Selfsufficientish.com

It's a comment on our lifestyle that there is a whole industry based on second hand goods - think charity shops, swishing shops, freecycle, gumtree and eBay. Something somewhere seems not right that we can at least go look for used stuff if we are short of cash or on a tight income. Or that people can think of selling second hand, unused or unwanted gifts on eBay

I can understand children's gear where they grow out of toys, bikes, scooters, clothes and things are still in good condition or house clearing. But for goodness sake, so much stuff is available second hand it's ridiculous. Whatever happened to using stuff till there is no more wear in it? Or that people should actually be given unwanted gifts!

There seems something not quite right ethically that we should treat goods like this.

You are quite right. I can't remember ever giving anything to a charity shop unless it was an unwanted gift... And unfortunately I keep getting them. Being too lazy to want a discussion with those people who are giving them to me - and probably being afraid that these people will then turn away from me because they think it's personal against them, rather than those presents - I never dare tell anybody that I've just "recycled" about 90% of all those presents I got - again...

I'll readily admit to using eBay , second hand and charity shops. I also have traded goods I've acquired through clearances or even by customers simply giving me stuff along with the line " can you take this , someone might have a use for it" . Only this week the other half was chuffed to find shirts for me and a dress and tops for our daughter in charity / junk shops and just before Christmas I was happy to acquire a 30 year old East German army jacket.
That said I have to fully agree with flo , virtually nobody keeps things till they wear out nowadays ( members of this forum notwithstanding ) . My sister in law often comments that my clothes aren't fashionable ( so the East German jacket had an earful) or that there are patches on some of my working clothes or that our tv ( sorry that's SH too) isn't the latest HD , size of Belgium model or .......so on and so on.
To be honest I've had this attitude for decades. I think I've mentioned before my father worked at a council tip for some time and brought home all sorts of stuff. I lost count of the number of times I heard "all it wanted was a new fuse / filter clean / sharpen / drop of oil / new this or that minor bit "

My Dad's favourite saying was "You get what you pay for" and that, in part, shapes my secondhand purchases. I'll wait until I find a really good quality item - especially stuff I probably couldn't afford new. My other consideration is being able to buy spare parts for it, which again tends to come with better quality stuff. An example is my "new" oven - a Fisher and Paykel double oven - a thing of beauty and will hopefully last us for ever as we can get parts - £50 on Ebay. We definitely couldn't have afforded a new one of those. That's probably why it's taken eight years to get my kitchen sorted!

My clothes are often secondhand but rarely get sent to charity shops as I wear them to the death. The boots I've just bought look like new and would have been about £120ish if they were - £45 and hopefully will again last many years, like the pair they've replaced.

I can't believe some of the things folk chuck out (I count donating to charity under this heading) - no wonder some people have massive debts.

One thing I forgot to add was the trend of late for ripped jeans. My daughter has asked us about getting some for her so we'll probably try the charity shop route first but I do struggle with the concept really. If I patch up the holes in the knees of my jeans it's "scruffy" to some but if I leave the holes it's "trendy " or fashionable .I recently went shopping with my daughter and commented on the number of girls mainly with ripped jeans so we ended up counting and got to double figures within minutes.

Can you buy said daughter second hand jeans and let her style them for herself?

Sorry , yes that was the plan , didn't really make myself clear .Cheap charity shop jeans , rip and wear.

I realise I'm actually quite fashionable at the moment... My jeans do have rips (and stains), and are frayed along the seams - mind you, obtained the oldfashioned way through lots of wear and tear!

I turned down an expensive office chair for the computer desk in the local charity shop because the arms were well worn. They wanted £50. Now I have found out how expensive a decent, long lasting office chairs are!

Yesterday I made a notice board on an area of wall useless for anything much. I used a packet of cork tiles - the last remaining of a batch we bought 27 years ago to do up the bathroom. They have moved with us in two house moves but I knew I'd find a use for it eventually. Being a hoarder just occasionally pays.

That will teach me not to keep up with the local freecycle as there was a lovely office chair that would have suited but which went immediately. Sigh. No idea why such a good item was going free though - lots of wear left in it.

Flo wrote:. No idea why such a good item was going free though - lots of wear left in it.

Some years ago I worked for a firm that did work for the banks. Some of it was complete refurbs , tearing out perfectly good interiors just to replace with new( tearing out is accurate as well , very rarely was there any time to carefully remove anything for possible reuse ) , but at other times it was replacing or changing office furniture . Some was simply thrown and some put into storage but judging by the dust in one of these stores ( near Loggerheads I seem to recall) probably never came out again.

This chair I missed was from a private householder! Looked almost new!

At least when I worked for the local National Park they did try to do refurbs on old computers that might be fit for home use and offer them round before going to the skip for electrical disposal. Don't know if they still do as that was many years ago.

I may have told this story before I'm not sure but I'll tell it again. Around 12-13years ago my other half was working in an office. The firm was shutting down and she had the option of redundancy or moving to a different office 30 miles away. She accepted redundancy and to cap it all because the firm needed to empty the premises the workers were told they could have what they wanted except for the electronics and computers . My wife had loads of box files , paper , some large pot plants , a nice waterproof jacket and even unscrewed the paper towel dispenser from the wall. She also had a couple of swivel office chairs. We kept them until recently when one went on free cycle. Ok so the seat was ripped along one edge but the guy who picked it up wasn't bothered with that.

I'm sure the towel dispenser came in very handy