Apparently I now give advice to my physician (mostly about what to read in People magazine when I’m in the doc’s office). And also to the administrator at the front desk (about buying used versus new).
It started with a bunny in a basket at Costco. The administrator was telling me that she was thinking about buying it for her new granddaughter. The basket was filled with candy and this was for a 5-week old baby. Naturally when she said it would cost her $20.00, my eyebrows raised and I probably tilted my head just like I am now as I relive that memory. I was trying to figure out why she would bay $20 bucks for this well packaged gift for her daughter’s new baby.
So I said, wow – why don’t you just buy the bunny for $5 dollars somewhere else and forget about the candy?
We moved onto the subject of baby swings. She paid – and before she told me, she asked me how I much I think she paid. $30 dollars, I said? She shook her head. She paid $80 for that swing.
That’s when it dawned on me why she was buying new and telling me about it. So I naturally gave her the perspective of someone who has worked with clients to make things attractive and market them NEW to folks like her – buy used. You can go on moms groups or find a consignment store. That’s what we did. Maybe I was suddenly denouncing my life’s work but there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying used. In fact, there is a whole carbon footprint movement out there that says “repurpose” and don’t buy cheaply made new items that will become landfill.
I could completely empathize with what I understood to be her belief: new = status. I grew up wishing I had new things. I primarily had hand-me-downs from my sister or my mom made us clothes until my sister got really good at sewing and inventing clothes. In fact I still think about the amazing outfits she’d created. We were two of the best dressed kids for being average to lower middle class in smalltown U.S.A. Later in life when I could pay for my own excesses, new stuff represented a whole world of status to me.
But “downsizing” agents believe in Ebay, Craigslist, consignment, handcrafted, and of course, Tar-get. Or the Rack. And yes, I’ve just been exposed to Marshall’s and can better understand why my mom and aunt love it so much.
Comments are closed.