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Comment by flyGuyOnTheSly | Hacker News Reader

I can't wait for the day when I can walk to my local dump and move into a mcmansion somebody threw out because the paint was the wrong color... And I am only half joking.

Go into your local thrift store and try not to gasp as you walk past $300 pair of designer jeans after $400 dress, some of them still with tags on them as they've never been worn, and most all of them in seemingly brand-new condition.

It's a consumer's dream world out there, baby.

And we can't seem to get enough.

Storage units weren't even a thing 75 years ago. Now they're ubiquitous.

The idea of paying rent to store things you'd never use to our grandparents was insanity. (It still is imho).

I'm going thrifting right now, actually.

To everybody else in the world, if you could take a break from buying more brand new clothing, to consider why you might not need to buy more brand new clothing, we would all be a lot better off imho.

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So, I'm with you. But I'm also the person leaving the brand-new items at the thrift store.

The thing is, I'm not the one buying the items usually. They're gifts. And it doesn't matter how many times I tell family not to buy this or that, they do. Christmas is crazy, I hate it for all the wasted money and excess things to deal with. I hate my in laws showing up with well made furniture that I nevertheless hate the design of and don't need. I hate being the caretaker of other people's anxiety manifest in things.

Also, I have little time. So when clothing nmanufacturers do stupid sizing things to save a buck, and it doesn't fit me even after trying to get a tailor to fix it, I'm done spending time on it. It might fit someone else.

I've learned ironically used things on eBay often fit me better because the particular item's exact measurements are provided. I don't have to guess what "medium" means, or whether or not a 27.5 in length actually means 27.5 inches.

I guess my general point is a lot of these excesses are actually about inefficiency and broader societal norms. Even when you have someone who just wants a few nice fitting long lasting items, it can be hard to do that unless you can afford a personal tailor and no gifts to deal with.

It's a complicated topic. Clothes and linens are more cheaply made, even when you look hard, even in my lifetime. I'd argue people often don't even know what something well made in a category looks like often anymore, which distorts demand and therefore supply.

I use all the gifts I receive due to never buying myself anything, but this is definitely an issue I can see. I have spent countless Christmases telling family to donate to charities (and provided a list), buy me food (specific foodstuffs) and in one instance organized Christmas and said they could bring booze and desserts and nothing else.

And they kept on with the (bulky, usually mass-produced) gifts.

I don't hate gifts. But I would love a way to share that ritual with people without encouraging consumption. One problem I've had is the alternatives I suggest, like food, some people don't think cost enough money so they don't like giving it. Are there expensive consumables that people would feel higher status giving?

> Are there expensive consumables that people would feel higher status giving?

Wine and liquor seem the obvious ones to me. There’s some pretty expensive stuff out there.

That said if you’re not a heavy drinker you might find trouble getting rid of those too :-) I’ve been given liquor a few times and it has a tendency to sit in the cabinet since I don’t drink much.

I donate a lot of stuff that I get from relatives who seem to have no clue over what I like to wear.

But I'm not getting the 400 bucks stuff either.

On a related subject, don't forget about the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in your city. The stock varies all the time and you can get some real bargains on new household goods and construction materials that were donated to Habitat for Humanity but couldn't be used in their builds. I've bought a new Kichenaid trash compactor in the box for $35 and a used but in very good condition Steelcase Leap chair for $15. Those were exceptional deals but it's always worth checking out for lesser but still good deals.

For those in the New York City area I highly recommend Build it Green.

Same concept, and you can find some incredible things because they’re often coming from pre-war mansions, high end renovations, props from movie shoots, etc.

https://www.bigreuse.org/

> The idea of paying rent to store things you'd never use to our grandparents was insanity

That’s hoarding by another name. Storage can be used intelligently.

There are things one uses seasonally, or from time to time, where owning makes sense. (For example, my winter wear and scuba gear.)

Using prime real estate to store those items is expensive. If they live in a cheaper zip code, however, that lets one save rent by choosing a smaller apartment in the pricey neighborhood.

Also stowing baby stuff between kids. Crib, high chair, etc takes up serious space and modern apartments are very short on storage. Baby stuff is often a gift, lightly used and acquires sentimental value in use, so it’s nice to use it more than once.

And actually useful, and expensive to buy again.

