Or just don’t buy at all.
But I want a bigger bike :(
OK buy secondhand. Or buy junked parts and build it. It’s not just eco friendly, it’s also fun
I would love to see a source for the actual claim that buying used avoids tarrifs, because all I can find says that tarrifs still apply to used products being imported.
I think its meant as in: used products already in the country
i keep trying to get secondhand underwear but the upcharge is ridiculous
One of the best ways to save money is to always buy used. If you look in the right places everything is available.
Just the other day I found a used condom literally for free just laying on the street!
Hell yeah, just rinse that off in the sink and…
I don’t even rinse them, just remove the knot and blow them up for your next party.
Yes, but fast fashion, fast furniture, etc.
Fast global warming
fast furniture
If you make it from sapient pearwood
Nah, it’s chipboard, sometimes with cardboard as filler. My Ikea GAMER desk, while million times better as a desk than what I previously had (an old Polish socks drawer that happened to be at the correct height), it’s not very good for anything beyond that, also it’s like it’s starting to fall apart a bit.
That’s why I prefer to build my own furniture out of solid hardwood.
Hell yeah!
Or, better yet, just give the stuff you don’t need to the people interested in getting it, and participate in mutual exchange.
Crush capitalism!
- Posts item for free
- Gets message “how much does this cost?”
- ”Its free”
- ”Can you deliver it to me? (Insert some excuse here)”
Even if you intend to give it away for free, still price it. Once it’s free it will attract a lot of… shady characters. In my experience at least. Even asking a very cheap price will almost eliminate all the weirdos and odd requests. It’s like they only search for stuff that’s free. When it came to my kid’s old toys I ended giving it away for free when they came to pick it up with cash in hand.
Off Topic: But its the same reason why there are adoption fees on pets. Otherwise there are weirdos trying to hurt kittens.
Yep! This has worked really well for me! If I list things as free, I tend to get people with tons of questions and excuses, and lots of flakes or scammers. If I post things with a pretty low price, people are usually much more pleasant to deal with.
Even better to donate to a toy library, to make sure it isn’t going to someone who is just going to flip it.
Free table - sits out for days
Put an 100 dollar sign on the table - stolen in 5 minutes
This is actually a tactic Antoine-Augustin Parmentier used to popularize potatoes in France. He couldn’t get people to accept potatoes, so he placed armed guards to protect the plants, and withdrew them at a certain point in the day so that people could steal them.
put item on sidewalk with sign that says “free!”
Item sits there for months
Remove sign that says free, and replace with one that says “$100 OBO”
Item is gone by morning
“Unfortunately, no. I currently don’t have resources to deliver stuff, but I’ll be happy to see you at my place!”
But yeah, classic on your end :D
Yes, I will buy secondhand Bell peppers.
Peppers go well from cuttings and sometimes seeds. Sorta secondhand action there
Yeah we do actually do this with peppers from friends that have more room for growing stuff when it’s not -3837473837 degrees outside.
Grow your own ;)
Can always buy fruit and vegetables containing seeds
Don’t know if sterile seeds are legal over there for you americans though
I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure the seeds used to grow commercial produce are patented. I could very easily be wrong though lol
Found some info:
“In 1980, the US supreme court ruled in the case Diamond v Chakrabarty that patent protection can be used for living organisms, including plants. Seeds, which have been openly saved and shared by growers for thousands of years, could now be claimed as an invention.”
Who cares? It’s deeply immoral to patent any living organism. You’re under no moral obligation to obey patently unjust and corrupt laws. And if you’re only “pirating” organisms on a small personal scale, your legal risk is nil. If you start an industrial operation selling patented foodcrops, then you’ll get in legal hot water. But just in your backyard garden? No one is suing you over that unless you create a whole YouTube video series publicly documenting and celebrating your actions.
Fuck evil companies that dare to patent living things. The very concept is an abomination against nature and common decency. It’s not only morally allowable, but a moral obligation to violate these laws whenever it is practical to do so.
Oh, I agree with you. I was just piggy backing the statement I replied to, that questioned the legality of sterile seeds. I think the two go hand in hand, in that growers make produce with sterile seeds and/or patent the seeds to prevent any one else from using them.
Fuck the law if it doesn’t serve you (so long as you aren’t hurting anyone or anything but yours)
alas my climate lends itself to little more than carrots and potatoes.
Build a greenhouse of out junk!
I will immediately do so on my small narrow balcony. Or did you mean buy a house?
Neat life hack. If you need more space, there is a tried and true solution. Simply declare the apartment next to yours as part of your people’s historic homeland. Then proceed to occupy and annex half of your neighbor’s apartment.
There are indoor grow tents available for $100-400.
I’d probably put one of these in a spare bedroom if I had one, or at the very least next to a window in case I need to manage humidity on a short notice.
Sorry about the Google affiliate there. You can make a pretty good container garden on a south-facing balcony. I even had an ok setup on my north-east facing 5th floor balcony.
