I sometimes come across comment sections where there seems to be a large level of apathy towards reducing consumption (i.e. Shein hauls). Often times people will argue the owning of iPhones as way to shut down any discussion. consuming less doesn’t seem to resonate with some people. Thoughts?

I love Gundam, the anime drew me in but the model kits also drew me in.

Just yesterday a friend of mine who came by for the first time did not care for the model kits I had after some time was quite angry. She said that these plastic kits are useless and a waste of money and harms the environment.

I had to stop and think about it, I always tried to be mindful for things like food, clothing and tech. Stretched out the life of each thing as long as I could by fixing or trading.

For model kits, I have 47 of these model kits all built but i just viewed these things as fun things that are another way for me to engage with the media alongside from just talking about it. Each one I bought I took the time to research each kit and how it is right out of the box before I bought it and built it.

But after what she said, am I still part of the larger problem of consumerism? Does it not matter if I am mindful of what I buy if I still buy it? Should I not have bought the kits?

Crazy title, I know, but hear me out --

I am the current owner of a grandfathered Amazon plan as we have had it for as long as I can remember. My mother, brother, sister, and I all share it from different corners of the state. I want to cancel the plan for a variety of reasons, but I know for certain each of them would then just get their own plans, which seems to defeat the purpose.

What would you do? Keep the plan and continue to split the cost 4 ways ($40/each/year) and simply not use it or cancel because that is what your anti-consumerism and F*CK BEZOS mindset is telling you to do?

Anyone go from smart watch to simple pedometer watch or smart phone to dumb phone?

I love to track my steps and have simple stopwatch access quickly. But I see myself checking my notification, needing new accessories for my electronics.

Anyone make the change and have any tips or tricks?

I haven't eaten out in months. I REFUSE to go to McDonald's, chik-fil-a, burger king, et cetera, et cetera. I also refuse to drink soda, eat chocolate/desserts, and coffee. Doesn't matter what it is, or "how healthy it is," I simply refuse to eat out. How my anger is based is twofold. For one, the way in which workers are dehumanized for the sake of profit at the expense of both their physical and mental health is a massive one, as for the second, the food quality and production methods itself is just as devastating if not more. You simply cannot undermine this situation in question when it is your very own health on the line. Our inevitable asphyxiation was a calculated "risk" by these corporations hierarchy of schemes planned for the masses that we account for. We are to be victimized by these food industries because of their partnership with big tobacco and big pharma to pick us off as they ultimately maximize profit.

SSF's or sugar, sodium and fat are the big three nutrients of concern when it comes to ensuring that we are as addicted as scientifically possible to foods that are in actuality not food, but just substances that mimic the tastes of what they're marketed as identifying. These "nutrients" are engineered by food scientists in labs utilizing mathematical formulas such as the bliss point formula which perfects the SSF ratio. Another dirty trick is what is referred to as the vanishing caloric density formula which tricks your brain into thinking that you are not consuming that much so that you end up overeating or in other words, eating the whole bag and having to buy another. Another one is what is referred to as sensory specific satiety delay which is a formula used to counteract for when the brain gets bored with a single flavor by adding layered flavors to help you stay addicted and overweight. There is also sound engineering to make foods intentionally loud and crunchy to make you hungrier, among several other things. There's also chemical analysis, chromatography and spectroscopy involved too.

