I was a big shopper when I was young, spending my student loan in the fresher sales, but when the pandemic hit I thought it would be a great time to learn to sew. Companies do a great job of making people crave the latest shiny metal casing when, most of the time, the components inside are fairly generic and probably not even made by the same brand you think you’re buying. People are sold a phantom when it comes to technology. Handing down my old computers has taught me a lot about how wrapped up in perception a lot of consumerism actually is. She is happy with the free stuff, and when the components finally hit the recycle dump they will have been in service for up to 15 years. My mother is 83 and only really needs the icon that fires up the internet so she can get on email and Zoom (which she’s got massively into in the past couple of years). I had to upgrade everything over lockdown, and really wasn’t comfortable chucking perfectly serviceable components into a skip. I’m an animator so I use high-end computers and graphics cards for my job. Sam Hopes, 33, Lancaster Give unwanted hardware a loving home You can give almost anything away – someone, somewhere will want it. Plenty of people struggle to pay for all the things their young child needs. We’ve already given away her 0-3 months clothes and we’re looking forward to donating her 3-6 months wardrobe soon. People can be so generous, particularly with baby things, and it feels really nice to be able to do the same. The toys are great and once she’s done with them, they get sent back and replaced with something different. We recently bought her a toy subscription from Whirli, too. We’re determined not to end up with a house full of horrible plastic that gets used once and forgotten about, so we got all her toys, often for free, from Facebook Marketplace. We had a baby in June and have managed not to buy anything new: almost all her clothes are at least secondhand. ‘We bought our baby a toy subscription – we are determined not to end up with a house full of plastic.’ Photograph: Tara Moore/Getty Images Nicola Parisi, 36, Manchester Spoil your new baby with secondhand treats Furnishing our house this way has been a win for our self-esteem, wallets and the planet. I think everyone should ask themselves if they really need that new item, or if it’s an opportunity to be creative and give a beautiful object a second chance. We dismantled it and adapted it for our kitchen we were complete beginners but we’ve managed to tackle all the building work and plastering ourselves and it feels good knowing that we’ve saved so many items that otherwise would have ended up in a skip. Time and time again, we’ve been surprised by people’s generosity: we got a practically new TV stand from our neighbours and an unwanted solid-wood kitchen completely free. We decided to challenge consumerism by getting it all free from Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace. Besides, why buy new when the world is saturated with quirky used furniture? Not for us – we weren’t comfortable with filling our new home with stuff that’s going to be in landfill in a few years. For many, it would have been tempting to go to Ikea and furnish the house in one day. It was unfurnished and needed considerable work, including a new kitchen and a new bathroom. Everyone agreed, however, that turning their back on a culture that constantly demands more from consumers came with financial and environmental benefits, not to mention a feeling of smug satisfaction that money simply can’t buy.Įarlier this year, I bought an old house with my partner. Responses ranged from revolutionary changes such as giving up buying new clothes to subtler tweaks such as making sandwiches rather than buying a plastic-encased meal deal. With Black Friday marking the start of a frantic month of Christmas shopping, we asked our readers to get in touch about the ways they have challenged consumerism.
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