A system in Crisis?

Just a quick post to thank Frugal Dreamer for commenting on my post today. She directed me a post she did a while back (The Story of Stuff).

She links to a you tube video that explains the consumption cycle - it is absolutely fascinating. I strongly encourage you to view it. The video itself is about 20 minutes long.

Lindsay posted a comment about The Story of Stuff on her blog as well.

My Brother made a related post about consumer ethics.

Clothing, at what cost?

When it comes to bugeting, whether we use the magic jars, excel spreadsheets, or even just vague guidlines, we generally try to keep ourselves within certain limits for certain spending categories.

For my clothing budget, I have it set pretty low. Clothes arn't high on my list of priorities so I often shop at discount stores, the clearance racks, and generally speaking, lower quality stores. I wonder, what do we sacrifice when it comes to saving money?

My roommate, Lindsay, recently posted on her blog about the choices we make when purchasing clothes. She makes references to some clothing company's that take advantage of sweat shops, which often have the cheaper clothes. Not just cheaper with regards to price, also quality.

Then there are clothing stores that over sexualize women in their efforts to market clothing. There is one particular store that she mentions which requires the submission of photographs simply to work there. She also mentioned to me in a converstion we had about her post that the founder of said company was charged with several sexual harrassment cases. However; their clothes are of much higher quality!

So, are you aware of the choices you make when purchasing clothes (among the other purchases we make every day)? Are we supporting sweat shops? Sexual harrassment? What else are we compromising, what other costs are associated with the items we buy other then just the dollar amount on the price tag?

Thanks for posting this intriguiging post Lindsay!