Around the 50's or maybe even 60's or so, big tobacco faced boycotting and this demonstration against these manufacturers prompted such companies to begin investing in food as an alternative. Kraft is an example. By result, they implemented similar methods of tobacco production and incorporated them into their food, such as the aforementioned methods in paragraph 2. Strange, that how when you look back prior to 1950, you do not see such rates of obesity and alike medical concerns. Furthermore, food is engineered in a similar manner to cigarettes. Think for a second about hyper or highly palatable foods and cigarettes by themselves; without chemicals, are they even as nearly satisfying? No. Which is why almost every food nowadays has chemical additives, artificial flavors and preservatives to keep you immobilized just enough so that you only have enough strength or energy left to rip open a bag of poison. Needless to say, nothing will be done about this. Chik-fil-a for example will continue to have 55-60 ingredients in their sandwiches, macaroni and suchlike, and people will still shove the garbage down their throats because they can't help themselves. You know it's bad when for example, a businessman or lawyer remarks about how he only smokes 1 cigarette per meeting a week to destress, but he wouldn't dare put himself near a bag of oreos because in todays age, foods are far more addictive than cigarettes themselves. It's gross! it's disgusting! It's shameful! As a 27 year old man, I refuse to give these FUCKS my money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For most necessities, I've bought through amazon because they ship fast and are usually cheaper than getting someone to go out and shop for me. I know they're awful but money is an issue and is probably only going to get worse in the future so if theres anywhere I can maybe buy things for relatively cheap or reasonable price, that would be great... I'm okay spending extra for bulk or items that will last longer. Does anyone have any tips or anything so I can start removing Amazon shopping from my life?

EDIT: Specifying that I mostly purchase non-perishable food and personal hygiene items, as well as basic medical and cleaning supplies. Even vague advice would probably help, I don't even know how to begin looking so any push in the right direction would be useful.

Hi everyone. Does anyone know some good resources for repairing the hem on the sleeve of a hoodie that got stuck on something and got frayed?

Thanks!

This is not even third of what's left on our tree. The tree is too tall for us to reach the rest, and it spread over our neighbors' yard too. I am zesting, juicing, and freezing some. Any other ideas, recepies, or home cleaners to make sure nothing is wasted? I'd be more than happy to give away some too but the neighbors all grow them and everyone seems to have more than they can use.

I started doing it as a joke but it actually caught on and it's working for me - if I see or hear an advertisement for something. I add it to a list of blacklisted items/brands and don't buy.

It's getting pretty long and I'm sure there's some I've missed due to the crazy saturation of ads in our society.

It feels good - its my own little protest against annoying ads, and a strategy to think twice about what I want vs what people are trying to make me buy.

hi all, in an effort to try and remove labels from sight at home, a food safety question came up

i reuse empty plastic pots (of yogurt, cream, etc) to freeze things like vegetable stock, chopped veggies, etc. i don't like how the brand is printed onto the pots, very large and prominent, so i was thinking of painting them with acrylic paint to cover the brand (and make the pots prettier!)

but then i started wondering if there might be any food safety issues with freezing painted plastic. is there any chance that the paint could somehow "contaminate" the food in the freezer, or any other issues i should be aware of?

has anyone tried something similar? if you think the paint might cause safety issues, what are some other freezer-safe ways i could cover up the brand?

As title says I need help and not sure how to go about it I live a pretty consumptuous life And I live in Canada. It's not the worst life honestly. I've cut back on a lot of things and I'm doing a lot better and I'm working on my health and my finances. The only problem is my wife. I love her and everything she does for me and the support she gives me. But she is nothing like me when it comes to anti-consumption and understanding the world that we live in. Especially with the trade war going on now I want to reduce and stop consuming so much. She agrees with the food and buying Canadian but only when it comes to food and things like that. When it comes to fashion and or media consumption she Will not let go of things that I want to like Prime Netflix,Spotify, shein, Amazon. Things of that nature And I know it's because it's her laziness and not wanting to find other routes to do those things even though I've shown her many, many ways of doing it and things that I implement almost everyday and she just refuses to. It's been really affecting my mental health and the way that I'm seeing her and I just don't know how to bring this up to her without hurting her feelings and or her demonizing me every time. I want to live better with a clean conscious and save money and I just don't know how to do that without hurting her feelings or creating more animosity in our relationship cuz that's the last thing I want to do. I just want us to live better and more consciously. Any advice would be very helpful. Thank you

I brew tea in jars, pop it in the fridge, and grab it on my way to work to avoid vending machines and plastic bottles - way cheaper too

I genuinely would get excited about reading the saying found in my fortune cookie. I would save some of the mesages if they really spoke to me at that moment in time. So...this just happened to me today. I would have never thought an ad would be on the back of my fortune cookie saying. Why can't some things be left without an ad?

The saying on the back was interesting though. It said " Time isn't healing, time is revealing."

Thoughts?

