Skip the useless stuff, say no to freebies

Haven’t we laughed at the “free gifts” you are supposed to get when ordering something from the TV-shop. Bundle of useless products are told to offer value for your money. Really?

All sorts of gifts are also mentioned when you get a call from an enthusiastic salesperson. While listening you wonder if he is selling you the magazine or all the cosmetics, jewellery and stuff. If the gift is very stylish and you think the magazine is ok maybe you decide to make the subscription. At least you get the nice designer handbag if the magazine is no good.

Even if I try to be very conscious and say no thanks for gifts I honestly don’t need, it is not always easy. For instance when buying some cosmetics it is difficult to say no for samples you think are useful, well at least useful in a sense that cosmetic samples can be.

The freebies question was recently brought up by one of my friends in Facebook. She wrote on status update that she got some goodies from a bakery for free and raised the question why we are so happy about the things we get for free. While we are trying to figure out rational reasons for this very primitive behaviour the marketing agencies take a full advantage of all this. If the samples, gifts and freebies wouldn’t encourage us to buy more, there would be none of them available.

Basically there are two points why the rational person in me is irritated by the gifts. The first thing you come across when you are about to move and need to pack all your stuff. Many of those lovely gifts you find from the bottom of baskets and the back end of the closets, right behind a jacket you haven’t used for five years. You wonder why on earth you have accepted to take all this stuff even if you knew from the beginning that you would never make use of it. The next destination of all this stuff will be the recycling centre where customers wonder who in the first place decided to have an item like that. At some point, the lovely gifts will end at the landfill or incineration plant.

The second point is that even if the gift is ok, is the product itself something you’d really need? A good question to ask oneself is if you’d skip the gift, would you still buy the product?

My strategy is to let the salesperson to know that I don’t want the gift; I’m only interested about the real product. This also works on the other way round; if the original product is very poor you can say that the freebie doesn’t make it better. What is your strategy?

Finish up your meal or I’m going to make you pay!

Have you recently had a buffet meal? I love them since in most cases they offer a good value for money during the lunch time especially. What makes me feel bad in buffet restaurants is that people do not only take advantage of eating as much as they can but also to take as much food on their plate as they can handle and then leave some or even most of it untouched.

Because of this I was really impressed about the news (in Finnish) about a restaurant where people are charged extra if they leave some food on their plate when they choose the buffet menu. Way to go I thought. People would need to think more carefully about how much they could actually eat. But what do the customers say? I also took a sneak peek on the discussion forum of the news and almost to fell of the chair.

The first comments set the scene: “Cheating!”, “Customers pay for and can do whatever they want with the food!” Well, this might be the truth. What can you do if a grown up people do things that are not illegal but only stupid? All the food consumed, eaten or trashed, is in any case paid by the customers.

Bad service they call it. It is true that this kind of pricing policy should be clearly indicated before the customer is charged or starts to eat. A more rewarding pricing policy would be to give some discount for people leaving with a clean plate instead of charging extra for the leftovers. I can understand, but not accept, the misery of the people told to pay for the food left on their plate after they’ve finished. I would definitely choose a restaurant with this kind of pricing policy. At least if they offer vegetarian and vegan dishes too.

The food waste issue in restaurants is interesting. I’d like to know if it is in the kitchen or in the dining hall where most of the food waste is generated. According to WRAP, in UK one third of the food bought by households is wasted, but what is the case in restaurants? I’d also like to know what customers can do to minimise waste in addition to taking a plastic box for the leftovers (not talking about the buffet meals in this case).

By the way, do you know which one is better if you want to minimise food waste, to go for a buffet meal or a la carte?

Wants or needs?

The Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has launched a campaign “What does a person need”. According to the site the purpose of the campaign is to “inspire people to think about their everyday choices and their effects on the lives of people in other parts of the world”. What Finns believe they can do to affect the wellbeing of people in other nations? According to the survey prepared for the campaign, on top of the list was recycling. You know, not trashing the goods you don’t need any more but taking them to charity, recycling centres etc.

It is nothing new about this actually. Every time Finns are asked about what they think they can do to tackle the climate change for instance, recycling and sorting waste is high on the list. It is actually great that the reuse and recycle mantra has reached people. However, did we forget the first R, reduce? There would be much less recycling to worry about if we’d reduce first.

In my opinion, this is what the campaign is all about. We are reminded about the possibility to reduce consumption and to reconsider what we actually need instead of what we want. The question of needs and wants was a current one for me on last weekend. I was wandering around clothing stores searching for a suit for my companion. I didn’t question his need for a new suit (no doubt needs are based on social norms too) but I had difficulties questioning my own wants rising from colourful summer collections. Would I need a dress suitable for temperatures above 30 ⁰C if I’d stay the whole summer here in the North? At the end of the day my companion got the suit he was looking for but I managed to leave all the wants behind. I was proud of myself.

Next day I took a little cycling tour around Helsinki and got myself photographed in the fields of Viikki, a beautiful area with an arboretum, nature conservation area and the fields of the faculty of agriculture and forestry. When I returned home and arranged my photos, accidentally two almost identical photos appeared next to each other. In the first one I’m in Bucharest city centre in the autumn 2007 and the second one presents the recent moment in Viikki, where I’m trying to make friends with one of the cows on the field. I’m holding almost the same position and wearing the same outfit. Only the background is different. The two almost identical settings made me think if I should have bought a new outfit since I seem to have the same clothes in every photo a year after a year.

But in the end, did I really need the new outfit? I had enjoyed both of the Kodak moments a lot: the company, location, weather, and especially the freedom of a Sunday afternoon. How a trendy outfit could have made it better?

So what’s the difference between a need and a want? The need for something develops slowly and you won’t get over it easily. According to my experience the items you wanted might quickly end up on the pile of things waiting to be taken to the charity but the things you actually needed you will keep until they tear apart.