Our lives being governed by the retail

Very good point indeed gingergirl

I had my first on-line Christmas advert in June.

Thank you for reminding me * Greytin* - should have had the sprouts on by now ????

Halloween and Christmas stock appearing early means that it is impossible to buy gardening stuff. With milder winters gardens need attention most of the year.

GreyTin94, how I detest items being sold before the appropriate season. I make a point of boycotting shops, including charity shops, that display Christmas cards etc before the middle of November - and I tell the shop managers why. I was once told that people buy Christmas cards early to post them abroad - what route are they going to take 4-5 months?

Having worked in retail, the other side of the coin is that no matter how long you have stuff on show for, people still come in on the last day, ie red nose day/Christmas eve etc and want particular things, saying we had those months ago does not help though

Children don't get the same anticipation as we do of it being a special day.
Having hot cross buns all year round seems wrong to me. Why not just have current buns the rest of the year.

Greytin94. If you come to my house you can have all the purple ones you want and all the Snickers and Bounties out of the Celebrations tin.

Check the ‘best before’ or ‘use by’ dates before actually buying any of these pre-seasonal goodies in order to spread the cost of festive spending plans. You will almost certainly find thAt those dates are well before Christmas. Of course, you may feel it’s a good excuse to eat them all yourself ...

Just because stuff is in the shops doesn't mean you have to buy it. andequally why keep going shopping?

I just shop when I need something. I do my weekly shopping from a prepared list and only go clothes shopping when I perceive a need for a specific item of clothing. I am the same online, only look for items when I know I need them.

As for Christmas, many people on tight budgets do start collecting things months in advance. Presents being sent by sea to reduce postage costs, start needing to be sent by October. I bought my first stocking present for this year in this years New Year sales and I have picking odd things up ever since. I already have half a dozen presents in my sock drawer.

I am amazed that people buy sweets for Christmas - and then eat them well in advance. Christmas sweets are always well wrapped and tucked a way in a drawer are soon forgotten. I will probably buy the Christmas sweets in early November and they will be untouched on Christmas Eve.

I agree, it’s all too much.

Craftycat is correct.
Supermarket shelves have to bring in the money. They even charge companies more for the position they want to be in on the shelf.
If the goods didn’t sell they wouldn’t be there.
Of course gransnetters don’t buy them but ‘someone’ certainly does.

I would much rather see Christmas stuff sold during the month of December only, November at the very earliest, but with money being so thin on the ground these days for so many families, being able to buy some stuff earlier is helpful.

On the subject of hot cross buns.

You can buy them in almost every supermarket all year round.
I buy a pack each week from Asda.
Tesco, also have them. Aldi, etc.
I don’t think anything is now seasonal.

PamelaJ1, "If the goods didn't sell they wouldn't be there" doesn't automatically mean they SHOULD be there. (Try this alternative: "If the drugs didn't sell they wouldn't be there". Who would you blame - the pusher or the addict?)

We've also got used to thinking that if any given situation turns a profit, then it's OK. It's become our only means of measuring success, which is shortsighted of us because a finite world can't for ever yield profit. Resources dry up and disappear - and then what?

The world would be a better place if we stopped measuring everything in terms of profit! (And some experts consider sugar to be as addictive and harmful as drugs.) Maybe we shouldn't think it's our duty to buy everything the supermarkets offer us in their desperation to return a profit to their shareholders. "Do I NEED this, or do I just WANT it?"

Sorry, but the Collective Christmas Madness gets to me every year and it's started even earlier than usual!

Grandad Please send me some black market sausages.

New Zealand has TWO Christmases.
Since 19th century, British Kiwis have celebrated a mid-winter Christmas in July/August.

Turkeys, hams and mince pies and other Christmas goods, come into the shops May/June.

Xmas trees go up in restaurants who put on special mid- winter Xmas dinners.

The early settlers, finding it unsettling to have Christmas in hot weather, devised this idea.

One thing people on this thread have not suggested, which surprises me, is what messages we are giving our children and grand-children by pandering to their (quite natural in kids) greed?

