Do charity shops enable us to justify buying too many clothes?

The doom and gloom for me is the failure to seriously address climate change.
The fashion industry has a huge environmental footprint, and I don’t think we should be tempted to purchase unnecessary clothing as a short lived antidepressant.

Speaking for myself only; I personally buy things from charity shops because they are cheap/unusual/unavailable anywhere else.

The lack of shops (two more shops closed last week) in my town (still call it a town) means that very soon there will be zero places to buy anything.

And that includes a screw driver, pot, pans, a tea towel or dishcloth, vacuum cleaner bags NONE M&S clothing, bras, knickers.

All that will be left is very large Primark (who sensibly in my opinion) stayed on the high street instead of moving to the doomed laughably named “shopping centre”.
Locals have started to refer to the “town centre” as burger world

But Primark bras for any person with breasts larger than say a 36c are poorly made and uncomfortable.

Back to charity shops: they exist because enough people are poor enough to need to shop there.
The income they make goes to charities who don’t receive any or insufficient financial assistance.
There would not be one without the other.

I’ve found having worked in charity shops that the vast majority of fast fashion (probably bought online) or from Primark or Sainsburys, Tesco, etc own brands is in the smaller sizes ( and by that I mean 6s 8s 10s) that is why it is still quite rare to find anything in good condition in say size 12/14/16.

I buy things for work because I don’t get payed enough to buy new. I’m capable of operating a washing machine, pegging out to dry, ironing.

Yesterday there were loads of young girls going from charity shop to charity shop, they were aged around 16, 17.
The stigma has gone or for them never existed.

When I was a young parent of two toddlers there was No where to buy second hand or cheap things for them.
I certainly never ever wore anything that wasn’t brand new.

My parents could afford it but many couldn’t and had the misery of wearing the same (often unwashed) stuff day after day. I remember kids in my cohort like that.
Thank goodness that has changed. I say.

Sadly still not enough proper shoe shops for me and my big feet. Charity shop shoes to fit me are as rare as rocking horse poo😏

nanna8

No one wants second hand books anymore, even if they are in as new condition. Our op shops won’t accept them. I don’t like chucking them in the bin when there is nothing wrong with them and so one of my groups has started a book swap. You bring a book to swap once a month.( I have to fess up and say I take 2 or 3 there and bring just 1 back.

I very definitely buy second hand books! Most of mine come from National Trust second hand bookshops, with some from various charity shops. I also donate them to one particular charity, where I am registered for GiftAid and they send updates as to the amount they have raised from those - which often is quite a lot!

I forgot to say I also take things that I originally bought from charity shops back to charity shops. If I’ve lost weight as happened last year.

I always wash and carefully fold the items I donate and ask them first if they are accepting stuff. Most will say yes to clothing but are often struggling with other stuff due to space being at a premium. A sign saying NO DVDS PLEASE is common.
As I’ve said before rags make money too.
The people who complain about the poor quality stuff in charity shops are in the one of the following categories:

They are 1. Visiting charity shops in very poor areas (and do remember people are more mercenary since e-bay and the likes came along) they can make money from their own stuff and good luck to ‘em.
2. Accustomed to high end stuff in which case …..you know what to do.🤗

I buy most of my books secondhand, Not novels, but books about all sorts of subjects that interest me. You will never find me at Waterstones, but offer me a second hand book and I - and the rest of the family, including grandchildren will be down there. The same applis to charity shop books