Volunteering at a local charity shop has changed my perspective on shopping

I work in a very affluent area of the UK that is flooded with charity shops (blame Cancer Research for that one), but I never would have guessed how much of a catalyst it would be to helping me live a more minimalist life.<br><br>I was pleasantly surprised at how much nice stuff people donate. My main question was "How did you get this far and not know that these things were worth money"? I don't want to give too many examples but it was on par with, finding a 100% cashmere coat from a luxury brand that still had the tags on it when it was donated, finding a nearly-new pair of shoes where the only thing wrong with them was that they had been left outside in the rain for one night, and finding sets of really expensive wine glasses (that ended up being sold to a lady who was on her honeymoon, she took them back to their hotel room, and sent me a photo of herself drinking a bottle of champagne out of them). <br><br>We also get a lot of designer stuff donated to us which is really great, but our shop is more of a 'community charity shop' as we call it, so we try to keep prices low. We're not the type to send our stock to be sold in a high end charity shop in the city because we believe that we're doing more good by making it accessible to people in the community. <br><br>The biggest problem we have is people donating absolute garbage, like high street clothing that's from the 90s, has holes in it, is stained, or is just generally in poor condition. There's a costume shop above us so if we can't sell it we will sometimes try and see if they'll take it but more often than not we have to throw it away or send it to be recycled because no other charity shops in the area want it either. We get so many donations that it's hard to keep on top of, but my god there's a lot of junk and it's just so sad that people are still out buying new things all of the time, when they're just going to end up here a few years down the line. <br><br>I think the turning point for me was when I opened a suitcase that had been donated to us and it was entirely full of brand new high street clothing that was drenched in smoke, damp and mold. A man had clearly smoked inside his house and the whole wardrobe he was donating had just been left sitting in a suitcase on the floor. <br><br>It's made me really take stock (lol) of what I'm buying, how long I plan to keep it, and what will happen to it at the end of its life.