As far as buying a house goes, if you are in the US, I would wait. People are going to be underwater on their home soon and will be desperate to sell them…into a market that is saturated and few buyers with the cash to get one. Give it 2 or 3 years is my advice, and you’ll be able to get a better home cheaper.
I bought my house last year, knowing full well that trump could win and would tank the market and make me underwater on my mortgage, but I don’t really care since I don’t see the home as an investment that needs to pay off, I just need to be able to afford it.
This mf over casually talking about buying houses like that’s something I’m ever gonna be able to do. Wow. Some of y’all really live in a bubble.
I’ve honestly contemplated turning my garage into one but it’s not well insulated so heating would be a challenge but I might give it a go still
How cold are your winter temps? I was looking at building a greenhouse that would connect my garage to my house, it would essentially give me another zone of hardiness for my plants and add a month or so to both ends of my potential growing season. Plus, being able to grow without needing pesticides and herbicides (or at least not nearly as much) is a huge boon on its own.
between 0c (32f) and -20c (-4f)
i think spray foam insulation may be doable since all beams are exposed in my case, it’s a detached garage so it will have it’s own thermal envelope.
I could always try it just to see what the pain points are and work from there to avoid over building.
I’d see about a small stand-alone greenhouse for starters. The look like a rack covered in a clear tarp. Monitor the temps in that, and you can probably expect similar, if not slightly better performance out of a larger GH. That should give you an idea of what you can grow and when.
Yes, but… There are consequences. Used goods will also have price increase if new ones are more expensive.
And eventually , all of the used goods will wear out necessitating new goods.
Entropies a bitch
Matter Replicator When?
The only clothing item I buy for durability is boots. All the rest of my clothes are the cheapest possible shit I can find, because it doesn’t matter.
No one on earth can convince me a $60 pair of jeans is worth $60.
$60 on used denim will go much further.
Learn to identify higher quality vintage denim and you’ve begun profiting. Old selvedge will last a lifetime properly cared for, newer denin barely lasts me a couple years with all the spandex in it.
Frankly, just learn to identify vintage denim at all. People have the mistaken idea that everything used to be better quality than now, and that was never true, there has always been bad and good quality stuff. BUT, the thing about buying older stuff (vintage clothing, antique furniture, old tools, etc.) is that if it was bad quality stuff that wouldn’t last, it wouldn’t be here now to begin with.
No one on earth can convince me a $60 pair of jeans is worth $60.
$60 has the same buying power thar $30 did just 15 years ago so it might be more helpful to think in living wage hours (where 50 hours of work pays for rent).
In 2025 average rent is $1650. So a living wage after taxes would be $33. In 2010 it was $890 which means a living wage was $17.
Buying 2nd hand reduces demand for new goods, which reduces prices in the broad sense.
That’s not what happened when demand for used cars skyrocketed a few years ago
You mean when carvana started overpaying for used cars to build inventory to test their product and inadvertently crashed the used car market (from a buyers perspective)?
Demand for new vehicles didn’t drop, supply for new vehicles stopped.
Also, demand for cars can’t drop because Americans don’t have basic freedoms like access to quality public transit, walkable cities, or infrastructure to protect bikes from car drivers who watch movies on their phones while they drive
Yup, the US has managed to turn cars from a luxury item to what’s essentially a necessary good.
Like there aren’t cars outside of the US.
Your reading comprehension is disturbingly poor.
You know full goddamn well that’s not what I mean. If you’re going to argue in pithy whataboutisms then take that shit back to Reddit.
People with cars a couple years old were being asked to trade for a new one just to bolster used inventory. Don’t understand the economics but I know two people who traded their 3ish year old cars for brand new ones (and a little cash on top) at the behest of the dealer during that time.
I don’t know the economics either but I bought a used truck in Dec 20 and after 6months or a year the dealer started calling me every month or so with an offer to buy it back at more than I bought it for. It was really crazy.
My parents bought a their car when their lease was up then sold it back for a profit around the same time. Just to add to the anecdotes.
How complicated economics is!
But increases demand for used goods means the price increases for them, which means the deal isn’t as good so buying new becomes more interesting…
I think we just invented economics
And we just realized how silly it is!
Only those that are uneducated in the miserable science think it is silly.
There’s alternatives to the capitalist system that leads to the situation we’re in right now.
And those systems use economists too. There are whole economic departments in universities in socialist economies studying economics. The science does not change just because the system you use to allocate goods changes.
They already did, but for different reason.
Second-Hand clothing was trendy not too long ago and the prices went up to the point where the used wares almost cost more than new ones.
Just keep in mind that everything is a business and will exploit it’s current popuarity to the fullest.
D:
Depending on the type of product there may be several times the necessary amount already laying around.
Unfortunately places like goodwill will jack up prices. eBay prices tend to go up as well. Other places not as much since they don’t usually do market research.
In my country, a lot/most of the second hand selling is done by normal people
That is good. Unfortunately many Americans “just don’t want to mess with it” themselves. They could easily give it away directly or recycle it, but instead give stuff to phony charities like goodwill.