If you have a large family, does everyone buy a gift for the children?

Do they then get 6, 10, 30 gifts just because every aunt, gran, relative, friend must buy something?

That's what breeds a generation of consumers and leads to the dis-ease of 'retail therapy'.

You don't need me to tell you, but I will anyway, that Oxfam, World Vision, Trade Aid, Greenpeace, Animal Rescue, Help for Heroes, and a myriad other charities, all have vouchers and cards to give to a child which shows your donation - and that there's a needy world outside their own.
Far more in tune with the real message of Christmas.

Moreover, you don't need to struggle round the shops or spend a fortune (unless you wish) and get crackers about crackers in August.

I heard a young woman spouting on the radio about consumerism and she said 'we are never not shopping'. And I thought - don't be silly. Then I looked around me next time I was out and she is right of many people. They are either shopping real-time or browsing online. It is an illness. Debt in this country is out of control and easy cheap credit means that regardless of whether a person has the actual money they can buy pretty much what they like. It is making people ill and it certainly makes me sick...

I think you are over pessimistic granny4hugs, Most household debt is mortgage debt and something like 45% of all credit card holders pay off the full balance on their card every month. Household debt, is around £2,600, an astronomic amount if you are in the bottom 10% of earners, but for many households,with two incomes coming in, this amount of debt is not unbearable, anyway that is the average and the distribution probably shows that the bigger the income the bigger the debt

You may find this link interesting www.finder.com/uk/credit-card-statistics

...Unless, of course, you come from Yorkshire and have never regarded depleting the bank account as any kind of therapy but more like pulling teeth without anaesthetic.

That's me, BradfordLass

Just in case my Yorkshire (and Scottish) reluctance to part with money isnt enough, I have recently started to remind myself to think of our planet and the environment if I am tempted to buy anything frivolous! ?

Happiyogi, I presume that I meant to point out that some people want to buy them.
You may not, I don’t either so I just ignore it. After the first OMG I don’t let it bother me.

Re: drugs- a slightly different subject I think.

Yes, drugs are different to sugar and fat products. Though, as I said some consider sugar to be an addictive and harmful drug.

For the time being, sugar junkies buy in supermarkets and those seeking drugs go to the street. Though there are moves to legalise some drugs so presumably they'd move indoors too.

I wondered which category costs the NHS more, so had a quick look. Latest figures seem to be 2014 and a Telegraph article reported that diabetes prescriptions were costing NHS £2.2m DAILY at that time.

You're right, I don't want to buy either of the categories! But neither do I feel comfortable just allowing market forces to have free rein and make any old harmful junk easily available - just so long as there's a profit to be made.

BradfordLass and day6 and Mamacaz .....there’s something about a Yorkshire upbringing that never leaves you isn’t there? ?In my case, I think hearing the expression
‘HOW much?!’ Said by relatives in a incredulous tone, buying anything from a pound of carrots to new dining room furniture, leaves it’s mark.
I don’t mind spending money but do want good value for money.Adults also talked of ‘not spending good money on THAT’ and I had an old uncle who always paid cash and wanted a great discount, if it wasn’t to his liking then he said
‘Then I’ll bid you good day’ turn on his heel and walk out.

Greytin nooooooo, not the purple ones! My fave ones.?

No-one has mentioned the joys of being a second-hand shopper, nothing you buy adds to the mound of things already on the planet.

Perhaps because DH's family were antique dealers, perhaps because my grandmother's asthma meant she spent holidays and odd days in Brighton for the benefit of her health and spent her time searching through the antique shops in the lanes, we have always thought second hand before we thought new. We cannot resist a junk shop or auction sale. Furniture gets swapped round our family like other people swap clothes.

Looking round the house I am hard pushed to find any furniture where we were the first owner. Oh, yes, we had a new sofa last year, after the previous one fell to bits. Our house is over 500 years old (so it construction was emission free), our cars at least 10 years old and run until they are scrapped.

We even now deal in antiques as a hobby, DH spent a blameless day yesterday at an auction sale buying stock for our next outing with our stall to an antiques fair.