NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

Bobarella

thriftish wrote: »

I'm joining in too!

A couple of years ago I read "Not Buying It" by Judith Levine and found it very interesting. She spent a year without purchasing any non-essentials.
I also enjoy the Non-Consumer Advocate who took part in the Compact and has now a very successful blog and active facebook group. However, they are both American and I feel this thread will be more relevant to me (although in am RoI).

I wouldn't consider myself a big consumer but I regularly have a bag of items to donate to the local charity shop so I am obviously buying more than I realise!

I like her too. Was only just reading her tonight! The non consumer advocate that is.

fairy3

More on the country living front... As a birthday present my sis bought us tickets to the CL fair last weekend and it was entertaining to say the least. Everyone was very nice but £5 for a jar of jam, £25 for two candles (a bargain! the notice said) and every manner of unnecessary paraphernalia at super inflated prices.
Many were buying into it and masses of bags filled and money parted with. There was an air of 'we are not leaving without something' and even a patronising sign on a pashmina stall which said 'your husband phoned he said you can have anything you like'. I bought a coffee and a couple of nice cards but resisted as there really wasn't anything I needed. Sis is another thing altogether, how many wicker hearts can you have in one house?

Butterfly_Brain

My DD asked me what I want for Christmas and I told her a subscription for the Home Farmer magazine, it is full of great tips on everything from keeping chickens, growing your own, preserving and other thrifty money saving crafts, plus I will get a free book for subscribing.
It is a £1 pm cheaper than me buying it at the newsagents every month

lessonlearned

Ahoy there shipmates.

How fab is this thread.

I have been steadily simplifying Over the last couple of years, my life is so much better.

Tbh I find the idea of excessive consumption utterly repugnant and I found the whole Black Friday thing appalling. The footAge of people fighting over TVs, getting knocked to the floor and trampled on was utterly sickening. How can people stop to this level. If they were starving and fighting over food you could have sympathy.

Anyway, rant over.;)

Re shopping at supermarkets, I think with care you can shop small and save money. Even with a list it's still too easy to be tempted by bargains and load up the trolley with extra stuff.

I dont know if we count the discounters such as Aldi, Lidl etc as supermarkets but I tend to use them rather than the big supermarkets.

Re the lifestyle mags. I'm quite good at diy and crafty things so I can usually work out a way of achieving "the look" without spending much. I don't buy magazines though though.

I borrow them from the library.

I too will not be giving up all spending but I will be mindful and shop with discretion.

I actually made a start on some Christmas shopping today.

Bobarella

lilian1977 wrote: »

Subscribing to this thread. I also like the look of #minsgame - might try and start that today (will get rid of 3 things!).

Awesome Lillian. If you on twitter let me know your user name so I can cheer you on

nursemaggie

I don't know how I managed to miss a day but miss a day I have two pages of posts. I am sure I read up to date last night.

I have never subscribed to those sort of magazines actually find them very boring if I come across them in hospital waiting room. I count them as not being there. Well that is one thing I won't fall for.

I don't have a car, a TV, or a mobile phone, don't go on holiday, drink or smoke, go out socalising, go to the cinema. I have found this site full of thing to save on what I do not buy. Two of us DS and myself have to live on £150 a week that includes rent, council tax (which they are now trying to make me pay all of), water rates electric and gas, food transport and DSs clothes because he is growing. We need broadband and phone to reclaim what ever they have taken off us today.

I would like to join but I do not want to hear that expression "Hard Working" it is designed to make the old, the sick, the disabled, and the unemployed feel guilty, and it works even when you know you could not work for half an hour.

Any ideas on how to combat withdrawal of savers goods because it is Christmas. My spending on things to save money for example one was a flask. Quite and expensive thing for what you get. It has not saved me one penny. I should not have bought it. There are lots of other similar things I think it all depends on your income what is unnecessary.

I hope I can get out of this downward spiral. My intention is not to spend on anything I cannot afford. I hope you will have me and if I sound harsh. I have read through it and can't see it but I may have been so I am sorry.

Slowdown

Slowdown wrote: »

HMS NoBuy appears to be crewed by hard working strivers, economists in charge of rationing, quiet philosophers pacing on the fore deck and a lot of shipmates to direct our passage through the oceans of resistance

nursemaggie - the use of the term hard working here is in no way a derogatory reference to anyone at all and should not taken as such. It is not designed to make the old, the sick, the disabled, the unemployed feel guilty in any way shape or form.

