anyone see this?

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Started 10 months ago by genny
Latest reply from lucy1965
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excess

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genny
Member

Did anyone see this on MSNBC?

http://money.msn.com/retirement-plan/the-great-american-yard-sale-smartmoney.aspx

Basically, this is an article about the excess of stuff in America and how worthless it is because there is so very, very much of it.
I see a lot of the men from Central America who come here to work and find themselves doing grounds maintenance which takes them through the burbs of America. What do they find there but yardsales! This must be quite a surprise to find that, in America, you can live such a well provided for life, if you live off the excess. There is plenty of excess. It seems to be endless.
I see it all the time at yard sales where someone just bemoans the fact that they paid such and such for that item, or that they bought it at such and such a place and now someone wants to buy if for a dollar. The truth is that it is only worth as much as someone wants to trade you for it. The fact that there is so much excess makes most of it pretty worthless. Too many people end up putting all that stuff back in the garage, or just giving it away to write off.

I thought that the article was interesting.

Posted 10 months ago #
shebolt
Member

That was interesting. I used to frequent estate sales and yard sales, and it always depressed me when shoppers were given full access to houses to buy anything, because the heirs just wanted to empty it so they could sell the house. I'd think that we were pawing through someone's precious belongings as if they were nothing.

This, more than anything, helped me detach my identity and sense of self from my stuff.

Posted 10 months ago #
Claycat
Member

It was interesting but depressing. I still need to get rid of a lot of stuff, and I would like to get something out of some of it.

Posted 10 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

@genny - Thank you for posting that article. Like Claycat said, it is depressing. Anytime I go to a dollar store (usually to buy gift wrap of some kind) I am depressed. Have you ever taken a look around and notices just how much complete and utter crap exists? All of that will end up in a land fill at some time or another. 99% of it shouldn't have ever been made in the first place!

Posted 10 months ago #
Sky
Member

Interesting article, Genny. I used to be so caught up in consumerism. I had lists of 'stuff' I 'needed' for each room of my house. You know, the perfect do-dad for every table, counter, wall.... I live 30 minutes from Charleston, SC so the antique shops are unbelievable! What was I thinking? So much of it is gone now and I'll never return to hobby-shopping again.

themusiclives....I feel the same way in every store. It's all crap regardless of the price! We've all been fed a line about value and what we SHOULD want and have. Those marketers sure know how to work us.

Posted 10 months ago #
happymonkey
Member

Sky, I just moved back to Charleston (my hometown) two weeks ago after nine years away. I'm thrilled to be back, but it's true -- the antique shops call out to you when you pass them!! I've avoided them for two weeks, but it's only a matter of time...

Where do you live? I'm just south of Charleston off Hwy 17.

Posted 10 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

@Sky - You're right. And the scary thing? When I go into Target (or just about any store like that) I look around and say, "Wow. There are thousands of Targets filled with the same crap across the USA. Imagine all of the junk!" It's crazy!

Posted 10 months ago #
susanintexas
Member

I had read that when it first came out -- I think the point of this article is that there isn't even a robust market for GOOD stuff, let alone the junk in the dollar store or target. The only sensible value is the value to US, and not some pie-in-the-sky future resale value.

Posted 10 months ago #
Emilie
Member

Another vote for "depressing". My street is having a garage sale at the end of the month, but I'm tempted to just skip it and continue giving things away for free. Last time we had a sale, it was too frustrating to deal with everyone haggling over $1 items. I don't think I made more than $20 that day.

It's kind of sad to think that I don't own anything that has significant resale value. Although I do have a lot of things that are of great value to ME...probably too many ;)

Posted 10 months ago #
chacha1
Member

Great article, thanks for posting genny!

IMO it's not depressing. Sad, yes - but not depressing. I hope that articles like this, and sites like Unclutterer, are contributing to a first-world wake-up call regarding consumption.

I have a feeling that, within my lifetime, landfill mining is going to become a viable business. As natural resources get more and more expensive, manufacturers are going to get more and more ingenious about recycling - and there's a lot of recyclable material in landfills.

As to the developing world ... well, let's just say I'm pretty sure the people in Somalia couldn't care less about what happens to their trash. They're just wondering if they'll be able to eat tomorrow.

My own Stuff ... I love it; we spent a lot of money on it; but you know, we USE it and ENJOY it and, barring disaster, will continue to for many years. I am very fortunate to be in a position of not needing to worry about whether I can make any money selling it; to be in a position of making money by working. I know a lot of people can't do that.

But even if I suddenly had to sell everything off and move to a trailer beside my parents' garage, I wouldn't regret having bought (e.g.) my beautiful furniture. What we spent on it is such a tiny fraction of what we spend on housing and transportation, it's just not worth worrying about.

Posted 10 months ago #
Sky
Member

happymonkey....I'm in Summerville

Posted 10 months ago #
happymonkey
Member

Sky, my best friend has a booth in Tea Farm Cottage (I think that's the name of it). I've been promising her I'd go by and check it out one of these days. We should have an unclutterer meetup!

Chacha1, I like the idea of landfill mining. There's such a vast amount of stuff in them that could be reused/recycled. Awesome concept.

Posted 10 months ago #
Sky
Member

happymonkey, I know exactly where Tea Farm Cottage is. Let me know if you want to meet up.

