https://www.dw.com/en/eu-ban-on-destroying-unsold-clothes-takes-effect/a-78024888

I think this is pretty important and a step in the right direction... not completely related to anticonsumption but I thought this might spark an interesting exchange of ideas.

The public library offered a mending class this afternoon. I learned a running stitch, back stitch, and hem stitch. Plus, they provided us with instructions and some basic sewing supplies to take home. I usually take my pants to a tailor to get hemmed, but I am feeling pretty confident after the class. I’m looking forward to fixing a shirt and fixing the hem on a pair of pants myself.

We also touched on a few different techniques for mending clothes that includes artistic expression with it. It was a fantastic class!

Hi all, I just felt the need to share in the hopes of getting helpful tips and maybe some commiseration.

My teen daughter is visiting this weekend and I came up with the idea of a Wizard of Oz themed family fun day. I am making cowardly lion chili (i.e. very mild chili) with "yellow brick road" cornbread and my kid is making a themed dessert. And we will watch the movie as well.

Well, my mom chimed in on our group text with "I'll bring themed gift bags!" She likes to buy us useless plastic shit, and gross dollar store candy I'd never put in my body. I donate what I can, toss some of the smaller things into my "nostalgia bin", and throw away the rest. I am against all of the pointless gift giving in general for not only anticonsumption and environmental reasons, but also I can't stand clutter.

I've brought this up before with my mom. Repeatedly. And yet, she keeps doing it, and usually I go with the flow, "She's old, let her have her fun. It's harmless". But it doesn't feel harmless. I mean we're killing the environment. Heat domes every other week. Lakes running dry. So today I texted back as gently and tactfully as I could to please not go to crazy with the gift bags, I don't eat candy, I don't need more plastic junk. My daughter chimed in with "Yeah the stuff is cute but will just end up in a landfill".

After a few hours my normally effervescent mom replies with: "Ok." That period at the end! She seems deflated. I replied and said sorry, wasn't trying to be a wet blanket". Still no reply hours later.

Am I the asshole here? Should I let a 69 year old woman have her fun? I feel like I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. I don't wanna be a buzzkill. But I also don't want useless plastic shit that clutters my home while also harming the environment by being produced and shipped! Has anyone navigated this delicate topic with aging parents?

I was so disappointed the last time I went to Kohl's and in order to get to the registers, you have to walk through two full aisles of the impulse buying garbage before you get to the registers. It didn't used to be this way, either. It has only been a recent thing too. Do they think anyone actually buys this shit? We just want to check out and leave.

Hook came of my chalk line, and I couldn’t find it. Pop can tab to he rescue.

i feel crazy because i go to do my nails sometimes (since im a biter and sometimes they hurt unless i get nails) and even then its way too overpriced at this point. Thats at a basic salon though. These at home nail techs that keep popping up charge about $200 each session. It’s crazy to me that people are paying that much for them to just grow out in 2 weeks.

I eventually realized i need to just buy less and recycled instead of bulking env friendly or thrifted stuff

I call this the "buying" season. It starts with back to school, then all the fall/pumpkin buying, followed by Halloween and then the winter holidays. It usually doesn't peter out until mid-January, after the after-Christmas sales.

These are things I am being told I need to buy, that I am NOT buying:

1. Brand new school supplies. We have most of what we need here at the house and from years past. They also tell you to buy a ton of stuff, and then it comes home in June never having been used.

2. New Fall/back to school fashion. We all have jeans, boots and sweaters. My kids also have closets full. We will be going through our clothes before school starts, moving ill-fitting clothes to younger kids, and gifting items we can no longer wear to families with younger kids.

3. Holiday decor of any kind. I have more than enough. It's not new, it's not revolutionary, it's the same stuff every year.

4. Gifts for adults. Honestly, I've talked to everyone in my life, and we all decided to forgo gifts wherever we could. We all have enough stuff. I do not want another candle, blanket or body spray. Neither do my friends.

5. Extra food. I used to have a ton of anxiety around the holidays and buy a ton of expensive food and sides to pass around and share with everyone. Food is too expensive now to be doing that, and I find I'm often the only one showing up with shrimp cocktail or a cheese/meat tray. I will make some more cookies this year, and use those as a pass-around when I go visiting. I will reserve the "good" meal for my immediate family on Christmas Day.

What are some of yours?

This ad had the nerve to show up, but none of the sense to be able to stay. REPORTED!!

AI is a blight, for sure; but intrusive ads annoy me more. How about you?

I was recently spending some time brainstorming for capsule wardrobes and organizing it. Pinterest has started adding ads as panels which are usually pretty normal but I kept seeing these Amazon "creators pick" photos/ ads of hyper consumerist closets like it's totally normal to have 30+ pairs of blue jeans or 50 tan and white sweatshirts. It was so off putting the first time I saw it and I was shocked that this is the advertisement that's being pushed. It's crazy to me that this is perceived as something to strive for or even have? It's disgusting, it's gross, it's toxic and makes me sad and upset. It feels like it's pushing clothing as "collect them all" rather than anything remotely functional.