Additionally, it reduces carbon emissions because it allows more people to live within walking distance of mass transit.

>Storage units weren't even a thing 75 years ago. Now they're ubiquitous.

Not sure how prevalent it is in other countries especially the first world, but self-storage facilities in the US surprise me (I am an Indian). Given the average house size in USA which is second highest after Australia, I wonder what kind of useful stuff gets stored in these stores.

People actually forget that they are even paying for these storage lockers, so often in fact that there is a cottage industry surrounding bidding on forgotten lockers. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_Wars

I know it is the case that you can find In thrift stores such items that in a usual store would sell for a very high price. Got bought one such piece of clothing.

However, these items are definitely not evenly distributed all over the world.

For example, the second-hand electronics market on craigslist in the Bay Area in California is much better than in, for example, Miami Florida (I'm guessing)

It's also very random whether you'll find what you're looking for. You're just not going to find a $300 retail pair of jeans in a thrift store on your first outing. And even when you do, odds are they won't be in your size.

I live in Brooklyn and go thrifting a lot, mostly because it's a fun activity and because you find things you wouldn't normally think to look for. But 9/10 times I'm leaving with nothing. And for all the time I spend thrifting I could take up just as many hours doing freelance web development, use that to buy things I want brand new, and still have extra money left over.

I don't understand how you'd even go about making a $300 pair of jeans. Are they a special material that's impervious to rain but breathes like cotton? Are they extra tough so you'll never wear holes in them? Some kind of fancy dye that never fades in the wash? Are you buying clothes from Sharper Image?

There are many ways.

So first there are luxury jeans. Not going to expand on these since the name explains it all. For 1000$ you do get a very premium product.

Then there are e.g. all the japanese brands : Momotaro, pure blue japan, samurai, studio d'artisan, evisu, etc.

Pretty much all the japanese jeans are made out of denim that has been fabricated on very old machines.

Why ? They have a lower yield (which partially explains their price) and also they do create very interesting denim variations that the more efficient machines used by fast fashion are not (yet) able to reproduce. They are also very well made with lots of more or less useful details. E.G. customized rivets with the brand logo are very nice but not something only the wearer will see.

With use, these jeans fade and are truly beautiful. It is fitting that many japanese brand do this, it is very wabi sabi. To be clear, while the construction and fit are very good, it does not make a 200$ jean magically last twice as long as a 100$ one. However, they come in a variety of fabric density, most of which are way heavier than what typical fast fashion offers. The jean will still break over time at its main pressure points, typically in the crotch and at that point it is expected that they will be mended.

There are also pants made of technical materials, like e.g. what outlier is doing. These are truly awesome to wear when it rains : they are breathable but repel water.

All of these are roughly in the $200-400 range but often closer to 200.

Then, you can also go to levi and they will make you a pair of denim tailored for you. It will roughly cost $500.

This is a really good comment on why some jeans and pants can be so expensive.

Another thing I'd like to emphasize is ethical labor practices and material sourcing. Paying workers in places like the USA or Japan is really expensive compared to getting jeans made in China or etc. That includes getting the denim as well, if you want selvedge denim I don't believe there are any selvedge mills left anywhere in the world outside of Japan or Italy.

Then add on what you mention about older machinery and slower production runs. Additional handmade details add more labor time. And quality control is generally much higher, you can line up 5 pairs of the exact same model/size and they'll line up perfectly. With the lower end of Levi's models (not Made&Crafted), you can get 5 "identical" jeans and they'll have a variation of about an inch in both length and waist. Not a huge deal to some, but it's another thing that adds more time to the production.

Even Levi's own Made in USA and Made in Japan lines are in the same price range, $150-$300 dollars.

https://www.levi.com/US/en_US/search/made%20in%20japan

https://www.levi.com/US/en_US/search/made%20in%20usa

I love my Flat Head raw Japanese selvedge denim.

Great place to try them on: https://www.selfedge.com/index.php?route=information/about_u...

Yeah it's weird. But there are t-shirts where it's understandable. For example, there's a t-shirt brand called wijld (in Europe), which:

- produce shirts in the EU and not in countries with child labor

- use 60%+ wood fibers for their shirts (which is more expensive, but ecologically better)

- feel great with high quality

So, while 30 bucks for a t-shirt seem expensive when you can get others for 5-10 bucks, they actually are better in many ways.

