{"id":11369,"date":"2015-12-11T16:05:29","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T16:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/intercardiff\/?p=11369"},"modified":"2015-12-11T16:05:29","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T16:05:29","slug":"shop-till-we-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/intercardiff\/uncategorised\/shop-till-we-drop","title":{"rendered":"Shop till we drop?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Black Friday-Cyber Monday online sales break records in the UK, are we living well\u00a0beyond our means? Nikhil\u00a0Sreekandan meets the people taking a radically different approach to consumption.<\/em><\/h2>\n

\"Overconsumption\"

On 11th November, e-commerce giant Alibaba broke its own record on China\u2019s Singles day, with online sales worth of 91.2bn yuan (\u00a39.4bn; $14.3bn.) Held every year on 11 November, it is a shopping festival widespread among young Chinese people, to celebrate the fact that they are proud of being single.<\/p>\n

The day which is also referred to as Double Eleven, saw a 60 per cent increase from last year, according to the BBC.\u00a0 In comparison, sales on Cyber Monday, which is the biggest online shopping day in the US, hit $3.07bn, a 16 per cent increase over last year as per data analytics firm Adobe Digital Index, clearly making Singles day the world\u2019s biggest online shopping event.\u00a0 Whereas in the UK, Black Friday\u00a0cracked\u00a0the\u00a0\u00a31bn sales mark for the first time ever as shoppers spent \u00a31.1bn, according to IMRG and\u00a0Experian.\u00a0 That number comes in ahead of\u00a0expectation\u00a0(\u00a31.07bn) and is up 35 per cent on 2014.\u00a0 And the one thing that visibly stands out, be it Beijing, New York or London, splurging is in and has gone up in leaps and bounds all over the world.<\/p>\n

But, in an age where we live like monarchs with self-belief that \u2018We can have it all\u2019, there soon will come a time when we realize our planet is not enough.\u00a0 Incidentally, out there are a few, who already have\u2026<\/p>\n

When UK retailers broke online sales records this Thanksgiving, with an epic four-day consumer splurge of more than \u00a33bn, there was a small bunch of people calling on consumers to buy nothing.\u00a0 Be it a personal experiment or a public statement, the website www.buynothingday.co.uk\u00a0urged people to “switch off from shopping and tune into life” on\u00a0Black Friday.\u00a0 A lot of people heard their pleas and Michelle McGagh was one of them.<\/p>\n

Michelle McGagh who leads the life of a minimalist, spent the past 18 months getting rid of \u2018stuff\u2019\u00a0after she and her husband had an epiphany at a storage unit that was housing boxes of stuff they didn\u2019t need.\u00a0 \u201cIt is a way of life where you don’t buy more than you need. One where you make room in your life for experiences, instead of cluttering it up with things.\u201d explains Michelle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re All Just a Bunch of Hippies!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0is a certain sentiment that is often expressed by people who hear about\u00a0minimalism\u00a0the first time.\u00a0 \u201cAnd it\u2019s an odd sentiment\u2014it\u2019s as if they\u2019re offended by our \u201cradically different\u201d lifestyle, as if they think we are questioning\u00a0their\u00a0lifestyle. But we\u2019re not.\u201d Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus (the pioneers of the minimalist movement in the US)\u00a0explain in their world-famous blog read by over 4 million readers.<\/p>\n

When Michelle heard about the Buy Nothing Day through the rapidly growing online community of minimalists, she decided to challenge herself and to take it a step further, by buying nothing for a whole year.\u00a0 Started on Black Friday, Michelle will be spending the next year buying nothing except food, for which she has a set-weekly budget of \u00a330.\u00a0 \u2018This means no meals out, no cinema trips, no holidays, no gigs unless they\u2019re free, no rounds down the pub, no new clothes, no coffee(\u00a3400 on takeaway coffee alone in the past year) \u2013 you get the idea.\u2019 she explains in her blog.\u00a0 Not the first person to attempt such a feat, Michelle says that \u201cThere is a growing community of people who are turning their back on consumerism and purchasing possessions in favour of buying experiences and travelling the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cait Flanders known for \u2018Blonde with a Budget\u2019, initially started her blog to document her debt repayment journey.\u00a0 Since then Cait has become a minimalist phenomenon, currently in her 17th month of shopping ban which ends on July 6, 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think one of the biggest takeaways from my first year was just realizing that nothing I could buy at a store would make my life better in any way.\u00a0 While I was doing the shopping ban, I also got rid of 75% of my belongings. By combining the two, I was able to accept myself for who I am and now I feel like the best version of myself.\u201d explains Cait who can no longer justify any of the purchases she wants (rather than needs.)<\/p>\n

Like the burgeoning online community of minimalists, communities on the ground too have taken a strong stand against over-consumption.\u00a0 Bristol Repair Caf\u00e9 is one such an example, who celebrate their second birthday this coming weekend.\u00a0 The repair caf\u00e9 which meets every first Saturday of the month at the All Saints Church in Bristol, get together to repair \u2018anything you can carry really\u2019 – from electronics to clothes.\u00a0 Kate Jerrold who stumbled across an article about repair cafes in Holland while googling for a fix for her broken dishwasher is the pioneer of Bristol Repair Caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years ago, explaining that we would fix stuff and for free was a hard sell, but more people get it now. They know that we can’t just keep chucking stuff away and they want to do more than recycling, they know that’s not enough.\u201d says Kate who believes that 60 per cent of our carbon footprint is from \u2018stuff.\u2019\u00a0 After having lived in Bristol for 10 years, she now knows more of her neighbours than ever before.\u00a0 \u201cI think people want community, and a resilient community helps each other, shares values and skills.\u201d says Kate.\u00a0 There are also companies out there like Patagonia who have teamed up with ifixit.org to publish\u00a0an open source repair manual for Patagonia garments. The information is free online and the goal is \u2018to teach the world to repair on their own.\u2019<\/p>\n

My feelings are mixed, as I tap away on my five-year-old \u2018back from the dead\u2019 Vaio, sipping on my \u00a32 takeaway coffee – trying to wage an early war against an oncoming cold.\u00a0 Maybe with a little bit of guilt, but as Michelle McGagh would say to any aspiring minimalist \u201cYou don’t need to live with just 100 things or be able to carry all your possessions in a backpack. It’s about being mindful of your purchasing and putting the things you want to do, before physical possession.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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