Hello, all. With the price of eggs higher than ever and only expected to rise further, I wanted to make sure this type of information gets around.

You can replace each egg in almost any baking recipe with 1 teaspoon of baking soda combined with 1 tablespoon of vinegar or 1/4 cup of plain yogurt. This works pretty well for things like breads and muffins. You can also replace one egg with 1/4 cup off applesauce in sweet desserts, and you can replace one egg with one mashed banana in cakes and pancakes.

Share recipes with your friends and family. Share any tips and tricks you might have on getting by in a food shortage. We need to come together and help those among us who will be most affected.

With the announcement of tariffs on some imports, I’ve been thinking a lot about how this could help augment our collective views/habits around consumption. Leaving out the possible consumer impacts on essential goods (oil, gas etc which I totally understand is a concern), is it really so bad if imported cheap plastic use-once goods are more expensive? Does anyone else think this situation should call for a broader conversation on why we buy/import as much as we do, and what of that is actually necessary vs what feels like convenient mindless consumption? Also, shouldn’t we ask why so many things are so cheap in the first place?

So I’m trying to quit Amazon. I haven’t purchased any of the items I had put in my cart. I haven’t purchased them, and have come to terms with my Amazon addiction. It started during the pandemic. Since the pandemic, you just can’t find things in the stores and going into them is often gross and frustrating experience. I hate shopping IRL. This is going to be really hard for me, but I have secretly hated the way Amazon treats their workers, but I’m glad people can get jobs. I hate lining bezos pockets. I also hate going to the store to buy dog food (the only one my dog will eat) and every store is out of stock.

Anyway, I just quit my prime membership, but I thought you’d get a refund. Apparently not. It just won’t renew at the end of the year (for me, 12/20/2025). I thought I could get a refund for the unused portion, but everything I’m seeing on their site said only if I never used its benefits. Which I did, though not much.

Am I just at a loss now for the remainder of the membership? I was hoping to shut down my whole account. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you

Hello everyone , I am in college and I have a giant addiction to overconsumption , materialism and social media validation. I

am a female and in my early 20s. I grew up in a third world country where I did belong to an upper middle class family, but my father was stingy and never spent on us for vacations, material goods etc. When my friends in HS had make up and clothes and shoes I had none of it. He did spend alot on our education so I ended up coming to study in the US where I met my husband. Now, my husband earns quite a bit and we have a good bit of disposable income. I have developed an addiction to social media and seek alot of external validation for it. I feel like people are always judging me for clothes, I feel like the more rich they perceive me to be through the brands I own, they will respect me more. I am in therapy and my therapist also says there is a part of me that feels like I missed out on stuff in HS. I am not in debt right now and I haven't spent thousands of dollars or anything yet but I can feel it bubbling up.

My husband says and its true, I spend hours looking at shoes, jewelry, bags and stuff online, I order alot from fast fashion brands online ( I know they are horrible for the environment ) , I tell myself I need heels in every color and I keep looking at designer brands. I spent alot of money in January ordering make up, shoes, clothes and what not. I feel so empty doing this but I still do its really bad. Today I watched a documentary on really poor people in Papua New Guinea and It made me realize how wasteful I am being. I cannot stop this at once but what can I do to help curb this? I also live in an HCOL area like nyc where dressing well for social connections and corporate jobs is important so I do want to dress well and own nice things but in a sustainable and non wasteful way, thanks.

Academic working as a federal contractor in a national lab.

1. I've paused my FB and IG accounts. Unfortunately I use whatsapp for work and my friends, mostly European folks with non-US phone numbers. I will do a hard delete in a year I think, I'm rarely on either platform.

2. I haven't bought something from Amazon since 2019 and will continue to hold the line. If you need tips with that, let me know.

3. I've only ever used credit unions in my life.

4. I bike commute, I don't own a car rn but will buy used eventually.

5. I'll refuse to fly now and only use Amtrak. Mostly because of how they are treating the FAA and my innate fear of flying.

6. I'll try to buy from farmers markers as much as possible. But unfortunately, there are mostly Safeway's in my area (other than whole foods smh).

