Gear Acquisition Syndrome: Do You Really Need All That?

benjy":17nnc0gh said:

was thinking today ive been born in wrong times, iam only 26 an dont like all the ipods iphones, contract this an lones for that, ooohhh look at my phone that costs more than your car ect, i feel its rubbed off on me a tad as i do like some nice things but iam fighting it off lol, being poor helps me lol, no flat screen tvs ect in my house just free or cheap secondhand stuff.

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I don't have any high spec gadgets, no flat screen TV's, our is a cast off, and this laptop was from Dell's old ebay site and is years old, I have no loans or debts but I do have a contract phone, not a very high cost contract but it does mean than when either I or my hubby are out and about we can always get in touch with whomever we need to get in touch with. If we had PAYG my hubby would say, "sorry we can't afford it this week" and it'd never have credit, so the contract means he has to budget each month for the phone and he's happy with that.

We as a family have nothing in the house that isn't used on a regular basis.

Alison

We_are_Stevo":2hkii5rm said:

Now, thanks to Maggie and Sarah f*cking Beeny, society has plumbed new depths of greed and unfairness! :x

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Two fine specimens. And I'm not talking about Beeny's front.

A wise man called Miyamoto Musashi who lived in Japan several hundred years ago said "never own anything you would not be happy to leave behind".

I don't think there are many in our modern society that could cope with that concept.

Very wise words.

I long for the days I could carry all I owned at one time.

We have been trying to work our way down to a bare minimum the last three years, but people keep dying and leaving us more sh*t! We now have a system of sorting things into 'sentimental' and just about everything else.

I remember this lad I used to play in a band with in my teens.

He was fifteen, and bought a set of expensive alloys for a Ford XR3 he didn't yet own, and never did own. We used to play tennis together, and he was the first to buy a hugely expensive graphite racket, he also bought a massively expensive Bond carbon graphite guitar while he was a mediocre bass player.

All of this did not make him happy, he was merely obsessed with the concept that owning the latest and fanciest things would make him better at things.

Any hoo, this was a tongue in cheek thread. Of course it is up to the individual to do what they want with their money, or their credit cards and bank loans.

Thing is, I reckon people take their eye of the ball in pursuit of consumer items when they could be creating things.

Britain was a powerhouse of creativity for centuries, in every field.

We dominated the world in everything, and created the most amazing music and tv, film throughout the last century.

Now we risk becoming the damp nappy consumers of global capitalism, convinced we are being the best we can be because we have fitted a new kitchen and have a thousand satellite channels on our 52" flat screens.

Are we the new Americans?

Won't be long before we'll be fat enough to be the new Americans.

The only things that I 'own' that wouldn't or couldn't leave behind are my hounds.

The rest at the end of the day is just 'stuff' . All of it.

Certainly in the event of a fire, or something like that, I'd save the children everything else is pretty much replaceable, I would be sad to loose photos of the youngsters growing up, but I could still live without them.

Alison

i'm skint, always been skint, my dad was skint etc etc.......yet i seem to have good stuff because i always keep my eye open for a bargain. stuff that costs loads that people aspire to.....gets sold when something new comes out. then i strike!! i'm skint with a wide arched mk2 escort, gt40 rep, 9 guitars and basses, 2 klein's. a san an, sts, cortina p100, 10 rc helicopters (not cheap co-axial shit) etc etc
sounds like a fair few quids worth, but i use my loaf, and only buy what i like when i see it cheap!
suppose people like me feed off the victims of the consumer society!!

zetecmk2":9oqrpk55 said:

i'm skint, always been skint, my dad was skint etc etc.......yet i seem to have good stuff because i always keep my eye open for a bargain. stuff that costs loads that people aspire to.....gets sold when something new comes out. then i strike!! i'm skint with a wide arched mk2 escort, gt40 rep, 9 guitars and basses, 2 klein's. a san an, sts, cortina p100, 10 rc helicopters (not cheap co-axial shit) etc etc
sounds like a fair few quids worth, but i use my loaf, and only buy what i like when i see it cheap!
suppose people like me feed off the victims of the consumer society!!

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Your just my sisters kind of guy, she is the best at getting bargains even when she buys new, she can get things from even the big high street stores at silly money, mainly because they are so desperate to get rid of this bloody argumentative, bloody minded annoying woman that they'll practically give things to her to get her out of the shop, me if I tried it they'd probably double the price :roll: She's well off now but when she bought her first house she was struggling as a working single mother yet she could make money stretch seemingly infinitely far.

Her first house was an ex council house and the council were working next door and the vibrations knocked a glass model car off her TV and it smashed, it was a few years old, she called the council and they asked for a price, she told them it was only available at Harrods for £600 (it cost my brother £20) and they paid up :shock: I wouldn't have had the guts to do that.

Alison

The Mantra of the Gear Acquisition Syndrome----"If some is good, more is better, and too much is just enough"...