Comments on: Buy Nothing Day

By: Tracy

Tracy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:10:24 +0000

Thank you! I hadn’t donated to H.I. before, and it’s good to hear good things about it! I’ll donate in people’s names this holiday for sure!

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:45:38 +0000

Just a note on Heifer International, I have had personal experience working with them and it truly is a wonderful organization run by dedicated and caring folks who are trying to help under privileged, impoverished and hungry folks in a way that is long term sustainable for both the people and the environment. I encourage anyone who has a few moments to visit their website and read about their long established and innovative way of solving hunger in a sustainable way,

By: Tracy

Tracy — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:41:45 +0000

That’s a great idea, Paul! Thanks for sharing that story. I got a Heifer International catalog in the mail a couple of weeks ago for the first time; I think I’ll donate to that organization in someone’s name.

By: Paul Freeman

Paul Freeman — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:24:33 +0000

Here’s another option to shopping for Christmas, what about doing alternatives to buying gifts for people you know. Like giving a gift to someone who really needs the help, Like Heifer Project, or the Union Gospel Missions where you live or whatever charity you care to choose and then send a note or put it in a Christmas card, whatever the method you care to use to let your friend or family member know that you gave in honor of them.
For our wedding a cousin did that for us. I found it to be pretty special for someone to do that on my/our behalf.

I know of a story where the wife needed to do something different for her husband as he was getting pretty tired of the gift giving idea, so 1 yr after observing a wrestling match that her kids were participating in vs and inner-city school that ended competing in tatered uniforms and equipment. The wife made the decision to purchase needed uniforms and equipment to this inner-city school that yr and left a envelope with a note what she did to her husband on the families’ Christmas tree.

It became a tradition for her and her husband until he passed away just prior to Christmas one yr. Her sons were concerned the tradition would fall away, but to everyone’s surprise that yr there were a multitude of envelopes rather than the normal presents and packages left under the tree.

I say start your own traditions. Do something different than the normal idea of our society’s need to spend, spend, spend for the holidays. Whose birthday is it anyway?

By: Emily

Emily — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:48:54 +0000

It seems a large majority of shoppers are already irritated and short-tempered during the holiday season, and having people participate in “civil disobedience” will only irritate them more, not to mention the retail workers!

I work in retail and I need my job to pay bills. If I don’t go to work on “Black Friday” and Saturday, I’d likely get fired, as that is the start of the frenzied holiday season.

If you want to reduce consumption and not purchase as many things, that’s wonderful, but it sounds like these AdBusters aren’t considering that everyone that works in retail isn’t a pawn for “the man.” It’s a job, and we’re real people with the same concerns they have!

By: Tracy Balazy

Tracy Balazy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:49:57 +0000

I’ve never shopped the day after Thanksgiving, anyway. I have to work that day, I’m not interested in fighting crowds, and since I quit buying retail, I have no reason to enter the fray. My family’s been slowly edging away from the notion that you have to buy everyone around you something for Christmas just because, in a sort of panic so you have something to hand them on Dec. 25.

By: bloomagain

bloomagain — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:09:50 +0000

Heh heh- you had me laughing at the “big ol’ vinegar smoothie” part. I’m not going shopping on “Black Friday,” but then again I have never gone shopping on “Black Friday.” Why would I subject myself to something like that?! I go on long spells of “buy nothing” (except for food of course) anyways, not for any particular reason other than because I just don’t need to keep buying stuff constantly.

By: Red Icculus

Red Icculus — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:40:43 +0000

You are the one that brought up 10.2% unemployment. Small business entrepreneurs are 50-70% of our employers depending on who you listen to, so you are only killing jobs with silly activism.

By: Carolee

Carolee — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:35:56 +0000

Well, I’m in Canada, and our Thanksgiving was last month. We don’t really have the official start to the Christmas shopping.

But I do like the idea behind this non-consumer protest. Where I work, I need to come up with group activities for the public to take part in. I think I might base a craft or get-together on the ideas of “Buy Nothing Day”.

By: Maniacal Mommy

Maniacal Mommy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:12:12 +0000

I won’t be shutting off my lights for Black Friday. However, “Spend Nothing” day is easy for me to do. I go many days spending nothing.

There is no way after a day of cooking and cleaning up after a huge meal that I am going to wake up before dawn to fight hordes of people to buy marked down crap people don’t really want or need.

I once was foolish enough to think that when I left my 10 PM- 6 AM job that I would “pop” into a certain big box store and get a $10 crock pot. Ha! The parking lot was full, and I drove on.