There’s also a massive trend of reselling where people either shop thrift to sell at a markup or people trying to sell their stuff for close to new prices
I don’t really see an issue with reselling niche items. The people looking for them aren’t going to every thrift store weekly to find that exact item. They can conveniently go online and have it shipped to their door. It has caused goodwill to jack up prices and cherry pick all the good stuff for their own auction site.
I’ve bought and resold before as well as redold my old stuff on ebay but the margins can be thin unless you have a huge difference in price bought vs sold.
There’s a big difference between resellimg and scalping.
My problem isn’t with reselling but the trend of overpricing, I suppose scalping is an appropriate term.
They can try all they want. I see that occasionally on the websites people sell their stuff on. But usually even those people are willing to sell for a reasonable offer if their ad has been up for a long time.
that’s just capitalism
Also, check out your local “buy nothing” groups. Basically the only reason I still have facebook.
- Freecycle
- Nextdoor
- Craigslist
- Marketplace
- Yard sales
- Estate sales
- Thrift stores
- trash cans and dumpsters/ curbs on trash day
- free clothing at the laundromat
- And so many more
free clothing at the laundromat
Haha, one part of me is wondering if your local laundromat has a free bin, and the other part is thinking you snuck in a joke about taking clothes out someone else’s drier.
Either way, great list!
Pretty sure nextdoor is full of people who are scared of non white people entering their neighbourhood
Reddit also has some of these. Is free Craigslist still a thing? Haven’t been in a while.
I miss r/gunsforsale
Not sure about second hand stuff… Don’t want my gun to jam when fighting fascists.
Used guns are not much of a reliability concern. They’re pretty durable goods. Plus, you should really be looking the thing over in person before you buy it anyway, and ideally put a few magazines through it.
I don’t trust second hand electronics due to the fact that you’re often playing Russian roulette with them
And I don’t like the idea of buying chairs and mattresses second hand because of bodily fluids or the chance someone died in one
To downvoters: I want to let you know that Surveillance Capitalism really like to keep track of Serial Numbers, especially IMEIs of phones. If you happen to buy a used phone that a violent criminal used, you could end up with a no-knock warrant being served on you because they would be triangulating your phone with the IMEI, and the authorities think the criminal still uses the phone, not realizing they already sold it and got a new burner.
Very far-fetched, I know, but that’s the worst case scenario. But there are also more common problematic situations you get get caught up in:
For Example: You could also get your phone locked because it was part of payment plan, and the previous owner stops paying (maybe because they lose their job or something), and sold the phone off to get some cash.
If you don’t know, Samsung and Motorola (and perhaps other manufacturers as well) has the ability to disable your phone and hold the data hostage, yes, actually prevent you from accessing your data until you pay. (Carriers probably can’t disable your phone, only block the IMEI, but if the financing goes through the manufacturer themselves, they could stop you from using your phone, even local access to files)
By the time you find out, you could be too late to return the phone or chargeback.
There’s just too much that can go wrong with electronics, especially phones.
My general rule on secondhand goods is “nothing permeable, unless it can survive going through the washer on the steam clean setting.” Secondhand clothes are fine, as long as they can survive a good strong washing. Secondhand furniture is OK as long as it’s not upholstered, like a table or dresser. But couches and mattresses? Forget it. My washing machine can’t fit a love seat inside it.
Damn near every piece of tech I own is used. I’ve only had 1 or 2 duds. I figure that it’s worth it as I’m paying less than 1/3 most of the time.
2nd hand underwear?
No tariffs at the thrift store.
Don’t give them ideas
But the value of the new product goes up if people tend to buy the used version of it.
This is exactly what he wanted. You are now buying amongst yourselves. Not saying it’s bad advice, but worth pointing out
Buying some old shirts =/= restoring the manufacturing sector of the United States.
Is this true? Buying second hand doesn’t add to gross economic output, and doesn’t add anymore jobs. I only buy smartphones second hand because the market for them is so evil, with all these throwaway landfill devices. Its one of the only boycotts I can do in this smartphone dependent world.
if reported creatively enough it could boost GDP, and increase the number of “independent businesses” which can be assumed to have at least one employee (the owner/ person wearing /selling clothes)
you aren’t thinking about cooking the books hard enough.
“Hurr durr I’m going to make up bullshit to male orange cheeto look good by twisting bad things to make them look good”
That’s you, that’s what you sound like by the way
Your god emperor orange cheeto wants to kill people for not being white or being LGBTQ+
Shut the fuck up about how the orange cheeto is doing good because we both know its bullshit
Fasciasts aren’t welcome here
Wait. What? I hate trump. My point wasn’t “hey, look how smart he is”. It was “you might think this is a life hack, but its not. This was the intended outcome”
It certainly was not. The idiot just thought this would be a great way for him and his buddies to rake in money. He never imagined people might stop buying new.
it is almost the intended outcome, and economically is quite similar.