Posted 10 months ago #
jbeany
Member

Fabulous article! We're reaching a point, with the aging population, that supply for antiques is going to vastly outstrip demand, and the prices are dropping accordingly. Combine that with the learned habit of keeping things so they "increase" in value that so many got from their depression-era parents, and the bottom is completely gone out of the the collectibles market. I had collector friends in a tizzy with what I had priced most of my gram's stuff at the estate sale - and we still had to cut prices even lower to get even a quarter of it to move.

We've got too much stuff - so much that we can't even sell it - but it's not getting to the places that seem most in need of it, even when it gets donated.

The resort town I grew up in hired hundreds of Jamaican workers each summer. They were absolutely astonished by how much we sold at garage sales and for how little. There simply is no supply in most of Jamaica. If they are lucky, there's one dress shop in their small hometown. The wisest workers arrived with nothing but a purse and the clothes on their backs. They spent all their days off buying clothes at the local sales and shipping them home by the box load, to be resold by family in Jamaica for substantial profits. When the season was over, they packed up as many used suitcases as they were allowed to take on the return flight, and stuffed those full of things to resell as well.

My mother and I took a mini-van full of the ones who had been working part-time for our family restaurant to the closest mall, just over 2 hours away. I thought they were all going to pass out from shock. Marcia stood big-eyed at the entrance to the giant JCP store and just kept saying "So Much, So Much!"

Then we took them into the PetCo, and they decided Americans were all insane. "Lizards, bugs, rodents and snakes are not pets!" ;)

Posted 10 months ago #
lazycow
Member

Urgh, reminds me of what my sister and I went through last year when we had to clear out our parents' house. Furniture that my mum saved for for years we couldn't sell. In the end lots was Freecycled and we were so grateful that people wanted to take it so it didn't go to landfill. Even the charity shops - who are inundated with furniture - didn't want it. Sigh.

Posted 10 months ago #
Ella
Member

Only in the USA...?

My Italian teacher who lives in Berkeley had a friend visiting her from Italy. He went out for an afternoon stroll all around the neighborhood, then came back home perplexed. He asked my teacher: "Why are so many people selling their garage?"
:-D

Posted 10 months ago #
Gypsie
Member

@Emilie, next time I have a garage sale, I'm going to have a jar and you can just put in the jar what you feel the item is worth. If you don't think it's worth your money, then just take it!

Posted 10 months ago #
Parsifal
Member

I believe it! I've found through experience while trying to sell off my clutter that the vast majority of mass-produced non-utility items I own are essentially worthless five years later. When was the last time you managed to recoup your investment from a CRT TV, VCR, ceramic trinket from Hallmark or plastic toy that cost $50 at Walmart and $0.27 to make in China?

From TFA: "I've seen people hug toasters because they can remember making toast in the morning," says Hall, the Charlotte liquidator)

What the heck is wrong with people?!? It's just stuff! I guess I just had a lucky upbringing - enough was provided that I don't feel I was deprived, but we did without enough extras that I never learned to desire them.

JBeany - I agree collections are impossible to get rid of now. I'm about to give a pewter fantasy figure collection, acquired for maybe $300 total over years as a child, to a board gamer friend to use as pieces for games. I tried to sell the whole shebang online for $50 OBO with current prices totaling more than that for just a few pieces. How much interest was there? Not one inquiry!

Posted 10 months ago #
genny
Member

I took stuff to SA today. They had cars lined up waiting to unload! So much stuff!!!!
I had a bunch of stuff from my son and his wife who just moved to Canada, today.
I have been freecycling.
Then, I am always the one to haul off stuff from my daughter's house, too.
I am the transfer station, the processing unit for all of our "get rid of's".
The charity shops are bursting at the seams with stuff, most of it not worth a crap.

I used to shop for clothes, but the used clothing market now just reflects the worthless crap that people have been buying for the last decade. And, so much Xmas stuff and worn out linens. Most of it just needs a match set to it.

I don't want to live in a house filled with useless stuff, and I don't want to die with a house filled with worthless stuff that my kids have to deal with.
I urge us all to think very seriously about EVERYTHING that comes into your house. This stuff filters in through some pretty innocent holes. And, it is dammed hard to get rid of, sometimes---often times.

Yes, it is horrific to look at it all in the store and to think of how many times you can multiply that in America. How much pollution and waste is caused by all of that ! Horrors! And, there is little, if any, redeeming value to the vast majority of it. It pollutes our earth and takes our money. Time for us to just say "no" to corporate America with the Walmarts and Dollar Store.

Posted 10 months ago #
Rosa
Member

Parsifal, I feel like I've gotten full value for every CRT TV and VCR and DVD player and electronic game system and CRT computer monitor I've ever owned - except for the Playstation 2 and the Wii, I've never paid more than $5 for any of them (the PS2 replaced a $5 atari and a DVD player of unknown origin) and we use them to til they just stop working entirely. I actually am just now getting rid of a CRT monitor picked up for free when my partner's office went to all flat screens - I think we ran it for 4 more years after they discarded it as obsolete.

We're on our second TV ever. It was a hand-me-down. The one before that came from the curb. It was very small, but I was living a nomadic life, so that was great; about the time it finally gave up the ghost, I was settling down into a permanent space and was ready for a new (to me) TV.

Posted 10 months ago #

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