This virus has changed our lives in so many ways. Forced to remain at home, we’ve been denied simple pleasures like going for a drink, eating out, meeting friends.
I’m fed up with cooking and clearing up. I am sick of my partner moaning about his backache. I miss travelling and walking in remote places.
But there’s one thing I don’t miss – shopping.
Early on in lockdown, the urge to shop was a distraction from the gloom. I made some disastrous purchases online such as a shower hat made for a tiny oriental head, it would not have fitted over a tennis ball.
I needed Chinese cooking ingredients and ended up spending £70 for stuff that’s still unused because I haven’t got the energy to do a complicated recipe.
I haven’t bought a single item of clothing except for socks, and they turned out to be too small. Now the weather is warm, I’m wearing shorts and tee shirts, and a long rail of television tops is gathering dust.
Early on in lockdown, the urge to shop was a distraction from the gloom, writes Janet Street-Porter. Pictured: Stock Image
The fashion press seems increasingly desperate to justify their existence but are £400 sandals and a new Gucci bag essential purchases if your main audience is the dog?
How can I rationalise buying a £60 pot of moisturiser when most people see me on a foggy computer screen?
Denied real shops to browse in, could the lockdown be a chance to wean ourselves off the habit of buying stuff we don’t need for ever?
For decades, mindless consumerism has had us in it’s grip – from new bath towels to linen sheets and fast fashion that we could afford to discard after a couple of washes.
Shopping is an addiction we don’t discuss, because we have been brainwashed into thinking that spending money is ‘good’ for the economy. We’re told it keeps people employed, it’s almost patriotic.
In truth, we reached ‘peak stuff’ years ago, and most shopping now is utterly pointless. It results in huge financial misery and mental stress as we succumb to the endless messages beamed at us every day, in every form of media telling us to spend spend spend.
For decades, mindless consumerism has had us in its grip – from new bath towels to linen sheets and fast fashion that we could afford to discard after a couple of washes, writes Janet Street-Porter. Pictured: Stock image
In January this year, credit card debt alone in the UK was a whopping £72.2 billion – that’s more than half what we spend on the NHS every year.
Then, as covid-19 took hold and lockdown was imposed in March, something extraordinary happened – we paid back more than we borrowed, ‘reducing’ this debt to £69.3 billion.
The UK economy depends on debt, now more than ever – the government has borrowed billions to offer workers and businesses loans to get through the crisis. Our national debt is at an all-time high as the economy slumps to the lowest point since 2008.
The post-war generation shunned debt, they were obsessed with saving. Collecting coupons from cigarettes for luxuries, saving a bit every week towards a new home.
Buying Premium bonds at £1 a time to save for their children. Gradually, as society became more affluent and the middle classes grew, saving went out of fashion and borrowing became the norm as we became obsessed with keeping up with our neighbours and friends.
We became a nation where shopping for it’s own sake became a legitimate way of passing time, as acceptable as playing cricket, crafting or gardening.
And yet, what is shopping? To be brutally honest, a great deal of non-essential (ie not food) shopping is an attempt to cheer yourself up.
We became a nation where shopping for its own sake became a legitimate way of passing time, as acceptable as playing cricket, crafting or gardening, writes Janet Street-Porter. Pictured: Stock image
Shopping has been legitimised as a form of emotional support, when all it’s done has drag us into debt and pollute the environment by generating billions of tons of waste (from packaging to plastics to cheap clothing) which fewer and fewer countries in the third world are willing to have dumped on them.
As lockdown went into May, we cut back on credit and debit card spending by 40%, holidays remain banned and we didn’t need new cars or kitchens – with factories shut, supplies dried up.
Apart from food, what was there to waste money on? Lockdown meant no trips to hairdressers, beauty salons, spas, no sporting or music events. Foreign holidays remain in doubt as the government dithers about what form of quarantine they will impose and when.
Fashion in in crisis – who needs need clothes when you’re working from home? My in box is still packed with increasingly desperate updates from fashion retailers. There are sales and then there are further markdowns.
The UK hospitality industry says revenue from eating out (now limited to takeaways) has fallen 70%.
Most restaurants can’t re-open with social distancing, as it doesn’t generate enough income. The high street was already in crisis before coronavirus and even iconic brands like John Lewis and Marks and Spencer have seen their profits tumble. When they eventually re-open, what will be on offer beyond food and basics?
Faced with the prospect of looming layoffs once the furlough scheme ends, people say they are starting to save for the first time in years – one survey estimated over half of us are putting aside up to £200 a month.
Before lockdown, half of us admitted we were in debt. Now that number has shrunk to 40%, largely because the Chancellor offered mortgage holidays and a furlough scheme – which has made saving easier – but what will happen in the autumn when government assistance ends?
Banks are offering payment holidays on credit card repayments and loan borrowing, but when things return to normal, will people have saved enough to prevent sliding further into debt?
Millions are already claiming universal credit and covid-19 will only widen the social divisions in the UK. Since 2016, the poorest 20% of the population have only got worse off and a third of low-paid workers have lost their jobs or been furloughed since lockdown, according to the Resolution Foundation.
Spending for it’s own sake has been glorified as the new religion – and business leaders are saying that our new found cautiousness is ‘alarming’- but who does a bit of frills-free living really damage?
There are small signs that perhaps we are finally falling out of love with ostentation and consumerism for it’s own sake. Since lockdown, there’s been criticism of insta- celebs posting pictures of themselves ‘coping’ in their luxurious homes, poolside, surrounded by perfectly turned out kids in cute clothes.
As for Gwyneth and co, will a £500 vaginal steamer or a glass water bottle complete with healing crystal costing a fortune be so desirable when life returns to normal?
It’s been widely predicted that the pandemic will mean the end of office life. Facebook and Google are telling their staff to work from home for the rest of the year, while Twitter staff have been told ‘work from home forever’.
The Financial Times says that a quarter of companies are planning to reduce their real estate and grand headquarters could soon be relics. That means goodbye to office clothing, hello to sweat pants and trainers.
With no premieres, no award ceremonies and no music festivals, actors and musicians can’t parade in free clothes for us to gawp at. A Balenciaga ball dress isn’t really appropriate wear for a home studio session for your fans.
Could frugality be the new religion? For some, it is not a choice. But if the rest of us could learn to shop less – we might find we ended up richer both in cash and happiness.