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Article:
10 friends live secondhand for a year: Voluntary simplicity also sparks a backlash
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Great article! Very inspiring. I couldn't do the used sheets (or socks or underwear) but we only have one set of sheets per bed and we've been using them for nearly a decade now, washing them once a week and putting the same ones back on but I think if they wore out, I'd buy a good set of new ones to last me another decade. :-)
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I think it's awesome. I could and do, do a lot of that myself. They did say that new underwear was okay (thank goodness!) I love finding second hand things at garage sales or second hand clothing stores.
I think finally, being ecofriendly is becoming trendy. If people new how much we waist and fill landfills with perfectly good things, they would be amazed. Why should we go buy a brand new crock pot, when there is a perfectly good used one sitting on the second hand store shelve for $1. Why should we buy all of our kids brand new name brand expensive clothing, so they can go play outside and get them dirty. Like Kellytime mentioned in the Gymboree post, all we are doing by buying expensive name brand things is teaching our kids how to overspend. I want to teach my kids that overspending on designer things doesn't make you who you are, in fact, I want to teach them that you don't have to buy your happiness at all.
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Treehugger - I feel the same way. I'm trying to become a better person so that my children wont have to struggle with the things that I do.
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"And what we learned is that we all have a lot of more stuff than you think, and that you can get along on a lot less stuff than you can imagine."
Great article. My favorite part is the the quote above...
I also liked the idea that if you can prevent yourself from buying something on impulse then "you see that the craving will pass"...I've always found that when I avoid impulse shopping, I end up buying a lot less.
I could never buy used sheets ...or underwear...or bike helmet (a safety thing for me!).
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I tend to be a bit germaphobic, but buying used sheets would not bother me. And I buy used bras as often as new, and that's technically underwear! I just got a brand new Calvin Klein bra for 1.99. That doesn't bother me at all. Underwear...hmmm well yeah, I'd like my own thanks. Socks would be ok. And sheets, I would just bleach them provided that they were white or off/white. no biggie.
I loved the article.. it is inspiring and prompts me to think of ways I can cut back. I'm not as radical as they are but little things can go a long way.
I just thought of something... I have purchased used cloth diapers ((technically underwear!!!)) on ebay. There's a huge resale market. So it's odd that people will diaper their babies with USED diapers, but cringe at the thought of used undies for themselves. Just a thought... remember I pretty much cringed too! Oh, and I have bought my sons underwear from yard sales. We must be FREAKS