<p>I don’t think I buy a lot of “stuff” other than clothing. </p>
<p>Anyway, I opened the thread based on the subject heading (well, of course, duh). But it got me to immediately think of a musical my daughter wrote and put on sophomore year of college. The name of it was “Stuff: The Musical.” Yes, truly…fits this thread to a T! It was about the culture of excess! I saw it. Think of this thread as a musical. That was her show.</p>
<p>I’ve found having a kid or two in college or approaching college is a great cure for the “must have stuff” feeling. H keeps insisting he wants to replace our refrigerator. Why I ask. Because it’s 16 years old, he says. But it still works fine, I say. So far, I have won that battle. It also blends in with my 30 yo stove, and 16 yo oven and dishwasher, all of which still work perfectly.</p>
<p>Hopefully, once we are done with college tuition, we will upgrade the kitchen. Or we could use that money to travel. Hmmmmmm</p>
<p>Frankly, if there is anything good in this current economic crisis, it may be the end, or at least curtailing, of American consumerism. I have hated this “buy, buy, buy” mentality of Americans for years…the need for bigger, better, newer. I thought Bush’s “advice” after 9/11 to GO SHOPPING was insane.</p>
<p>If nothing else, I hope people will relearn how to conserve, reuse, recycle. No one needs all the crap they have.</p>
<p>A lot of the " stuff " I buy keeps local people employed.</p>
<p>Some funny posts above. I keep telling my D about how little I possessed when I was her age. No cell phone, no I pod, no calculator, no computer…I had a bicycle from Sears, and when I was a HS senior, a stereo from EJ Korvets (any NYers out there). For those of you from other places, EJ Korvets was a name derived from eight jewish korean war vets, who started a discount type department store, now long defunct. I also remember holiday gifts that people got like underwear, socks, sweaters…not Wii.</p>
<p>anothermom, Yep, my H and I remember Korvets. I did have a calculator. My parents had to buy one for me when I was one of 2 females in our high school physics class. That calculator cost $100 (and that was just… ahemm, a few decades ago). That calculator could do a lot of things, but not what calculators can do today! Heck, in junior high I was still taught how to use a slide rule.</p>
<p>The scariest stuff story was after my mom died, and we had to go thru her “stuff”, dad is the infamous pack rat, garbage recycler, old bikes he thinks my kids could use,“all they have to do is get a new tire tube, or new seat” mentality. So to ease his attachment to her “stuff”, brother and I did the task. Makes one really want to destuff yearly, or at least once a decade to save kids from doing this task at some point in the future.
She liked to sew, we must have found 20 suitcases FULL of yards of fabric, never used, another 2 suticases FULL of unsued sewing patterns.
Plaid from the 70’s, felt, velvet, flannel.It was obscene. All I could imagine was all the money wasted, that and she was an impulse buyer, cured me of that family trait,
Though I have a teen that is the ultimate gadget nerd/impulse buyer/QVC watcher, wants those extension things that grab items 3 feet away. For what I ask, “So I don’t have to get out of my chair to get it”.</p>
<p>I used a slide rule for advanced physics in HS (maybe that’s why it was so HARD!)</p>
<p>Anyhoo, I disagree that we must buy more for the sake of the economy. If everyone needed less stuff, then they wouldn’t need as much money to buy it. Let the whole thing float downward.</p>
<p>We have too much stuff. H and I are trying to only acquire what we need for specific reasons. Anything used, re-used, made from scratch, or remade from something else seems good to us. Most of our furniture is used or home-made. The constant replacement of perfectly good technologies is puzzling to me. DVDs just replaced VHS; now we need Blu Ray? The movies look good enough to me.</p>
<p>Same with TV. Somehow it was watchable previous to HD. Now, no one can go back, apparently. Video game systems change by the year. Ipods are essential. Phones “need” to be updated constantly.</p>
<p>My D, who doesn’t have an Ipod, wrote a great blog about her discman which she’s had since HS (she’s 26 now). When the Discman doesn’t work, she can throw it against the wall and get it going again. Don’t try this with an Ipod! </p>
<p>Obviously, we do buy some stuff. I’m on a computer; she wrote a blog on a computer. But we stop at what works; we’re not looking for updates and newest technology. </p>
<p>I agree with dstark. I think that ultimately, buy less is more patriotic. Because it’s more healthy.</p>
<p>And not only is the stuff itself expensive, there are the additional stuff useage fees that will eat into your budget. Additional costs for the cell phone fees, the cable tv/satelitte fees, netflix and music download fees, onstar fees, satellite radio fees. </p>
<p>If your new stuff is too large to transport home in your car, there’s the additonal stuff delivery fee. </p>
<p>And, to add insult to injury, in a lot of cases if your stuff no longer functions, you can’t just throw it away. Factor in the stuff disposal fee.</p>
<p>stereo from EJ Korvets (any NYers out there).“”</p>
<p>E J Korvettes … I always heard that it stood for the founders, who were “eight Jewish Korean Veterans.”</p>
<p>swimcatsmom your daughter sounds like mine…she wants a pasta machine for Christmas and William Sonoma gift cards instead of the usual clothing store cards. For my birthday last June my husband took me to a cooking store outlet and got me a few things…one was a Calphalon roasting pan…they had a special 2 for 1… We gave the 2nd one to my daughter…it was many years before I had such nice cookware.</p>
<p>Allmusic, I certainly hope most people don’t share your disdain for consumerism , as that is how my family earns a living , as well as the people we employ.</p>
<p>Don’t single me out----other people on the thread also have agreed that Americans consume far too much, and much of what we are programmed to buy is unnecessary. Jobs are being lost all throughout the economy, and fewer purchases in the consumer sector will be another by-product of a failing economy. </p>
