S/O Stanley Cups, thinking about ethical consumption?

I picked "Maybe about half the time, I'm mildly concerned with my consumption" but I don't think I'm half. I typically start really getting concerned/thinking about this at Christmas. I find myself really having to search for ideas for gifts for my family. Not because they have so many options but because they already HAVE so much, and I cannot stand seeing stuff shoved away, not used. We are also not a luxury brand family - meaning, no one really has any interest in high end fashion items like clothes & shoes, purses, or perfumes. I don't begrudge anyone who does, my family just doesn't have need for that stuff in our lives.

I watched a bunch of reels and TTs on all these influencers who had thousands of dollars in Xmas "hauls" - lots of expensive makeup and purses. I just wonder if these young adults will be really upset when Christmas doesn't look like that? Or maybe it always will bc the parents/family are weathly.

I also watch some reels & TTs of dumperster diving and it REALLY hurts my heart when I see what companies throw away, esp Burlington and TJMaxx. I am sure there are rules, but why can't they donate all the clothes??? I'm talking pjs and backpacks and lunch boxes and coats, all things so many kids in school could use. Instead, people are told to slash and trash, so when the diver pulls out stuff, most is unusable bc the items are ruined. B&BW and Ulta and stuff - they make a "soup" but lots of times, they can pick through and find unopened bottles - they just wash the makeup off. The candles are often slammed to break, but sometimes they are just put in a bag and placed in the trash.

We kind of touched on this topic last year, when I asked about returning a B&BW candle that I had already burned, so I think back to that discussion a lot.

I think about this topic a lot! Starting a few years ago, I made a conscious effort to make a break with fast fashion, and focus on buying quality, classic clothing. This roughly coincided with my return to the office, so I had to quit wearing leggings anyway. Now, almost all my clothes are white, camel, navy and black, but they are all pieces that will last for years. I do still buy my jeans from Old Navy, but I'll wear those for years as well.

My challenge now is shoes. I'm really trying to restrain from purchasing more shoes, but IT IS SO HARD!

Hi, OP sliding in LOL 😆

My post was about how people ruin the fun for others by buying up stock and reselling ut for way more than it should. Then the aspect of those who spend the money and feed those who overcharge for an item.

This also happened with the CVS Puffer Jacket Snoopy. A $20 Snoopy is selling for upwards of $300.

I collect Peanuts and Snoopy. I am not paying that.

Did I pay $20 more for the pink Yeti color I wanted that just retired? Yes. But it's my only large Yeti (I also have a 10oz) and is used every day. It was sold directly from Yeti as well. I wasn't feeding the addiction of an off seller.

Having lived through the formula shut down and seeing stores and people sell the available formulas for almost double the price upset me. There were families who couldn't spend $5000 to feed their baby/child. We had to take out a $10,000 loan to feed our son.

My point was about buy outs and resell and that until people stop overspending for items not really needed (cup, Snoopy) it won't stop.

Fortunately for formula, the government stepped in.

I tried to sell extra formula for below cost and because I don't have a business I couldn't because I needed the tax forms and name registered to sell it so it could be tracked and they could see I wasn't raising the cost.

I feel bad for those who would have liked to get a cup.

On top of that the frenzy of it all. People running for a cup. Pushing. Grabbing more than 1.

More in a bit about this thread.

That's just rude and self-congratulatory. People like that put down strangers on the internet so they feel better about themselves. Sad little trolls are not worth your stomach acid.

Thanks for bringing this up. I'm a co-chair of an environmental committee and I live in an area where the ecosystem is very fragile but our local economy is completely reliant on it. I'm on the warpath about plastic and fast fashion. Retailers like Forever 21 and H&M make clothing to be worn a handful of times. Then it gets dumped in a landfill. I refuse to use single-use plastic shopping bags and I just started using detergent sheets instead of pods.

Christmas in our country is a much more commercial holiday than other places in the world resulting in so much waste.
Goody bags full of little plastic crap from the Dollar Store just make me crazy. I saw firsthand how China's air, water, and soil are so polluted that it's a health issue. Don't even get me started on balloons. There is a local non-profit trying to raise awareness about how harmful they are.

I'll step off my soapbox now. Here are a couple of links:

Plastics Free Initiative

Balloons Blow--Don't Let Them Go

The Story of Plastic

I'll be honest, I never really thought about ethical consumption until about 2 years ago. I grew up without a lot of money, and my family did without more often than not. I was pretty low income until I went back to school in my mid twenties. I now live a more comfortable life than I ever have. In years past that has lead to a way of thinking for me of "well I can afford it now, and I want it so I'm going to buy it." My spending was severely out of control because I justified most of my purchases this way.

Two years ago I did a spring cleanout because I was feeling overwhelmed by stuff. It was shocking to me the amount of stuff that came out of my house. Bags and bags, boxes and boxes. I donated everything that could be donated, but at the end of the day, that stuff is still out there, and will eventually find its way into a landfill somewhere.

That cleanout really made me re-evaluate a lot of my thinking - why I buy stuff, what kind of stuff, and the mental gymnastics my brain does to justify buying things. It came down to a couple of things for me - 1 - I get extremely overwhelmed by stuff. So although the initial purchase makes me feel good, I'm worse off mental health wise when those purchases accumulate. I get anxious and depressed by the clutter of stuff. 2 - there is so much goods today that are made cheaply, and are made to be trendy (fast fashion is the first to come to my mind.) I think we have become a throw-away society, and its not a good thing. It is a waste of resources and is going to impact our planet way longer than any of us on this message board is going to be around.

