Buying into Buy Nothing - confessions of a shopping addict

So Buy Nothing is a thing. I get it. We live in a very consumerist society. Advertising is everywhere; on the tv, radio, print media, social media and websites and of course emails. It's overwhelming.

Use Facebook and ads will pop up for anything and everything, usually targetted to your age and gender. Visit any number of websites and you'll find an ad for something you searched for on Google recently (I'm sure there's a way to stop my search data being used like that but I can't be arsed finding it out). Click me, they urge, go on - click!

As I have a bulging wardrobe and every kitchen utensil known to man, I committed to stop shopping on 1 July 2017 for a minimum of three months with the aim of stretching it to twelve months.

I confess to being somewhat of a shopping addict. In addition to food and toiletries, I buy clothes, shoes, makeup, books, music and sometimes household goods on a regular basis. The woman at my local dress shop calls me her best customer, although I've been 'good' lately and haven't bought anything from her for six weeks, and that was only the second thing I'd bought from her all year.

But I digress. If I can make it to three months, I can increase my Buy Nothing week by week, month by month. Little steps, regular milestones, will make it easier. Rather like someone in AA taking it one day at a time.

I can see why Buy Nothing is taking off, however. Firstly minimalism is back in vogue, so to achieve it, you need less. Then there's the problem of rubbish and landfill we in the west create.

As well as being a consumerist society, we are a throwaway society. Globalisation has seen fashion become an entity which churns out new designs on an apparently weekly basis. (In fact there is a shop at Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney which promises new stock EVERY WEEK. Ye Gods.) With low labour costs in third world countries it's easy to spend $30-$50 for a new jumper or dress, or $10 on a t-shirt. I'm guilty. When H and M came to Australia I snapped up a handful of $7 t-shirts with absolute glee. After all, white t-shirts usually only last a year or two before they go grey or attract stains even Napisan can't remove. Then into the rubbish they go, too awful to even give to a charity shop.

My goodness, the amount of clothing that goes into landfill is terrifying. How wasteful we are as a society. How greedy. How eager to flash the plastic and buy more, more, more. I feel sorry for the fashionistas who are compelled to buy the latest look, racking up their credit cards to indecent levels, wearing items only a few times before chucking or donating. Because clothing IS so cheap these days, it is very much seen as throwaway after one season.

Granted, little of my clothing gets actually chucked out. Anything still decent goes to charity, damaged clothing gets used by me as cleaning rags before finally hitting the bin.  I get many years out of my clothes as most of what I buy is either fairly classic or interesting enough not to date. I have overcoats I've had for 20+ years and they're still fine.

The human cost behind producing cheap clothes for the western world is heartbreaking. Sweatshops, dangerous conditions, working hours which would cause strikes in Australia. Look at your clothing. Where is it made? Bangladesh? India? Turkey? China? Would you be prepared to pay, say, four times more for each item if it was made in your own country under decent working conditions?

And as for 'the middle aisle' in ALDI - oh, oh, oh! What a joy! The bits and pieces I have bought cheaply, such as weights and gym clothes, or a warm throw for the living room for a tiny $15, fill me with acquisitive delight. For I AM acquisitive, and it's something I'll have to overcome. I don't need more stuff. The majority of us don't need more stuff.

But.

It's not as if I'm in my 20s and have just moved out of home and have to buy or acquire household goods on which to sit, or kitchen utensils and pots. I have it all. Mum left a house full of 'stuff' when she died and I'm still selling or giving away things in an effort to make the place less cluttered.

I'm going to find this Buy Nothing lark hard work I think. I have unsubscribed from various shoe and clothing email lists so I don't get tempted.

So if I'm buying nothing, what are the exceptions for me? Which non-nothings will sneak into the house aside from food etc for us and the animals?

• Toiletries and cosmetics. I don't buy many cosmetics but I'm not going to go without an eyebrow pencil when my current one dies (local supermarket, $14, and seriously good).  And I don't go mad on toiletries like I used to 20 years ago. I estimate in the next 3 months I will have to buy toothpaste, soap, 1 bottle each of shampoo, conditioner, Nuxe Huile Prodiguese and Nutrimetics Nutri-Rich Oil as these are my staples and I'm running low on them. 
• Nails. I like having nice nails. It's a pick me up luxury that costs me about $40/month.
• Hair. Yes, my foils cost money but damned if I'm going to go grey.
• Books. But only e-books as they are cheaper and don't take up physical space, or I'll rejoin the local library and borrow.
• I may have to get supplies for my business such as paper and ink for the printer, but then I've always been frugal with my business.
• Gifts for others' birthdays. Unless I have something I can make or something new I can regift. There are 3 birthdays I have to cater for so I'll have to be canny.

