The Second Life of Things

A new thing is at its most expensive at the moment it stops being new.

After the first unboxing, the first trip or the first scratch, a large part of the price disappears, although the function barely changes. Buying second-hand lets someone else pay for that transition.

It is particularly sensible to buy used:

• furniture made of hard materials;
• tools;
• sports equipment;
• books;
• tableware;
• appliances you can test;
• children’s items with a short useful life.

Caution is needed where hygiene, hidden wear or safety matter: mattresses, protective helmets, some medical products, parts with an unknown history.

A used item is not always greener than a new one. An old fridge can consume more energy, and repairing rare equipment can require parts from another continent. But extending service life usually reduces the amount of production and waste.

The same market helps you get rid of surplus.

If something has not been used for a year, that is not an automatic verdict. Seasonal tools, an archive, formal clothes and an emergency supply can wait longer.

Worth assessing:

• the probability of use;
• the cost of buying it again;
• the storage space;
• how quickly it can be got on the second-hand market;
• emotional value;
• the consequences of not having it.

Clutter is not simply anything rarely used. Clutter is a thing whose storage cost already exceeds its expected usefulness, while the decision about it keeps being postponed.

Selling takes time too. Sometimes it is cheaper to give it away, recycle it or throw it out. It is not worth keeping a broken coffee machine for three years for a possible profit of seven euros.

The main gain from parting with a thing is often not money but recovered space and the disappearance of an obligation to deal with it one day.

Storage costs can be calculated if you know the price per square metre. A three-square-metre box room costs roughly as much per metre as a bedroom; over a year it runs up a sum that would buy everything inside it twice over. What lies in there is usually the box from an appliance that can no longer be returned, skis for a different height, a drill bought for one shelf, and a bag of bags. No single item is worth dealing with on its own — which is precisely why the decision never gets made.

Clutter is held in place not by greed but by the smallness of each separate decision. So it is better to count not items but the whole shelf: it has a price, and that price is paid monthly.