Stuff I Refuse to Buy

If you want to buy this stuff, go for it. But I’ve thought about it and for lots of pretty good reasons I won’t. I think I’m a pretty deliberate person so I think at least a little bit about the stuff we buy at out house. Interesting fact in households women make the majority of the purchasing decisions and our house is no different. Other than tools and tractors I make most of the purchasing decisions and while they might not make a huge difference in the wider world they do here. There are some other things I’m working on like trying to cut out single use items but some of these things are just so prevalent. So here are some things I won’t buy and and why!

Packaged convenience greens

I often do want to buy those cute, convenient little bags and boxes of lettuce and salad mixes and if I did I’d probably eat more salad. And I really like salad! I don’t even think there is a real cost savings between the full head and the baggie. My sister almost always serves us a kale salad one at her house and I love it every time. The reason I don’t buy this is they are a common source of food born contaminants and their whole head friends usually aren’t. So here is the deal with germs from a biologist. This is generally meant to put your mind at ease believe it or not. Germs are literally everywhere but the germs that can make you sick are around other humans. The germs you’ll find in a field effect other things in a farmer’s field and not you. The listeria and e-coli germs that are the target of lettuce recalls come from other humans who process it. All that moving, washing and packaging with bagged greens are points for germs to be introduced and incorporated onto all the leaves. A whole head might seem dirtier but it’s cut once in the field and we all usually throw out the outside leaves anyway. A quick rinse in your home is generally safer than packaged greens can be.

New cars

I had a brand new car once, my mom bought it for me to drive when I was 17. It was great but you know what, no different than any other car I ever drove. Cars do a lot of deprecating right off the bat. I’d rather own it out right than make payments any day. I’ve never really understood the more maintenance argument since paying interest on a loan seems like a guarantee where repairs may or may not happen. Once they become unreliable (2 tows in a year), expensive (over 200 a month in repairs) or are otherwise cost more to fix than they are worth I sell them. Buying something three years old is basically a guaranteed half off sale. Plus the first scratch always hurts the most, let someone else dive in front of that sword!

Expensive toilet paper

Not just because we’re on a septic system either. But I fail to see the difference between expensive tp and even paper towels which I don’t really use either, I opt for rags. We might not think about where things go after we flush them but they must break down right? Maybe not! Some municipalities pump directly into the environment and if the effluent is filtered out it ends up in a landfill. The thing is because of the environment of the dump things that break down in the world often don’t in the dump. Another reason I don’t go for the expensive stuff even though it’s pretty rare (at least in some houses) is it can lead to toilet clogs. Fun right? It’s not something we deal with but we only opt for the cheap stuff, coincidence, probably not. Given how you are using it and how long you need it for why not just opt for the least amount of material disposed of?

Cutlery sets

Here’s a life hack for you buy whatever you can, especially what you use daily, at restaurant supply stores. For dishes, cups and cutlery most of us will purchase eight of anything, maybe 12 if you have a big family. This might be a sign that I’m not a real grown up, my life is a mess or that we do a lot of picnics but over a year or two many of my pieces of cutlery go missing. Then I buy 8 more settings, put the leftovers in a box and start the process over again. Until a few years ago. Then when we have a lot of people over to eat I get out all the mismatched pieces. I got fed up with this process but yet I still didn’t have a clean spoon, there must be a better way!

Now I go to a restaurant supply store. Patterns available here are generally carried for decades so you can always add to your stock when you lose a few. Plus if you only need forks later, you only buy forks. It’s not necessarily cheaper than getting a set at the department store and you sometimes have to buy a whole box of 24. There are other benefits too. Often tableware from these sources has cool features built in like special coatings to make them clean easier or avoid water spots. Now when people come over I just dig out the rest of the box and everybody matches.

K-cups

Sooo … this has been a low grade fight here for about 6 years now. Honey things K-cups seem cool I think they are an expensive environmental blight. Did you know that for that reason even the inventor of k-cups regrets inventing them? Instead we use a huge electric perk with a metal filter that’s well over 10 years old. Even though they make the reusable pods and honey says he’ll refill them I highly doubt it. Like everyone else we’ll end up using the plastic ones. Since we would need at least a thousand of them every year that would make a lot of trash. Because of the fuss, the expense and mostly the environment I don’t want to convert to k-cups. Funny story one Christmas honey bought me one and then fishing around for how I felt I went on to a 20 minute tirade and he took it back!

I used to be a shopper kind of a big one and at some point I realized this really wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time and money long term. Opting out of at least certain aspects of wrote consumerism can actually feel freeing so think about giving it a try.

What item do you refuse to buy and why is that? Is there something that you decided to give up and it turned out you didn’t even miss it?