So I shifted my thoughts around my spending habits, and oh boy, it was not easy. That took some real, honest self reflection that made me pretty uncomfortable with myself - how easily I was influenced by others, how I treated myself with buying stuff, and how I justified it. I still struggle, especially when it comes to items that are for my hobbies. That is the one area that I still spend more than I should - or need to.

I did another clean out last spring, and although I really wasn't bringing in new stuff, there was quite a bit that I held on to from the first cleanout. I was able to clear out and donate a lot more. This spring, I pan on doing it again. There will probably be little this time around, because I don't spend like I used to, but I am sure there is still stuff that can go that I still held on to from two years ago.

I'm getting there - I ask myself with every purchase if I really need it, am I just going to be donating it a year or two from now, and why do I think/want to purchase it.

I'm still "shopping" my stash, even after two years. My next step is to work on the purchases for hobbies. I'm shopping my stash for those things too, but I am still brining in, even with a stash of stuff.

I'm also shopping with the quality over quantity thinking. It can be hard, and more expensive up front, but I'm not constantly buying like I did for those items. This is primarily clothes, shoes, and home goods.

I hate shopping so that helps!

My parents were not big consumers and I guess that rubbed off on the rest of us. A couple of decades ago, at Christmas, my sister said, guys, let's come to an agreement, instead of spending time and money buying stuff for the sake of it, let's just make donations to our favourite charities. We all have plenty and don't need loads. The siblings agreed and honestly it was a relief. Children still got stuff until they were a bit older. I do still buy my parents a gift but it was vouchers for the theatre or favourite restaurant and more recently as their health is declining, a hamper full of treats.

A few years later we suggested the same thing to my husband's side of the family and they loved the idea too.

I buy second hand books, happy to read a novel on a kindle but reference books, instruction books, etc I prefer a physical copy.

I have enough craft supplies and have bought very little over the last year. What I have should keep me going for the rest of this year. I underestimated my ability to get things done quickly!

We are at the point in our life that we just want to have far less stuff around us and if something is coming into the house it needs to earn its place. Unwanted but useable items leaving the house are donated or recycled to give them a second life.


Do we really need it? is a very common question in our house.

I find it interesting how those of us who came from backgrounds where the ability to buy things was limited due to financial resources can have such differing responses to that. I am the opposite. I grew up poor; it is only due to the presence of great neighbors and grandparents that we didn't go hungry. And my response could not be more different; I have never liked shopping, probably because in the past it was always just looking as I could rarely buy. These days I can buy what I want, when I want; yet nearly everything that I purchase (save food) is first considered throught the lens of 'do I need this' or 'do I have something that could serve the same purpose'. My daughters (particularly my youngest) have awakened me to the environmental impacts of consumerism; and while it is not the driving force behind most of my purchase decisions, I am always thinking of it in the back of my mind. 

Though the straw is plastic and people have more than 1. I have seen walla of Stanley's. 30+. And at some point those will end up in the landfill.

I look at my scrapbooking stash through the lens of “look at how many of these companies have gone out of business in the years since I bought this stuff!” And it’s astounding. Back in the day when I was buying that stuff for my business 20 years ago, there were so many great small companies to buy from and it was for the most part very high quality product. Now many of those companies have either gone out of business or were swallowed up by bigger companies and the quality isn’t the same, or all the indie stores that sold those products are gone and all the chain stores carry are their house brands which are nowhere near as nice in terms of design and quality.

So while I don’t really NEED 15 cubes of 12x12 patterned paper and cardstock, I know that if I get rid of it I won’t ever have access to anything quite like that again. Yes, there are places to buy patterned paper and cardstock today, but none of it is as nice as what I already have. And now that scrapbooking and paper crafting in general seems to be less trendy than it once was, even the chain stores have scaled WAY back on what they carry for their house brands because all of this stuff is cyclical and they’ve moved on to the next new trend.

Somewhere between always and half. I would like to throw out less plastic... for instance, I got some chocolate for Christmas and totally unnecessarily they came in a hard plastic box. What am I supposed to do with it when it's empty?

Why? Why does my gum need to come in a plastic container?

Those dumb tiny M &M's that come in a small cannister etc, why?

My grocery store sells 18 packs of eggs in Styrofoam, and I won't buy them. DH thinks I'm weird... Eggland's Best jumped from 18 for $4.50 to $6.50, so now I'm buying two 12 packs of eggs just to get them in a paper carton.

Our recycling company doesn't take clamshell packaging, so I won't buy croissants from Costco.


I think about those types of things a lot... and looking at what I just wrote my post is probably not what you were asking.  

I do think about consumption, but not really from an ethical standpoint, but from a self-awareness, self-growth perspective. In the sense that I became aware a long time ago, that I was shopping and buying things to fill some hole that can never be filled by stuff.

One of my newer hobbies has been following clothing blogs, Instas, etc. following the latest trends and how to adapt them to my aging body and style evolution. But these are just monetized ads for consumption--if I buy XYZ I'll be hip and on the cutting edge.

Lately when I look at where I am, I find I don't want to be manipulated any more, and I no longer give a shit about chasing the current. I'm looking at myself in the last third of my life and I want to cultivate a smaller, comfortable (e.g. elastic waists because I finally acknowledge that I have weight fluctuations and don't want to buy/have pants in 3 sizes. A sort of older lady uniform that suits my body type, but isn't dowdy and includes more sustainable (expensive, better made) clothes.

I'm embarking on a Swedish Death Cleaning of my clothes, because I've gotten to the point where caring for all the clothing I have has become cumbersome. This process is not just about clothes and other areas in my house (you're next!), it's about how too much stuff is the antithesis of peace and calm. I was reading something the other day that mentioned a "40 hanger closet" and for some reason that's really resonating with me. I'll never be on of those "10 hanger closet people" but 40 seems achievable.