And that's it. For the next two and a half months at least. Wish me luck. Hope I can conquer this shopping addiction and be a Buy Nothing person.

Stuff It

This morning while I was making the bed I noticed the drawer on my husband's bedside table was open slightly. I hate that. Drawers which are capable of shutting (which is most but not all the drawers in our house) should be shut or they look untidy. But I digress. This post is not about my OCD-ness regarding drawers.

No, it's about the remembrance day fake poppy that was in the drawer. And other Stuff.

I pondered why he'd kept the poppy. I know he's a Scot but he usually does put his hand in his pocket and buy a new one each year. It's not as if I bought the poppy for him and it has sentimental value (hmm, a $2 poppy).  I think this is what's happened (but I haven't asked him):

He's worn the poppy at the appropriate time, taken it off his suit and put in the drawer. Then he's forgotten about it. Now he doesn't even notice it's there, despite it being bright red.

I used to keep remembrance day poppies too. But not any more. I'd stick them in a potplant with something else such as a violet, just for effect. After several months of them gathering dust there (literally) I'd chuck them out. I mean, they ARE pretty. Too good to simply go in the bin after wearing. I should put them in a box to use for decorating gifts but frankly I'm a lousy gift decorator and I'd forget I had them anyway. So now, into the bin they go. I do it with gritted teeth as it makes me feel guilty.

And there's my problem. I was brought up by a Mum who didn't throw such things out. In fact she threw out very little in case it came in handy or in case there was another Great Depression or because it cost something to buy in the first place or because it was a gift from a friend or family member or ...

You get the picture. I was brought up to be a hoarder, to feel sentimental about things given to me, to not move things on if they were still 'good'.

But now I'm toughening up. I have to. I have a house full of Stuff, some of which I've sold or given away, and still more which I'm selling and which I intend to sell. I do a run to the charity shops with Stuff every couple of months.  I bin Stuff. I give Stuff to friends.

I have had to become unsentimental to a degree. And I'm a horribly sentimental person. It pulls me in two.

But I look around me and see clutter. I need to become more minimalist in order to feel less dragged down by all this Stuff.

As I've mentioned in previous posts Mum left me everything she had. And she had cupboards bulging with Stuff most of which she never used and as I haven't either, a lot of it has been moved on in some way, shape or form. But there's still too much Stuff.

Apparently we only use 20% of everything we own on a regular basis. 20%. That's not much. But when I think about it, that figure seems correct. For example when I'm cooking I usually use the same pots and pans each time. The tagine cooker gets one outing a year and I suspect that sooner or later I'll move it on too, even though I love its bright red colour. I probably don't need all the ramekins I have (two sets) but if I have a dinner party with more than 4 people I'll put them into use for individual puddings.

I plan to go through cupboards again over Easter and see what else I can move on either on eBay, Gumtree, Facebook buy swap and sell or simply give to charity. Although the charity shops are getting fussy now. I tried giving some oldish books to them this week and they refused them as they were foxed, and stated that no charity shop would take foxed or old books any more in case they had dust mites or similar. So bugger, I had to bin the books. Bin them! I nearly cried. I love books but wasn't going to read these again and it made me grit my teeth when I put them in the recycle bin. They weren't interesting enough to try and sell on eBay, either. :-(

My new hardline attitude towards Stuff is saving me money though. No more impulse buys at homewares shops or online. Department stores no longer hold any thrill for me. If I buy something it's to replace something useful which has broken. My rule now is that if I buy something new, something old has to go. (This doesn't apply to animals. Despite bringing a new puppy into our lives last year we have kept our elderly spaniel LOL!)

How I'd love to have a neat house without crap everywhere; like walking into one of IKEA's fake rooms. I'm working on it. The living room is looking more '50s minimalist these days which is a start.

But I can only achieve this if I stop feeling guilty and become unsentimental about getting rid of Stuff I don't use.  For me, it's very hard to do but I do feel a mix of exultation, lightness and some guilt when I achieve a purge of Stuff.

