Selfsufficientish.com

The charity shops are up against sales around the place (January bought forward/closing down sales). It rather takes the effort of the trawl through second hand a bit pointless where the charity shops have fewer racks out.

If it's not on show, the temptation is to hit the sales or not buy.

I've just been to Inverness for a few days. I called in the Edinburgh Woollen Mills closing down sale - nothing there to buy, for me. I was very surprised that a lot of it was 100% acrylic and the one woollen cardigan which I liked had been reduced from £125 to £99. I'm sure they need to make what money they can but it's not much of a reduction - it would have been cheaper in the normal sales. So I went next door and bought a much nicer one - spun, dyed and knitted in the Highlands, for £85. I rarely buy new, mainly because it's so expensive and folks seem so desperate to sell me their rarely worn cast offs but I do like a nice woolly - it will last me years and is quite beautiful.

Edinburgh Woollen Mills don't seem to be reducing very much locally in the Metro Centre either and it's the only branch that seems to be open in kicking distance of the front door. Even the cheap fleece jackets that I use instead of woollies or for round the allotment or for light weight going out - well I found about 5 that were reduced from £15 to £12 which was hardly a closing down sale reduction. At least in the Debenham's liquidation sale most of the stuff seems to be half price.

At the moment it seems hard to buy second hand locally as stuff is not being put out to allow for Covid spacing. And there are some really silly prices in the sales if you are just looking for gardening gear which make you wonder about reduce, re-use and recycle.

Anyone with a car can probably do better with Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree round here.

I finally ordered a proper woollen jumper (Guernsey) online - yes, it's expensive, but I'm prepared to pay that for a British made, British wool, proper jumper - but I haven't got it yet. My fingers are getting too stiff for knitting. I have one jumper (Shetland wool) half finished...

I think half the charity shops here in Newcastle (under-Lyme) have shut up shop and left; I used to really enjoy getting records etc. from some of them :/

Agree Ina - after trashing a number of woollen jumpers over the years I have returned to buying quality products. he first of these was an NZ semi raw wool heavy jumper that sequentially went through all its stages - good, OK for going up the street, great for working out the paddocks and finally the smelly fishing jumper - took the best part of 20 years though.

My first trade / skill/ expertise was as a wool classer, selecting speciality fibre from sheeps back to fabric (sadly a dead skill these days) I am amazed at the rubbish people will buy these days; short fibre, 2 thread spins, garment dyed etc .

Don't knock the rubbish sold Weedo - it's the economy that counts and selling of tat finances government income

Sadly that's true.

Well, I have my wonderful new jumper - and what a difference! I can see myself buying a new one from them every 2 years or so, to always have one for "best", and the one last in line for wearing in bed...

as long as the economy is based on spending growth we lose; growth by its very nature is unsustainable.