Keep Your Money in Your Wallet

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, so that must mean today's another Buy Nothing Day. If you didn't get up in time for J. C. Penney's 4:00 AM sale, then your Buy Nothing Day is off to a good start. Traditionally it's been believed that the Friday after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year, and while I haven't seen stats as to whether it's the busiest day with the largest crowds, it's not the biggest spending day. Still, why does anybody want to go out to fight huge crowds to get a couple of pretty good deals? From what I've seen in the ads, the deals aren't that good, and they can hardly be worth the aggravation of fighting too many people in too small a space. So why not just turn avoiding the crowds into a protest by boycotting consumerism? I know it's our patriotic duty to keep the economy afloat by buying too much stuff, but it's not going to be too long before our overwhelming consumer debt is going to do us in. As energy costs (and subprime mortgages) go up, we'll have a harder and harder time staying ahead of all the rest of the money we owe. A little bit of not buying today won't turn our credit problems around overnight, but it can be a start.

Buy Nothing Day is today for the U.S. and Canada, and it's tomorrow in the U.K. and around the world. According to the site, two stores in Toronto have made this Sell Nothing Day--they're closing down. Who among us can match that kind of dedication? I guess the real question, though, is will those shop owners refrain from going elsewhere to buy anything themselves.

And that's where Buy Nothing Day becomes more complicated. It's not Buy Nothing at a Mall Day. It's not Buy Nothing Wherever There's a Big Crowd of People Day, it's Buy Nothing Day. Buy nothing at the grocery store. Buy nothing online. Buy nothing at a restaurant. Buy nothing that you'd normally buy during the course of a regular day. That takes a bit more effort. Certainly I'm not going to run from store to store for door-buster sales. I'm not going to go to Wal-Mart (of course, for me every day is Buy Nothing at Wal-Mart Day). But it should also be Buy Nothing at the Gas Station if you need to fill up your tank or Buy Nothing at the Corner Store if you need a quart of milk. For that you might need some advance warning (which means I should've posted this last week--sorry). Good luck.