<p>I feel for everyone losing jobs, since we are all at risk. The fact remains though, that we use too much in this country, and there will have to be some scaling back.</p>
<p>I’ve contended with “Stuff” problems for the last 18 years. In my first marriage we lived pretty austerely with all furniture except a sofabed and mattresses bought at Aunt Sally’s and Goodwill. Then I divorced and married a widower who owned a huge house totally filled with items from his late wife’s life. Think every piece of her clothing from high school on. Bags of unsorted photos and slides that totally filled the floor of the guest room–there was a path to the bed. “Collectibles” crammed into the eaves. It took me 2 years to clear it out and move back into my house that had been rented out. When we returned I discovered that my parents who had moved away after becoming friendly with my tenants had filled MY house with their stuff they couldn’t sell at their many garage sales. Think items marked 10 cents. That sort of thing. Once again I cleared more c…p. Then my H sold his business and trucks started arriving with much of the stuff I thought had gone when we sold his house. Instead he had just taken it to his business and stored it in the warehouse. It filled the oversized 2 car garage. We barely made a dent in it before he died. Then it took 1 1/2 years for ME to clear out a house once again. I have moved to a small condo 'cause I know none of the kids will ever live with me full time again. There now is a great incentive to not bring an unecessary item into my home.</p>
<p>silvervestersmom, I think you are talking about a different issue in a way. You are talking about saving everything. I am guilty of that myself. </p>
<p>But I don’t think we buy a lot of “stuff.” In fact, I read about a lot of stuff on CC that either I don’t have, can’t afford, or never heard of! Here, I read about things like plasma TVs (not sure what it is), TIVO (not sure what that is), Blackberries (don’t have 'em), remodeling kitchens (never could do such a thing, though my kitchen is just fine), etc. We never buy anything for our home. I wish I could sometimes. Our cats wrecked the upholstered furniture and I know I can’t replace any of it. The one thing we do buy is clothing. I have always had some new clothes each year and I have two daughters and they do too. I guess that is not a total necessity. But I can’t think of much else I ever buy (not including food or other supplies). My family all has cell phones but just the basic type. My kids do have an IPod (these were either graduation, birthday or holiday gifts) but one of my kids is in a field with music and music is part of her work…she must have her music and also record her own music. My other kid is not in a music field but music is a major thing in her life and she listens to her IPod as she does her work round the clock in her studio at grad school (her sister bought her nice headphones as a present even). My kids are not lacking and neither am I. But I don’t really shop and I don’t go out and buy stuff. We do not do XMas. I can’t think of a whole lot that I buy other than necessities, clothing, and stuff the kids need for school (or in the past, for their ECs). Right now, just buying their education is the BIG expense we have. :)</p>
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<p>My aunt had a house like that, filled with boxes of stuff she accumulated by shopping at discount stores and liquidations. The whole house was a gigantic maze with paths around piles and piles of stuff.</p>
<p>My neighbor once joked that we were “un-American”, because we always parked our cars inside our garage.</p>
<p>true, Allmusic… you are not the only one but your opinion about it being good to end consumerism and " insane" that Bush urged Americans to go shopping post 9/11 strikes a chord with me. That advise opened the doors to entrepreneurs of all sorts including my husband and I.
Remember the ads about NYC tourism urging people to come back into the city ? Before that, the theatre industry as well as many other sectors of tourist related business really suffered .
No one needs to go out to eat in a restaurant. No one needs to have their nails done. No one needs to indulge in a hobby such as golf or skiing.</p>
<p>Many people in this country earn their livings on this type of consumerism and when anyone wishes it would end, they are sliding down a slippery slope</p>
<p>Again, I realize you are not the only one posting here who feels this way …I recycle as much and probably more than the avg person but I also understand the importance of small businesses as well as larger corporations</p>
<p>Why do we need to have a roof over our heads? We can live in woods, gather berries and dig up roots. We will be very healthy, no need for health care, when time comes, we just die. We will delinately live in total harmony with nature.</p>
<p>lje, I agree that I hope people do not stop buying goods and services. Many make their livelihoods off that sort of thing, in small businesses.</p>
<p>I promise to keep shopping and buying as long a I am able. This weekend we bought a new fridge and dishwasher. The old ones were ugly and old. The new ones are even rated very energy efficient.</p>
<p>I certainly wish the best to all small business owners and a livelihood for those in the arts . </p>
<p>But I also hope for a society with equal access to health care and education for all. A roof, and a bed for all that want and need one. Strong bridges and functioning public transport. </p>
<p>I see a disconnect in the push to shop our way toward a healthy economy, and the fact that there are many real needs which will not be solved with more shopping. The economic focus just seems to be wrong, in my uneducated opinion. I see beautiful schools and bridges built during the depression of the 1930s, due to efforts to benefit society as well as the lives of the unemployed workers. I’d rather see a society with better infrastructure, and a fair share for all, than one with a plethora of HD TV and SUVs.</p>
<p>But how do we get there? I’d hope for better minds than mind to figure this out.</p>