The American shopper in tough economic times: More thoughtful, more creative

In the United States, disposable products are a way of life. Nothing need be used twice. Just pitch it! An endless stream of products moves from store shelves through our hands and into landfills.

That’s so yesterday.

It took a deep recession to finally change wasteful consumer behavior to habits that environmentalists have been promoting for years: reduce, reuse, recycle and now, repair. These concepts are finding new life in a culture that can no longer afford its previous profligate ways.

From the Washington Post:

In an extravagantly wasteful society that typically puts 254 million tons of unwanted stuff at the curb to be thrown away each year, landfill managers say they knew something was amiss in the economy when they saw trash levels start steadily dropping last year. Now, some are reporting declines as sharp as 30 percent.

Reduce. Consumer spending has been on a downward slide for the past six months, broken by a only by a small uptick in January, and on top of that, the recent Christmas shopping season wasn’t very jolly for retailers. Americans are saving more of their incomes than they have for years, leaving less cash for necessary or just purely fun purchases.

Reuse. Why scrap that piece of paper when it has another, perfectly usable side? Washing dishes is preferable to forking out cash for single-use paper plates. Consumers aren’t buying clothes, but instead are updating what they already have with small touches like new buttons or scarves. It’s a very European concept, adapted here out of necessity.

Recyle. Because Americans aren’t buying new clothes, they aren’t donating their used ones either, and that’s a problem because sales at thrift shops such as Goodwill are up as much as 52% and these stores rely on donations for their merchandise. Donating unwanted belongings to charities is a fabulous way to recycle what you don't need and shoppers are finding out that shopping at these stores can turn up great bargains.

Sometimes, gently-used is good enough.

Bartering, or swapping, has become an increasingly popular method for acquisitive Americans to continue to get more stuff, and the Internet has made this exchange of goods and services exponentially more possible. Web-based U-exchange bills itself as the “largest free swap site that specializes in every type of trade” and it has seen its site traffic double in 2009 compared to a year earlier.

Freecycle, a swap non-profit based in Tucson, AZ, has been giving older items new life since 2003, and has seen interest in its group soar in the last few months. Started with the environment in mind, its founder hopes that the organization is “changing the way people think about what they buy, when they buy it, and what they do with it when they no longer need it.”

Repair. In better days, it was easier and only somewhat more costly to ditch a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner for a brand new model, or trade torn pants for a new pair. These days, appliance, computer and auto repair shops are seeing steady business as consumers opt to fix rather than replace. Reluctant sewers are taking up needle and thread in order to make their garments last longer.

But the big question this change in consumer habits raises is this: Can it last?

The cynic in me thinks that old habits die hard and that when again able, the average American will buy the maximum that they can afford and shop for convenience products to save precious time instead of money in their overly busy life.

The optimist in me thinks that many of us will experience a sense of satisfaction and self-reliance in being able to fix instead of spend our way out of a problem, and will enjoy the sense of community we get when we exchange a good or service with a stranger.

If anything, perhaps parents will recognize that that the frugal habits that they are now modeling for their children might be the best kind of lesson in personal finance that they could pass on to them.

Daniel Horowitz, a professor of American studies, probably has the most accurate prediction:

There is a tension at the heart of this, between saving and spending, between pleasure and restraint, and the balance between those historically shifts constantly.

Eventually, the pendulum will swing the other way.