Hard work as a term can be used to describe any kind of effort at all put in to achieve an end result. It may describe the person who works from 6am to 8pm with no let up, it may describe the unemployed person who circles the ads and walks to and from the job centre. What about the disabled person who works hard to get up and down the steps, the elderly man who works hard to cook dinner for his sick wife? Are these people not working hard to achieve the end results?

You will find that I do not criticise any corner of society unless I believe, that by unscrupulous, unethical, immoral and destructive means they attempt to manipulate or degrade me. Hence my hostility towards certain aspects of the retail and advertising industries.

This thread is a celebration of my efforts to control spending, open my eyes to the tricks of manipulating consumer Giants and be true to my own self.

I applaud all efforts by all people to live their lives with honesty and integrity. We all fall from grace from time to time, myself more often than most of you I suspect, but my aims are transparent.

Please feel free to board our merry vessel and join the crew en route to........well, where ever a you like really!

Kind regards
Slowdown:)

Dee2

Hahaarrr me shipmates! Good morning to you all!
Another day on the perilous seas of manic consumerism but I'm sure we'll come through unscathed.

I was looking at Christmas cards and gift wrap in M&S yesterday - all very beautiful and shiny and was amazed to see that you can buy teeny tiny baubles to tie onto gifts to make them prettier. I bet a lot of presents look better on the outside than the contents! And where will all this wrapping end up? Probably in the recycling and the bin, what a shame and what a waste of money. I'm sure gifts don't really need to be "dressed" like that and with a bit of imagination and creativity gifts can be wrapped using stuff we already have. I've always kept onto nice pieces of wrapping paper and reused it, as well as ribbon and other paraphernalia. This year I shall do it even more so. (I have been known to iron wrapping thats a bit crumpled - works a treat).

Having said the above, I'm still lusting after knitted cushions (but I won't buy them-honest!. A while back I thought they would make my home complete - now I realise I am an advertisers dream! Besides in a few months it'll be all linen and "coastal beach hut chic" !!!

GreyQueen

Yeah, the orgy of wastefulness at Christmas has always stuck in my craw. Such as walking the streets the week after and seeing all this paper etc spewing out of bins.

I like your attitude to cushion-fashion. I grin if I'm flipping through a decor mag at the dentist and it's burbling on about this season's paint colours. Oh really, walls have fashion seasons these days?

Because that's a real first world problem. Golly, imagine if someone came to your home and your sitting-room was painted in 2013's fashionable hue rather than 2014's. You'd never live it down, would you? :rotfl:

My home is painted in 2005's colour, which happens to be almost identical to the colour I painted another flat in 1997, but by a different manufacturer. Dunno if it's fashionable but it's pleasant and I like it.

annagaradair

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

My DD asked me what I want for Christmas and I told her a subscription for the Home Farmer magazine,

I really like Home Farmer too - it helps me dream my little dream

nursemaggie wrote: »

I would like to join but I do not want to hear that expression "Hard Working" it is designed to make the old, the sick, the disabled, and the unemployed feel guilty, and it works even when you know you could not work for half an hour..

I feel the same about 'hard working', Maggie. I have a chronic illness and can't work. I tried. It nearly killed me - and I do mean that literally. I don't know what the future holds but the thought of going back to work fills me with dread.

Slowdown wrote: »

nursemaggie - the use of the term hard working here is in no way a derogatory reference to anyone at all and should not taken as such. It is not designed to make the old, the sick, the disabled, the unemployed feel guilty in any way shape or form.

Hard work as a term can be used to describe any kind of effort at all put in to achieve an end result. It may describe the person who works from 6am to 8pm with no let up, it may describe the unemployed person who circles the ads and walks to and from the job centre. What about the disabled person who works hard to get up and down the steps, the elderly man who works hard to cook dinner for his sick wife? Are these people not working hard to achieve the end results?

I really like what you say here, Slowdown. I've not heard that perspective on 'hard working' before, only ever with the negative connotations Maggie's pointed out. And I do work hard on the things I can do. So, yeah - I"m one of the 'hard working'.