Of course, this isn't true for most expensive designer stuff ;)

No, people rip them, wash them in acid, and generally do everything possible to make them look like they came from a hobo, then stitch cute hearts on the sear so rich kids can look like they're "from the streets." I don't understand it, but this happens in cycles. E.g. tanning used to be bad because it indicated working outdoors, but then it flipped.

Personally, I'll stick to my durable denim that I can keep for three years or more.

I saw a documentary a while ago about the poor Bangladesh factory workers who were doing the ripping, scraping, bleaching and staining on a daily basis.

They were completely, utterly dumbfounded on why one would destroy brand new clothing like that, and no amount of explaining could make them see why these crazy Westerners would prefer wearing shabby clothes.

You make a $100 pair of jeans, but with a new stitching pattern, new colors, or different material properties, and cash in on the novelty

But there is a cost to future generations for every newly manufactured thing consumed. Buying used can cut that cost by half or more, if well maintained.

The availability of old computers and other electronics varies hugely and tends to better if there are large tech companies nearby. We have an undergrad-run computer gaming club that used to operate with discarded lease hardware only, and we are throwing away stuff that people sell for a few hundred dollars in my hometown some 100 klicks away.

Around Boston, when the most part of the leases come due every year and people move out, there's so much good free stuff left at the curb that I've heard it dubbed "Allston Christmas."

Oh, the "nightmare season". It just ended I believe? September is the month, right? I'm so grateful I managed to escape.

What was happening in NYC in 18xx ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Day_(New_York_City) ) , happens in Boston in 2019.

There's a yearly event in Netherlands where it's legal for anyone to have a flea market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koningsdag

They have a quasi holiday for it in Quebec - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Day_(Quebec)

I personally love wearing kinda dumpy clothes I get from the thrift store. Some of my friends make shirts that I buy, or a local bar I frequent is selling shirts, but apart from that I just go 100% thrifting. I spend hardly any money, am more comfortable, and get to avoid all the signaling behind e.g. a patagonia fleece or other class-based clothing associations people have

I’d love to see gov Newsome wear dumpy clothes.

He loves things like banning plastic straws, which have very little impact, but is always looking to be stylish —but I don’t see him pulling a David Axelrod or James Traficant.

FWIW I've heard storage units are not necessarily a super profitable business, instead they are a low overhead operation to cover the property tax on land in the outskirts that you're sitting on waiting for appreciation as the city grows. So they only have make up the cost of the cinderblocks to be worthwhile.

I don't really believe that as in many places you're starting to see multi-level facilities with as many as 5-6 layers of units. That ain't cinderblocks.

Alright, then perhaps I am wrong (or out of date). I'd not seen nor heard of these six story high facilities, my lord.

I have seen those only heading into cities near the outskirts. I also didn't get why they weren't apartments.

In California at least, prop 13 lets them operate without having to worry about rising property taxes in areas where otherwise there could (and probably should) be housing.

I knew of a dude that had a couple of the storage facilities. I guess the facilities themselves had a slim profit margin, but he could auction off the contents when folks didn't pay - which partially made up for the margin. Granted, this was mid-size midwestern city, so the land cost wasn't as high.

Around here there are storage units that are miles away from everything.

(A county with a population of ~40,000, there's no short term time frame where growth will reach the spots where they are built)

I helped cofound a marketing vertical in this space, and they are extremely profitable if managed and marketed well.

Check dumpsters too. I've got a brand new $300 REI raincoat that way. Thank you anonymous Stanford student!

I had heard this was a thing at places like MIT and Stanford. Very rich kids come in every fall, buy everything they need for the year, then throw it all out when summer hits... brand new TVs, clothes, furniture, etc.

> The idea of paying rent to store things you'd never use to our grandparents was insanity. (It still is imho).

The only time I've rented a storage unit was last time I moved. We sold the apartment and could not move into the new house until two months later, so we stored all our stuff in a unit close to the new house and stayed at our (very old, tiny and inherited) summer house for the duration.

So they have their use, but I can't imagine having one permanently.

My daughter is in a brass band (they're quite common here in Norway), and we participate organising flee markets to raise money for the band and the amount of stuff people give us to sell is insane. I'm not surprised at all by what you're writing.

