Happy Buy Nothing Day!

[ecosophia]

For quite a few years now, the Friday after Thanksgiving has been celebrated by some of us as Buy Nothing Day.  We celebrate it -- quel choc! -- by buying nothing that day. It's an opportunity to step outside of the manufactured frenzy of the consumer economy and, just for once, kick back and do something that doesn't involve money changing hands. It's also a way to take a little of the pressure off the people who have to work shifts as store clerks on the notional first day of the Greedmas -- er, Christmas -- season, and can usually count on seeing crowds of foam-flecked consumers shed their last scraps of human decency in the frantic struggle to get the latest shoddy and heavily marketed gewgaw, fresh off the boat from some overseas hellhole where sweatshops churn out plastic crap to make billionaires richer at your expense. 

(Of course those who celebrate any of the many religious holidays around the beginning of winter -- very much including Christians, whose holy day got hijacked by the mass marketers of Greedmas -- may like to use the break to reflect on what the season's really about. That's up to each of us, however.)

I keep Buy Nothing Day strictly -- that is to say, I won't be buying anything today. No, I don't expect that to have any effect on the consumer economy or society as a whole; it's simply a personal celebration and an act of personal intention. Your choices are yours to make, dear reader, but I hope that some of you will join me in having a happy Buy Nothing Day today. 

Comments

The Gospel of Consumption

[(Anonymous)]

Worth another posting - ‘The Gospel of Consumption’:

Since much of what industry produced was no longer aimed at satisfying human physical needs, a four-hour workday, he claimed, was necessary to prevent society from becoming disastrously materialistic. “By not shortening the working day when all the wood is in,” he suggested, the profit motive becomes “both the creator and satisfier of spiritual needs.” For when the profit motive can turn nowhere else, “it wraps our soap in pretty boxes and tries to convince us that that is solace to our souls.”

https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-gospel-of-consumption/

Gold and Silver

[(Anonymous)]

Good day NOT to buy, some funny stuff going on with the markets over night into today. Enjoy the week end. Blueberry

Buy nothing

[zaratozom]

I always participate in buying nothing during Black Friday and I generally don’t participate in consumerist culture to the best of my ability . The circles I run in usually say buy local which I usually do but, it saddens me that during Black Friday, smaller local businesses which many already live on razor thin profit margins as it is, often need to offer deep discounts on Black Friday just to get business.

[atmosphericriver]

Yes, never buy anything today. I also de-consumer the whole christmas season, I want the focus to shift. I like to make things to give away most years

Re: Gold and Silver

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry gold and silver market. Blueberry

[(Anonymous)]

We won't be buying, but we will be selling!

Because our nearby small city is crazy, they do a night parade the day after Thanksgiving. My girls' Job's Daughters Bethel figured out that they can sell hot cocoa at this parade a few years ago. All the earnings go to pay for them to do a Secret Santa, usually adopting a family or two from Salvation Army's program. Usually they make low four digits, and the worse the weather the better they do.

So tonight we will be selling hot cocoa in weather that appears to intend to be the first major snow storm of the season. Brr!

BoysMom

[slclaire]

We also strictly observe Buy Nothing Day. This afternoon we enjoyed a walk with several other people at a nearby state conservation area. Happy Buy Nothing Day to you and everyone else who observes it!

I couldn't resist making one purchase (on-line)

[(Anonymous)]

My plan was to take the dog for a brisk walk around a nearby lake. Being concerned about how he might react to other dogs, joggers, wildlife, etc., he wore his training collar, which can give him an audible, tactile, or electric shock warning when I push the appropriate button on the wireless control unit.

Unfortunately, I left the control unit on the roof of my car when we left for the lake, and by the time I found it, it had been smashed to bits in the road. So, I had to order a replacement on-line as soon as possible.

While walking along the roads to the lake in search of the lost unit, though, I managed to pick up all of the discarded bottles and cans I saw and get them into recycling bins, so perhaps that counts as penance.

Lathechuck

[the_arcane_archivist]

I wonder if buying from flea market is still consumerism. I mean it is, but to what degree...

[lunchboxbike]

I completely failed at Buy Nothing. I went out to buy a major appliance and stopped on the way home to buy chips.

Produce something day? Give something away day?

[emily07]

Hi,
on this friday I bought something to produce a prototype christmas tree from wood so as to minimize on felling trees for Christmas because that thing should be reusable when finished. Then I remembered that it was buy-nothing day and instead of going out and buying bread I baked some rolls and tried to refine the given recipie to our tastes (less sugar, a little less salt).
Also in the spirit of Christmas one might be considering what could be donated from what one has?
Best wishes and a happy weekend!
Emily07

[(Anonymous)]

May I be a Grammar Nahtz for a sec ? "Choc" being a masculine word, the adjective should be "quel" ;-)

Grammar

[(Anonymous)]

Minor quibble: it should be "quel choc", as choc is a masculine word.

[(Anonymous)]

IMHO like being pregnant you are or not. Blueberry

Re: Grammar

[ecosophia]

Duly corrected! I read French, I don't speak it. ;-)

[ecosophia]

That's fine. The point of Buy Nothing Day isn't to look down on those who shop. It's so that those of us who are interested can set aside a day for other activities, and give a little less stress to the poor shop clerks.

Re: Buy nothing

[(Anonymous)]

Here in the US we also have Small Business Saturday, designed to boost attention to local folks, because it's pointless for them to try competing on Black Friday. So I was able to enjoy my Buy Nothing Day in peace, then go put some $ in the pockets of the struggling startup down the road. (Happened to be a local farm, and boy can they cook.)

the importance of holidays

[xcalibur_djs]

Responding to a comment on the other site: while you don't need an official day to scale back consumerism, it really does help to have an official holiday for the sake of symbolism and coordination. It's comparable to NNNovember, which just wrapped up -- of course you can do ascetic challenges anytime, but it's a tangible way for people to come together and take on the challenge by observing the occasion. In fact, the two are related, because it's yet another form of consumption.

Cyber Monday

[(Anonymous)]

Almost gone, but related and even more annoying (IMHO) is Cyber Monday, the techie little brother of Black Friday.

Any suggestions?: ??? is to Cyber Monday, as Buy Nothing Day is to Black Friday.

Re: Cyber Monday

[(Anonymous)]

Stay Out of the Big Slimy River Day

Re: Buy nothing

[(Anonymous)]

Around here (BC Interior), the Buy Local movement has started promoting Plaid Friday in lieu of Black Friday -- with the goal of supporting locally-owned small businesses and artisans.

Caldathras

A Poor Consumer, I Guess ...

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I did not buy anything on Black Friday this year, but it wasn't intentional. For one thing, I find that I don't just buy things just "because" anymore. Besides, compared to yesteryears, the sales are really not impressive enough to tempt me to spend my hard-earned money, particularly if it is only something I want rather than something I need. I've learned to differentiate between the two.

I guess I'm just not a good consumer anymore. I find it much more fun to save than to spend.

Caldathras

Re: Cyber Monday

[(Anonymous)]

word