Unpicking contemporary thrift: Getting on and getting by in everyday life

an article by Helen Holmes (University of Manchester, UK) published in The Sociological Review Volume 67 Issue 1 (January 2019)

Abstract

This article explores contemporary thrift.

To date scholarly attempts to define thrift are always focused on consumption, centring upon household finances and how thrift revolves around the peaks and troughs of spending and saving.

In this article the author argues that this financial focus ignores the myriad of thrifty practices which occur beyond the point of purchase but which are no less central to thrift. Instead, the author suggests that contemporary thrift occurs within a continuum of motivations which extend far beyond the practice of shopping, and overspill the categories of consumption and production: the extreme points of which are financial necessity, conscience and enjoyment.

Three particular empirical moments of household activity – shopping, cooking and repair and making – are used to illustrate how these motivations to be thrifty overlap, compete and interweave.

In doing so, the author contends that thrift is about value and how value is perceived, produced and released through different contexts, motivations and activities. This article adds to the growing body of scholarly work on the sociology of everyday life, illustrating how thrift encompasses a broad range of activities which are part of the intricacies and intimacies of getting by and getting on in everyday life.

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