I buy about ten t shirts a year and wear them almost every day. After about a year most are garbage - holes in them, stains, etc.

Any suggestions? I’d love to not have to do this anymore.

Try out a couple of brands. Some last better than others. Only wash as necessary. This really depends on how you sweat and what sort of activities you do: If you aren't all that sweaty, you can probably get at least 2-3 days out of each. Wear an apron while cooking and other sorts of things to keep it clean a bit longer.

Don't let your cat knead your stomach with her claws: You'll eventually find little holes. That might just be me, though :)

Granted, all of this might not get you all that far, but is worth a shot. I generally have fewer shirts than you that last at least a year (some are long sleeve, some short, all black).

Buy Carhartt. They make their clothing to last. Heavier materials, better stitching. You'll be lucky to wear one out in 3 years.

Use some as cleaning cloths.

Recently i've been paying attention to monthly dumps in the city. People seem to have an endless stream of things to throw away. It's said to be a time of crysis, and unless half the population decided to live without furnitures, it seems every body buys new things endlessly. Here goes the 'less consumerism, less shipping' advice.

Furniture is now very cheap (also low-quality: Ikea, etc.), while housing is (in many areas) extremely expensive, so it's no wonder that people can be in a bad economic situation while being able to change furniture. Of course, it's sad, it should be the other way around, but it's the way current prices in most places work.

It's like the typical criticism that young people complain about their salaries but buy flagship smartphones. Yeah, iPhones and the like are technological wonders and 50 years ago they would have been a dream, but in many places they cost the equivalent of two weeks of rent... so why in hell would they not buy them? To save for two whooping weeks of rent?

> It's said to be a time of crisis

The news will always tell you there is a Major Crisis, and things are Going To Hell.

That's what sells, and as long as you understand that, consuming news can be informative. But be careful to not base your worldview on the news.

This is not just news corps. Its well established scientific fact that we are in a state of environmental crisis and unless there is huge change to so many things in society we will be beyond the point of return.

I know a lot of people say that, but have you heard it from real scientists?

Here is a "debunking" I like, from someone who actually read the IPCC report:

https://reason.com/2019/08/01/despite-what-democrats-said-at...

Rich people throw away nice stuff. The trick to getting it is patience and the capacity to pick things up on a whim.

I've furnished my entire house with free stuff. It takes a log longer than just throwing your credit card at Ikea but the stuff fits my house so much better anyway. It's not clapped out junk either. It's mostly nice stuff from people moving and empty-nesters downsizing.

I live between poor and rich neighborhoods, both of them throw a massive amount of stuff. It's true that you can find better brand / rarer stuff in rich places but the volume is similar.

Although I agree with you that we are buying (and thus, accumulating) things at a scary rate, rent storage usually exists in big cities where space is at a premium - we live in tiny apartments that would also be considered insanity by our grandparents.

You probably live in NYC or LA?

Every city has (at a minimum) a few nice suburbs where the good stuff is.

Also it helps if your standards are lower than those of the people throwing things out. I'm pretty sure every piece of wood furniture I have "should be refinished" according to someone but it's all as nice as the stuff the people I hang out with have so why bother.

That reads almost like a George Carlin joke (I mean it in a good way).

It would be better if people thrifted more rather than always buying new. Thrifting is hit or miss though depending on where you are and what surrounding area the donations are sourced from.

Go thrifting in around a big city or rich suburbs and it's more likely to find "diamonds in the rough" like designer brands and basically unworn clothing.

But go thrifting in an area with a worse GDP (i.e. poorer), and the finds are a lot of stuff like ugly free t-shirts from random events and average clothes that are already >50% through their lifespan.

This sounds attractive when you have more time than money.

I buy new clothes because I can quickly find a wide selection online, filter through it by size, price, etc, and be done buying a whole new set of clothes (that replace worn-out clothes) in the same 2-3 hours it takes to go to a thrift store or two, and find 1-2 pieces that fit.

I'm fashion-oblivious though; for people who want to look just so this approach would be rather expensive.

The responsibility comes from the top. Here's a thought: how about swingeing restrictions on advertising?

I wish somehow thrift stores were online

eBay...

Yeah but that gets to market price, can't get excited finding a deal

If something is in a thrift store with tags, it's because someone shoplifted it and then sold it.

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