NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

supersaver1000

Primrose wrote: »

You have to feel very sorry for the volunteers in charity shops. Somebody I know who volunteers in one says the week after Christmas is always totally manic. Half the country are engaged in using the break to have a declutter /clear out lf their wardrobes and houses and they usually have to move half a ton of black bin bags dumped on their doorsteps before they can open up the shop after Christmas ! Still, for anybody on the hunt for bargains, this is probably the best time !

Thank you for this gem.

supersaver1000

Floxxie wrote: »

I gave myself 6 weeks to complete the plan. I sold and gave away the majority of our belongings. There were in excess of 1000 books given to CS; there was very expensive furniture sold for a few pounds. It made my heart very heavy as I was viewing each item as lost money. However due to the volume of stuff, this view soon changed as to being a means to allow me to escape. I took the money I had raised and filled the car with our last possessions and ourselves and off we went!

Floxxie, that sounds very brave, exciting and scary. You sound amazing. We did something similar (but not quite as adventurous) and sold a house in 6 weeks to move into a quirky rented cottage in the midst of nowhere. I sold and gave away and CSd lots of stuff in a hurry too :eek: Three years later and I bearly remember what it was - except sometimes I wonder at how I wouldn't think twice about spending our hard earned money on all that stuff in the first place. I've started to accumulate a lot more 'stuff' (mostly freebies though) so am having another clear out, especially as when we move again I'd like it to be a bit more organised. Next I would like to live in a city or maybe by a river or the sea. I just want to enjoy living in different places if I can.

Good luck with your venture - do you have your own thread as Id love to follow it ?



ps I absolutely love this thread. Thank you.

maria3104

Totally loving reading this thread.

I have looked at lots of decluttering you tubes for ideas over XMAS and have realised my DH would be even more bad tempered if I messed with any of his treasures.Socks etc. So I am going to focus on my stuff and also on not buying it.

We have just enjoyed the cheapest Christmas ever. £112 on groceries,fed 8, and we are still eating left overs. Gifts were bought last Jan in sales. Family of grown up children have decided we are 2015 onwards doing secret santa and this is how we will go forward so I have not had my usual post XMAS shop trip for next xmas.Saving around £200. Hurrah.
I have noticed that many of us are 45 plus, I wonder how many of us are at an age to recognise that our lives are slowly destroying us. I have worked 60 hours a week for 30 years and then worked also at home. No wonder I am tired. I am being re educated on teachers lives as I always imagined they had a lovely life! Seems ignorant of me now. Very sorry for the teaching profession.
Have a good NSD all.

annagaradair

Morning me hearties!

Yesterday was NSD and I'm proud that I kept myself occupied with other things and didn't even want to shop. Today I need to pop to the shops as I've no oats to make bannocks and will run out in the next couple of days.

Bathory

Caterina wrote: »

Bathory I hope your mum gets well soon. xx

Thanks Caterina, They have told me this morning she is stable so hope she picks up more.

Bambywamby

Just before you set sail folks.... please let this former mega-consumer straggler on board.


I have read most of the thread and love the attitudes, intelligence and humour of you all and I too, am of the same anti-excessive consumerism mind.


Since reading the thread over the last week, I have become uber aware of the adverts on television and the media in general... and I smile with eyes narrowed as they try and sell me this unnecessary item for that inflated price.


My father was a wise man, in the eighties he would say 'Just don't buy into the brain-washing. They will tell you gotta get something newer, bigger, better and it's a way to keep the working man poor. When we are poor we know our place and will stay there. We are no challenge, to them or ourselves.'
I tuned out my father as you do as a teenager... I thought it was just jaded adult ramble. Over the last few years I have reached his place of awareness and cynicism and I embrace jaded adult ramble.


I am finding great joy in simple things, kind acts and new experiences. I am turned off by flashing lights, new gadgets, highly processed 'finest' foods; the general bigger/better/ want more attitude... and for this mind-set of wanting less material things and wanting more sensory overload from the natural world... I am finding an inner peace.


So I've packed my bags, got my little one on board (as she is a mini Old Style madam in the making) and we are ready to go....


But I am bringing my hair dyes (Daniel Field Organic) aboard ladies/gentleman... and a small make-up bag. I am a Princess with muddy jeans and wellies underneath my recycled and revamped gown. xx

savingqueen

hello everyone, I am still less than half way through the thread but determined to read it all.

Many things stuck out for me but the last to stick in my head is to do with trying to fill emotional gaps from childhood with buying in adulthood. Thanks OP (sorry forgotten your name) - that is what I spent way too many years doing, 'cept mine was an "upper working class" childhood lived on an "ordinary working class" income if that makes any sense

Islandmaid

I knew I was heading in the right direction when I got an email from next re: THE SALE...... Got a plumb time, first in the que - felt that excited buzz, fingers twitching over the keys - then, I deflated, what do I NEED, nothing, so I deleted the emails and have spent a grand sum of nuffin

I did go wild in the asles at Sains, bought a HP frying pan as handle was hanging off ours, a HP posh baking tray for HM bread and a big box of cat food - Used money LO from Christmas food budget.

Might roll into Ald! today, only need milk and Orange juice.

kacie

emslovesmickey wrote: »

I now have spent another £7.45 of my £40 christmas money - £3 on a ceramic starbucks travel mug (kind of necessity) £4 on some Baileys for my mum, and 45p on some terry choc orange segments. So I have just over £7.50 left which will be used to go to the cinema - which is what the money was for in the first place!

This is what worries me though. When I'm on my break at work there is little to do but to go into town (I work in the centre) and I invariably end up at the shops. Most of the time I can resist spending, but at times, like today, I succumb. The only positive is that it was christmas money and not part of my wages.

I've made a start on my list though today, reading and reviewing one book - Elizabeth is Missing. Highly recommend it

Is there a library you can go to to sit and read for a while, or a park that on warmer days you could sit in?

Or do you even need to take money to work? Can't spend it if you don't take it with you!

mumto2monkeys_2

Bambywamby wrote: »

My father was a wise man, in the eighties he would say 'Just don't buy into the brain-washing. They will tell you gotta get something newer, bigger, better and it's a way to keep the working man poor. When we are poor we know our place and will stay there. We are no challenge, to them or ourselves.'
I tuned out my father as you do as a teenager... I thought it was just jaded adult ramble. Over the last few years I have reached his place of awareness and cynicism and I embrace jaded adult ramble.

This really reminds me of Educating Rita when she tells Frank that there is a problem in society, among the working class, but the very people who should be highlighting it - The Daily Mirror and ITV is who she cites - are just telling them to go out and buy a bigger telly or a new dress - don't worry, just buy.

I would quote directly but I don't have it to hand. It was very poignant and I could see it all around me where I'm from - community being broken down as people get more and more wrapped up in what they are buying.

It also reminds me of Tony Benn saying ignorant, ill and poorly educated masses don't challenge the status quo. As we seem to be highlighting in many of out posts, our working lives and the pressure to consume that is forced on us from all sides certainly seems to be making us ill and stressed. I certainly don't have time to engage with the wider world when I barely have a minute to myself!