Do you get the guilts when you move Stuff on out of your place?

Sick Mums and lots of Stuff

My Mum is in hospital at the moment. Given that she is 87, diabetic and a heart patient, she's had a great run and hasn't been in hospital since her triple bypass ten years ago. This visit was courtesy of a gallstone stuck in her bile duct, compounded by a fall which left her weak and lying on the kitchen floor for hours until I, worried that she hadn't answered the phone, raced over to her place and found her there.

So now it's a convalescent home for a couple of weeks until she gets the strength back to walk around again. Until now she hasn't needed a stick or a walker but at the moment can't walk unaided. The fall weakened her physically; her confidence has taken a dive too.

G and I have been staying at her place at weekends since she's been in hospital. Firstly it's been closer to the hospital than where we live; secondly I can collect any clothing, cosmetics and other things she may need.

It's also an opportunity for us to get stuck into maintenance and cleaning around her house while she's not there watching us.

Mum, you see, is old enough to have lived through the Great Depression and WWII; she has experienced hunger; she has experienced having nothing and living in a boarding house with her entire family in one room and shared facilities on the next floor. This has given her the mentality that you HAVE to hang onto everything in case there's another war or depression and things, in general, just aren't available.

So the cupboards in Mum's place are full of stuff from the forties and fifties right through to cheap tat from the $2 shop last year. An old metal Esky that she hasn't used since I was a kid as it's so heavy even unladen. But it's still 'good' so you can't get rid of it. An old electric frypan which I believe is broken but who knows, gosh, it could be fixable. My grandfather's damaged Gladstone bag (now on eBay but don't tell her). My great grandmother's carpet sweeper, a real collector's item (also now on eBay). Suitcases, the type made without wheels, that are totally empty but in the cupboards just in case. I'll never use them. I use the wheely kind. G and I snuck them out and off to Vinnie's where they may find a home with someone who WILL use them.  Old toys from my childhood. I'll flog some of those on eBay too; tin toys and believe it or not the free toys you got in cereal packets are quite collectable.

Then there are the pillows. Mum is sleeping on pillows from the 1950s and won't replace them because they are still 'good'. If lumpy and disintegrating is 'good' then let me know. We had similar pillows forced on us for our bed when we stay over. They went in the bin ages ago - we didn't tell Mum - in favour of new ones from Big W. I have now replaced Mum's pillows. In case she freaks I have put, to my regret, her original ones in her linen press.

Mum uses the area under her house - earth floor, under the floorboards, rather like a cellar but you can only crawl in there - for storage too and on Sunday G and I unearthed (almost literally!) an old rusting electric heater circa 1965, three rusting birdcages, a broken electric instantaneous water heater and the racks from her old dishwasher (kept in case of handiness but not used in 20 years). There was also a bag of ancient ugg boots. Jesus. This lot is going for council cleanup.

So far, aside from the above, we have filled two big bin liners with stuff she doesn't use and won't miss, stuff which is totally useless or broken or mouldy or manky.

The issue really is that at some point we may have to move in with her to be carers rather than let her go to a nursing home. Leaving her home permanently would kill her off; she designed the place, she built it.

In order to move in though we'll have to have room for our own stuff. Stuff we actually use on a daily basis as well as keepsakes and ornamental stuff. At the moment there's no room for us if we have to move in. So we're doing some surreptitious cleaning and sorting while she's not there to tell us what can go and what can't. It sounds cruel but we're working on the cupboards where she stores the things least accessed and useable, the cupboards she can only get to via a ladder and she won't be going up ladders any more.

If we do have to move in we'll have to compromise on furniture. Mum has a leather lounge suite which we'd use instead of ours. She has a bigger dining table too, although it's ugly 80s whereas ours is old with French provincial charm. G has a lovely old desk of his Dad's he wants to keep. We'll have to sell some of our stuff I guess and we'll have a surfeit of beds between us. I'm dreading it. As Mum doesn't like to give anything up without a fight, when we move back the house will be even more cluttered. The idea is making me feel ill.

Facing junk and clutter in Mum's house has had one good effect on me though. There was a giant fair at a local school last week. It always has good quality bric a brac. But I didn't want even go. I don't want to buy more stuff, no matter how tempting. We have more than enough.