Freebies! Are you pro or anti?

GreyQueen

Since I've been aiming at a more decluttered life, I've become very skittish about accepting freebies. Even if they are, in principle, useful or potentially useful freebies.

For various reasons; to avoid clutter at home or office, to reduce waste, to discourage the perpetrators of freebies from creating more of the dadblasted things.

A couple of weeks ago, our union rep walked through the office handing out a Thing to members. A lens polishing cloth in a plastic bag. Which is refused immediately - I wear glasses but have several of these already. Each pair of new glasses comes with one in the case, over a lifetime of spectacle purchasing, it's easy to have a glut.

Union freebies annoy me - I'd rather they spent our subs on campaigning in general or supporting individual members in time of crisis in particular.

It seems you can hardly stroll through a retail environment these days without someone trying to foist freebies on you, whether they are small cubes of food product (lovely prospect of taking a morsel off a platter where a couple of dozen strangers of unknown hygiene habits have already taken another morsel) or an actual Thing.

Said Things are usually cheaply-made petroleum byproducts destined to fail in short order and end up in landfill. Or yet another mug - even the charity shops are all mugged-out.

Soooo, am I alone in feeling vaguely oppressed by freebies? Is this just a GQ thing? A midlife-woman-in-a-tiny-home-thing, or is it even a thing at all?

Looking forward to your contributons!

[purplesignup][/purplesignup]

PasturesNew

Well, you live in a different world to me - freebies are very very very rarely found at all.

You must live in a big city or something.... retail don't bother with freebies in tiny towns.

bexster1975

GQ

I agree re:Union freebies, thankfully I no longer pay for those!!

I rarely pick up a freebie unless I can use it. Otherwise, they do indeed tend to end up as clutter.

In short,you are not alone!

bexster

VfM4meplse

PasturesNew wrote: »

Well, you live in a different world to me - freebies are very very very rarely found at all.

You must live in a big city or something.... retail don't bother with freebies in tiny towns.

Anyone who steps out of their own home finds that "freebies" abound. They are usually low-cost, of limited use, promotional nature and made from plastic.

The best freebies are those given out at major commuter stations - usually snack bars at the start of new product launches! Handy to have in the bottom of my handbag just in case, until the packaging splits and it attracts dust and hair and becomes entirely disgusting

Farway

PasturesNew wrote: »

Well, you live in a different world to me - freebies are very very very rarely found at all.

You must live in a big city or something.... retail don't bother with freebies in tiny towns.

Agree, chance would be a fine thing, best I can hope for is sample morsel in W/rose

Witless

GreyQueen wrote: »

Since I've been aiming at a more decluttered life, I've become very skittish about accepting freebies. Even if they are, in principle, useful or potentially useful freebies.



Union freebies annoy me - I'd rather they spent our subs on campaigning in general or supporting individual members in time of crisis in particular.

I was brought up believing that anything is usually worth what you're prepared to pay for: IMHO most freebies are poorly made junk.

Trades union freebies are slightly different - they're usually sponsored and don't normally cost the members in any way, certainly not from their subs. My union has a 'fees' account (& I suspect most are the same) where all payments made to the staff from outside sources (eg interviews, H&S trg, newspaper articles etc) are held and used for projects that the subscription account isn't intended for.

As for the sponsored ones - they're usually reasonable quality: I'm still using a messenger bag/laptop case from 2009 and have a good filofax which is now rarely used as they're becoming outmoded and an A4 notepad holder which is frequently used - they were sponsored/donated by the union solicitors & financial services: tax write offs & 'free' advertising. The better quality 'freebies' are usually to be found being distributed to conference delegates.

I don't take the tat, but some of it is useful and it often fulfills the purpose of getting the union contact details 'out there'.

moneyistooshorttomention

Am another one that thinks "Chance would be a fine thing to ever be offered freebies - now that I've moved".

Did take a biro that was on offer the other day - now that's useful - as I need biros anyway. So I will take any freebie biro I'm offered anywhere. Freebie mugs - well I'd take it and stash it away for future use (as mugs do break at intervals and I'd rather have one in my taste - but well...a freebie one functions just as well).

The union freebies - well my diary came in handy and I'd wait for it each year. Since retirement I've had to buy my own.

Any notepad type stuff I ever get the chance of comes in handy too - as I keep whatever scrap paper I get for odd notes/my shopping lists.

VfM4meplse

GreyQueen - you have inspired me to do a load of decluttering today! Starting from 4:30pm when it gets dark.

GreyQueen

VfM4meplse wrote: »

GreyQueen - you have inspired me to do a load of decluttering today! Starting from 4:30pm when it gets dark.

:j Wheee!!! I'm honoured. I have just washed up and dried two tea caddies which will be heading chazzerwards in the next donation bag. They actually came from the chazzer and are now surplus and can go back again and serve someone else.

SpikyHedgehog

I was irritated to find tat in the package with my replacement food processor goblet this week - a plastic film bag with a card with the supplier's details, a credit card size magnet with their details, and a pen in another plastic film bag. It puts me off using that supplier for spares another time.

LaineyT

On the whole it would be a no from me, in fact when I worked for a software distributor we were bombarded on an almost weekly basis from visiting vendors, stress balls, mugs, pens, notebooks, you name it. Some were handy but there are only so many pens you can use at a time and most things just cluttered up people’s desks.
In fact the only freebie that goes down well with me are the goodie bags handed out by the feed suppliers at various horsey gatherings