7. I'll continue to only buy nonprocesssed foods (Needed for my biking).

I live in a liberal bubble and don't know what else I can do.

By some sick twist of the algorithm, I got recommended this r/Holdmywallet video about plastic refrigerator organizers. https://www.reddit.com/r/Holdmywallet/comments/1ic48rz/this_is_extreme/ . This broke me this week. It's the mundanity of it after all the dead Palestinian children videos that were taken after the bombs my taxes paid for killed them.

Videos like these are the life style equivalent to a parade of homes home. Nobody lives like that. It’s so organized it’s inefficient... Much of it was made with a mind for profit maximizing not comfort. That’s so much extra cleaning for no real benefit. Half your space is just shitty plastic.

6000 likeS!!? I feel like an alien living on a planet of crazy people. There is no pattern here. So much wasted space for plastic. Twice as labor intensive as whatever it is replacing. This is advertisement hypnotism and propaganda! ( whoops tautology) This is NOT desirable! It is mental illness.

This means there are molds and machines cranking out millions of these suckers even if no one buys it. The theoretical torture that could be unleashed upon the earth should enough people heed this ad. Shield the children’s eyes!!!!! 

The messed up thing is, I have these things in my fridge. These nothing nobody containers……. They do nothing for nobody……. I didn’t buy them. I do all the cooking in our house. And everyday, every time I look in the fridge, I have to ponder the very end of human civilization. Every time I look at these plastic immutable testament to the sins of human kind, I scream a desperate muted cry of defiance. EVERY TIME!!! Such is my love for my wife.

So to whoever makes these horrid, god awful, pie in the sky, fake bourgeoisie, idyllic life videos. For the love of God, …… SSSSSTTTTOOOOOPPP!!!! What wealth or fame could possibly be worth this Lovecraftian level of suffering. :(

Such is the weight of the cross. Yay……. Let us pray. I leave thee now with a prayer that did and does adore the entrance of every good Christian home since yee medieval days. Though thou walkist through the valley of the shadow of death, fear NO SOLICITING.

I googled salad spinner alternative, and there was some physics behind why a salad spinner works.

I basically diced my celery, and wrapped it around a clean, extra pillow case (I have so many I could have one for every day of the week for two weeks, I think my SO's mother gave him so many over the years), and I secured the ends and middle with rubber bands so none of it would fall out.

I put that bundle in another pillow case, and spun it around really fast a few times.

It came out mostly dry so I can freeze these for later use!

Any tips on keeping food, vegetables/fruits fresh?

My roommate always gets the big bag of stuff like lemons or celery that we never use before it spoils. Anyway. Learn that they can last longer in jars. Weeks longer. Do have to keep an eye on them. So lemons just need to be sealed in something (jar. Ziplock) and refrigerated. Celery in a jar of water filled to the to the top, refrigerated, sealed. Anymore?

Does anyone use unscented trash bags & if so, do you have any tips for reducing the smell from your trash can?

Like many of you, I'm trying to avoid some brands post-election. The trash bags I can get most easily now are only unscented options; I used to get scented ones. The smell from the trash now is notably worse. We're a household of 2 so it usually takes us several days to fill one 13gal trash can. I don't want to take the trash out before its full and waste half a trash bag but even after lighting incense, spraying air freshener, opening windows, the smell from the trash is still just emanating.

Edit: thanks all!! I agree composting would make a big difference. We live in an apartment without outdoor space, in a city with 1x per week compost pickup, so I'll just need to sort out how we could best make this happen. Any & all other tips in the interim are welcome!

I have just had an offer accepted on my first home (Yay!). It is in a rural area. I currently live in a suburb. I am wary of buying "stuff" just to fill the house as it is bigger. I also know that there are certain challenges that come with living more rurally. For example, there is no supermarket near by.

What tips do you have for moving house and also being a home owner? Any specific advice for someone in a rural area?

Thinking about the tariffs and how that will impact our wallets. It seems saving money the global best thing to do is to continue working on less consumption/consumerism, buying 2nd hand when available and buying only when necessary. In terms of groceries/food, I guess we only buy in-season produce? What are some other ways we can offset how the tariffs will affect our pockets.