You want to buy that? She explains why you don’t
Posted
Jun 15 2009, 07:26 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Sometimes you think you need to buy something because local custom or clever marketing has convinced you that you should. Or sometimes you don't realize that there's a cheaper, better DIY alternative.
Whatever it is, "Ms. Don't Buy It" can explain exactly why you don't need to spend money on that thing. Some of her observations are, for many, too-often-untapped common sense. Other posts at Don't Buy It are more groundbreaking. Among the things she says you don't need to buy are wedding rings.
The operative word here is "buy." After years of being ringless, she and he husband came up with creative alternatives, including making their own.
Now, let's consider a bread machine. We'd put this in her "simply superfluous" category, yet years ago she begged for one. "Turned out it only made lumpish squares that were only really nice when they were still hot, and those only if you bought the special overpriced mixes for it at the store," she writes. "I gave mine away."
Cheap alternative: No-knead bread, and she provides a recipe. (This also greatly reduces the need to buy bread at the store.)
Here are other samples of her arguments. Don't buy:
- Housecleaning services. The cheap alternative she uses is the FlyLady system, although she finds the Web site a bit sexist: "She writes for what she calls Sidetracked Home Executives -- SHEs, get it? Har har har."
- Laundry detergent (and other brand-name cleaning supplies). While our partner blogger Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar prefers the liquid homemade kind, Ms. Don't Buy It makes a powder and, again, provides instructions.
- Baby strollers. Unless you have more than one baby at home, she maintains, these are an absolute waste of money. Alternatives include the BabyBjörn carrier or homemade baby sling and those old standbys -- your shoulders and arms. She adds, "Once they get big enough to walk, they can walk. We were amazed at how far toddler Floppy could walk, and how perfectly calibrated his abilities were to our stamina."
We'll add another item to the list: a plastic arm you can buy to handle toilet paper -- at a distance. (We wish we could say we were making this up.) We saw a Brow Beat post about it at Slate and immediately thought that for most people, that's a solution looking for a problem.
Related reading:
Which TV commercials do you hate?
The lowdown on homemade detergent
DIY: Make your own deodorant
Cheap cure-all: 66 reasons to keep vinegar on hand
