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I dropped some things off at Vinnies Dickson today – another 11 items out of my home!
I’ve had a bunch of stuff collecting for months. The delay has been that I wanted to wait to blog about it rather than just give things away. Also, the slow giving on my local Buy Nothing group has been, well, rather slow.
Slow giving
Sometimes, giving takes time. Yep, in our incredibly affluent society where many people have affluenza (i.e. more than we need), sometimes it’s damn hard to give stuff away. Much of yesterday was spent chasing several people on my Buy Nothing Group who put their hands up to request items but had never followed through.
In my old house, I would leave items out in plastic bags and people could come and collect when they were ready. But I’m now in an apartment on a busy street so that’s not an option. And it can be frustrating when people say ‘I’ll be there by XXXXpm”, and you either wait around for them or put it outside – only for them not to show up or to discover the next morning that it is still there.
And to complicate it, some items I had left out where collected by someone else before the person who put their hand up for them collected them. In other words, someone stole items I was trying to give away. As you can tell, I don’t mind too much that they were stolen but someone was disappointed she didn’t come to collect when she said she would. It happens.
I can often be slow and tardy when it comes to collecting, so I am often a bad offender in this regard. Mental note here to be more reliable and appreciative when I receive things through my Buy Nothing Group.
Vinnes to the rescue
I had to go into out for some admin yesterday, so I put a bag of ‘stuff’ in a bag, popped it on the back of my bike and head out in search of my local Vinnies.
Do you like my top? I was at the same Vinnies on Saturday with my friend Erna and picked this one up on a half-price special (=$3). I was pretty happy with it and I love it. Op shop karma works like that – I often find that I get amazing things back as well as giving things away. Of course, there’s an argument that I don’t actually need much new stuff but that’s another issue. I often call it op shop karma, but really it’s a form of active recycling.
I noticed there were many more people giving things away – probably more than usual. I know there’s going to be a big decluttering bug in January so I suggest getting in early before op shops get overwhelmed. Already several have shut their doors to new donations.
And make sure to check out op shops as a source of Christmas presents. Yep, I have been known to buy some amazing presents at op shops. Often they are brand new!
Support your op shops this Christmas so that the charities can support others at Christmas.
Joyful Giving
A bag of 11 op shopped items.