We finally had our yard sale last week, and man am I glad it’s over.  Yard sales are one of those things that are fun to go to but agonizing to host.  Over the last year of living the stationary life, we haven’t really collected all that much extra stuff.  So we didn’t entice too many rubberneckers to stop with our feeble yard sale offerings.  But overall it was a success. Craigslist helped get rid of the larger items, the yard sale covered the medium stuff, which only leaves a few boxes for donation.

Every time that I have a yard sale it really paints a picture as to the “true” worth of these materialistic possessions that we as a society hold so dear. For example, we had a laptop stand that sells for $50 new at the store where people buy them all day long at that price without a second thought. At our yard sale, people scoffed at our $5 price tag on it. It was in perfect working and cosmetic condition, but it got no love just for the fact that it had the “used stigma” attached to it.  It seems like most people out there stick their noses up to the idea of not buying new. They couldn’t begin to comprehend the thought of owning something labeled as “secondhand”.

It really makes me sad that there are people out there who will buy a new vacuum because the belt broke on their old one or they’ll buy a new printer just because the ink ran out.  Most people out there would rather shell out more money rather than maintaining what they already have.  The worst part is that the companies selling us these products see this and exploit it even further.

I grew up believing the TV who told me that I needed all this crap that they were selling me and that if I had last year’s model I was a loser.  It took a long time to de-program myself, and I’m still working on it to this day. Today I try to buy new as little as possible. Most of our clothes, kitchenwares, and tools are from thrift stores and hand-me-downs and I can honestly say our life hasn’t suffered from it one bit. Share some of the things that you would like to see more people do to reduce.