I was scrolling on one of the apps recently and saw someone with a meltable smelly wax hoard. In the video they were talking about how proud they were to have not spent over $180 on an order from the specific wax vendor, but then they went on to talk about how they placed several other orders worth hundreds of dollars, and this was only for the month. They talked about their order plans for the next month while sitting in a sea of wax bars. I was shocked, then I scrolled their page for a while and discovered that they have dressers and dressers in every room in the house (literally) full of unused wax melts. As in 2-3 dressers per room with the drawers full to the brim with wax melts. Random bins of wax melts everywhere too.

It got me thinking. How many people in my life have shopping addictions. What are common consumption trends that as a society are largely overlooked? I don't know anyone in my life as extreme as the wax melts lady, but I do have family members who have the tendency to focus on specific items and acquire a lot of them.

A family member of mine compulsively buys clothes weekly. Has two closets overflowing full of clothes they've never worn. Clothes shoved under beds, clothes piling up at the laundry, clothes absolutely everywhere. They cannot leave a store without some clothes. Clothes, clothes, clothes.

Another family member buys a specific expensive brand of makeup and skincare products, and at every family get together they give my household a giant canvas bag full of samples and unused products. This brand isn't a MLM style one, and there are no benefits to buying in excess to my knowledge. The last family get together was 2 years ago and my household is not even halfway through the products.

I do wonder about the psychology behind a lot of it too. Is it the initial dopamine hit that gets them? Is it deeper rooted insecurity? Is it a safety behaviour? Is it all of it combined?

Anyways, I guess I was just curious if you have people in your life with the excessive need to consume certain genres, and how it manifests for them? Do you notice any common denominators for them? Actually, really for anyone who overconsumes- it doesn't just have to be people you know. What patterns are you noticing? Does it help you or motivate you to consume less? I know for me seeing my family member's clothing piles has motivated me to have 40 clothing items in total.

To be clear, I was never a super active reseller. I never pursued it to make money, never bought things with the express purpose of flipping them for the resale value. Basically, I just wanted to get rid of my crap. And I was aware that by giving it to the thrift store, I might as well put my crap in the trash because of how overwhelmed thrift stores are. So I started reselling my stuff on ebay, depop, poshmark, etc. Not for expensive at all, sometimes for just a few dollars, anything to get the item to someone I thought wanted it and would help divert waste. Recently I even branched into Vinted. In the past few months, those reselling platforms have EXPLODED. But not all business is good business. Customers have gotten cheaper and meaner and complain about every little thing, sometimes making up issues to scam you out of your money. I recently got a couple bad reviews on my shops for things that were not my fault, people just being dumb and finding every problem they can with a $3 item that arrived exactly as described. I got super nervous about what would happen if I got too many bad reviews on my shops. Would I no longer be able to sell anymore? Would people not want to buy from my shop if I had bad reviews? What if I didn’t have this avenue to unload my junk anymore?

And then I realized that this should not be a source of stress in my life whatsoever. Rather than stressing about how I’m going to ethically and sustainably unload my crap on other people, what I really should be doing is being intentional about what I bring into my life and consume in the first place. In this day and age, it is too easy to get rid of your junk and pretend that it didn’t even exist in the first place while ignoring the downstream consequences of your actions. Or to even benefit from getting rid of your junk by recouping a few dollars here and there. But for those of us that care about minimizing consumption, the key realization is that it’s not about how ethically you can get rid of your stuff. What’s important is not acquiring that stuff in your life in the first place. if it was any more difficult for me to get rid of stuff I don’t want anymore, I would 100% think a lot more about every purchase I make. when we can’t be rid of the mess and chaos as easily as we acquired it, we avoid reaching that state in the first place.

to be clear, I have nothing against reselling platforms in general. I think it’s important to buy secondhand whenever possible and whenever I am at the market for something I always look secondhand. I’m just pointing out how even things that seem sustainable and environmentally conscious can become unsustainable if not used with intent and care! hopefully my learning experience helps you too

My minimalist painting setup!

One of my favourite things about a low-consumption lifestyle is how it keeps things so accessible. Painting is for everyone, and you can bring it anywhere :)

The details:

My notebook was an old one from a friend, I've had the brushes for years, and I repurposed a Tupperware for a palette & water (WHICH if you're an artist is actually the best hack ever bc extends paint life, the humidity keeps it moist) and my paints were about $8 from an independent art store. I like to challenge myself to only use primaries & white (and a burnt sienna for oils).

I'd love to see what other low-consumption artists and creatives are making 🌞