Faith, hope and charity shops

My mother once came by a second-hand winter coat for me. As I put it on she made me solemnly promise that I would not reveal its dubious origins to anyone. (Sorry, Mother, I just have!) Family honour was fine with sibling hand-me-downs but not with the receipt and use of goods which had been worn by people who were not blood relatives.

Those days and attitudes are long gone from Britain’s middle classes. Wear your second-hand coat with pride. Schools have jumble sales; churches have clothes swaps; and there never was a better time to frequent the charity shops. While the chancellor reduces VAT in order to persuade us to spend more money and thus kick-start the economy, many of us would like to find ways of spending less.

One way is to boycott all shops, except for the purchase of food, cleaning agents and pharmaceuticals. Mend and make do and, when you need to purchase or replace, restrict your shopping trip to Oxfam, Save the Children, Marie Curie or your local hospice shop.

This is a policy I have been rigidly pursuing since January 2008, a slightly belated New Year’s resolution. I am encouraged by the results and would commend the policy to others for the following reasons.

Give as good as you get

Charity shopping is extremely ethical. It recycles what would otherwise have been discarded; it makes no global, third-world-sweat-shop-exploiting company richer; it releases funds for a range of needy causes.

Charity shopping is thrifty: a ‘new’ winter coat for less than £10, a selection of holiday reading for less than £3, a video for a family film night for less than 50p.

Charity shopping restricts choice and thereby strikes a blow at consumerism. If you need pyjamas, you won’t spend ages browsing and agonising over the variety of styles and colours. If British Heart Foundation has a suitable pair in your size you gratefully snap it up.

Charity shopping makes you hang loose to ‘stuff’. You see more clearly its true value or lack of it. It is not true to say that things do not give us pleasure, but it is important to recognise that that pleasure is fleeting. Clothes with the most sought-after and wowed-over posh labels can decay and sag as much as the cheapest of supermarket stuff. The charity shop rail is no respector of labels. On the other hand, you can pay a small price for something to enhance your wardrobe without pretending to yourself that this is a must-have item which you will wear for years and always love and cherish. If it is beautiful, useful and it fits, you buy it and enjoy it and when it no longer meets those criteria you send it back. Equally, if the item you were hoping to find is not on the rail, you don’t ask the assistant if one can be ordered in your size. Instead, you cheerfully walk away knowing that you can live without it.

Liberating

Charity shopping reduces the occasion for covetousness. No need to waste time in those glossy stores with their enticing and over-priced designer items. You are liberated from those temptations.

Charity shopping is wonderfully exciting, even romantic. You never know what you will find when you walk into one: perhaps a book you enjoyed as a child, perhaps an unusual throw to cover the stains on your sofa, perhaps some china to match yours at home and make up for the breakages of years, perhaps a classy suit to wear to a wedding. Those are all experiences I have enjoyed this year.

Charity shopping is very forgiving. I suspect that few people have never made a purchasing error. You thought the shocking pink tie would work but the mirror tells another story; that dress, now you have worn it once or twice, doesn’t really do anything for you. That kind of thing happens with charity shopping too. But the good news is that you have only wasted a few pounds and in one sense the money was not wasted at all: it has gone to a needy cause. And you can always put the offending item into the charity bag to go round again.

Hunter-gatherers

Charity shoppers are the new hunter-gatherers, foraging among the videos for an action adventure, whipping out a tape measure to check out some curtains for the spare bedroom. Yes, there is much more to charity shops than clothes: books, toys, CDs, household linens, china, glassware, games, puzzles, shoes, suitcases,
accessories, candles, stationery, ornaments.

My rules for charity shopping are:

* Pop in frequently.
* Be happy to look round and spend nothing.
* Have in mind what you are looking for in particular, but…
* Be ready to take advantage of unexpected bargains. They may not be there tomorrow.
* Employ a strict ‘one in, one out’ policy at home. So, the acquisition of a new skirt means that one hanging in the wardrobe will be displaced and dropped off at the shop next time.

Dangers

There are dangers. You can be just as acquisitive over second-hand goods as you can be over new ones. Don’t get obsessed, merely thankful when your needs are providentially met in this way. Most of all, resist the temptation to boast. When someone admires your dress, it is tempting to play the ultimate retail trump card and say, ‘Only £3.99 from Cancer Research!’ It is also annoyingly smug and I am learning to refrain. Instead I respond to such a compliment with a gracious smile, ‘Thank you, yes, isn’t it?’

The challenge remains: can I keep my pledge during the Christmas season? Some members of my family are getting decidedly nervous. Let us just say, the Chancellor won’t be getting much out of me.

Faith, hope and charity shops

Give as good as you get

Liberating

Hunter-gatherers

My rules for charity shopping are:

Dangers

Esme Shirt

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