, in a fast car, nose-to-tail on the M25 and I'm not sure how I came to be here, I'm not sure where I'm going and I'm not sure I want to be going there, but everyone's going in the same direction, at the same speed and I can't pull over. I went to Yemen a few years ago and fell in love with it. It was the only place in the world where I felt I had escaped consummerism. where I felt I could forget caring about what I or my house or my children looked like and only care about what counted.

I'm having a grumpy old woman moment.

but despite my grumpy old woman moment Custardo still made me laugh. thank you

I had a horse and carriage and a huge meringue - two horses if you must know, and a big flouncy veil too

these figures always make me laugh, surely people spend what they think they can afford and if they spend more then more fool them.

i bought a dress today and I'm pretty sure it's the first item of clothing I've bought myself for about a year, i wonder what the average middle aged woman spends on clothes per annum?

More than you at a rough guess then zippy! I am always buying clothes, take a lot of it back because it is a rushed, not tried on purchase and it is nearly always cheap.

I know exactly where you are coming from the woman.........I loathe shopping but do buy second hand French designer clothes from Ebay for the dds because they are much more tasteful than English ones. They also resell well and I like the recycling aspect of it. I have a strict budget though, about £200 per year for the three of them.
I've never been to Yemen but have felt that huge sense of relief when getting off the plane in Zambia, the "at last I can be myself" feeling.

hatwoman love the anti-consumerism

I once posted on here on an income thread that people didn't need to buy all the stuff they bought and boy, did I get mauled as a result

I think £400 is loads and I don't dress them second hand; I just don't buy them loads of clothes cos they grow out of them

I went to a friend's house the other day and her dd's wardrobe was bursting with clothes, there was no way she could wear them before she grew out of them even if she changed 5 times a day

mad

and absolutely rofl at custy's 'numpty' children in their outgrown clothes

but I wish I could do it - the anti-consumerism -for real - that's my problem. I haven't got the guts to pull over. Ok, I'm not in the fast lane but I am in the middle lane and short of buggering off somewhere like Yemen (which, let's face it, ain't going to happen) I just end up occupying this awful middle ground where I neither achieve the glamour and grooming of someone who cares about glamour and grooming, nor the self-satisfaction of truly not giving a hoot. pathetic.

skimmed through the article and haven't read any of the replies but i think lots of parents spend more money on their kids clothing than their own simply because kids are constantly growing out of things and we don't! 12 weeks out of a pair of shoes at £30 a pop, one season out of a coat etc.all adds up and that's before you go down the designer route.

you don't have to go the whole hog with the hair shirt surely? if the decisions you make are sound ones then it doesn't matter that you're not in Yemen, you're still staying true to something you can be proud of

I recycle whatever I can, try not to buy anything I don't really need, am a member of local swop shop/ freecycle thingies and try to bring my kids up to know that we have to be responsible about what we eat/ buy/ spend/ do

but I'm still a sucker for nice perfume and a Cafe Nero. doesn't mean I'm in an awful middle ground

you don't sound to be either

you're right. I think try to justify the middle lane by reference to everyone else. But there's more I could do, without moving to funny little countries on the Indian Ocean.

but that article just doesn't make sense, tw..h.

i spend more on kids clothes than on my clothes, but that's because they grow out of theirs, not because theirs are designer ones. think surveys like this are nonsense.

why yemen anyway?

thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat - I know exactly where you're coming from in most of what you say and agree.
For me, it's not about dictating how people spend their money, or on what, it's just the overwhelming feeling that people in the west really have too much choice. I can afford to have eco-principles and buy 2nd-hand or recycle clothes. or I can choose whether to do without that extra wrap-dress for myself and spend £150 on a t-shirt for my toddler.(I'm speaking hyposthetically, BTW - I'm a 2nd-hand Rose myself)
Sometimes I do wish I had less choices...sometimes just choosing a loaf of bread makes my head spin :) :(

Meant to say also, sometimes I think people in this country would get more upset over something like ending Sunday trading than say global warming! ''Yeah, the planet's gonna explode, all our natural resources are running out...yada yada..big deal - but don't tell me I can't worship at the shopping malls on a sunday''

just coz I fell in love with it so much. a place called al-muquallah on the coast is just the most wonderful remote exotic place I've been to. I think I've said it before on one of those favurite pplaces thereads. I could just live there alone, like an eccentric old English woman. The local children would come and stare at me and I would scare them away or give them sweets depending what side of bed I had got out of. I would get someone to teach me how to make yemeni bread and I would smoke a shisha and chew lots of qat and learn Arabic poetry. (yeah right, and maybe kate Winslet could play me in some shitey film. god what am i like)

I made dh watch hideous kinky the other day. it is shitey isn't it?

FMF - just have to tell you that the fishmonger in Wetherby puts most of this country's ills down to Sunday trading. I bought my fish, had a chat and left thinking "Yeah yeah..." but as I walked away it did change to more of a "YEAH!"I wouldn't agree with him on many issues but I do think he has a point.

The relentless 24/7 nature of consumerism overwhelmes me - I usually shop in Harrogate not York or Leeds because over the years I've learned that I actually HATE having too much choice. It wastes my time and saps my energy. I've just spent nearly 7 years deciding on fabric for My First Grown Up Living Room Curtains FFS.

lol Emmylou.
When my aunt came back from Zimbabwe to live in England she said she burst into tears in Tesco because there were too many brands of toothpaste to choose from.