There are many useful things hanging around. Even do eBay if you have the knack.

It means so much more! Yeah, barter and regifting the mounds of misfit items in every American home to someone who wants them is so under appreciated.

I don't have mounds of misfit items. I have just what I need and stay away from stores unless it's necessary. It really isn't that difficult to stop this merry go round of recreational shopping. I read a very apt line from a young woman's blog about the wastefulness of conspicuous consumption where she said, "Let's stop the glorification of busy." I don't think people realize how much of their time is wasted on shopping and managing all the unnecessary stuff in their houses.

Do you mean that postponing or quitting buying is like quitting smoking?

The old joke is "It's EASY. I've done it dozens of times"

No real (or imaginary) pressing needs at this time.

I even stocked up on pre-Thanksgiving sale pot so I wouldn't be tempted by todays' cheap prices on some things. I've got everything I need!

I am going to my regular Friday lunch with my friend, but coming straight home. I will focus the rest of the day on taking out and displaying my red Santa collection, then tomorrow will decorate the tree. Between football and leftovers and decorating I will have a very full weekend. I'm going to try to get the family presents at local stores after 12/2. Boycotting shopping from today until then.

Happy holidays to all!

Much more difficult.

Not owning a regular tv is the best thing ever. I can watch plenty of shows, but I don't see the commercials. So I'm completely unaware that I desperately need name a product, any product, here. Lucky me. I probably am more poor than I know, but since I'm not wanting things I can't afford, I can't tell.

Really, turn off your tv.

but rather recognizing that "need" and "want" are not the same -- and once you recognize a want as a want you can examine the how/why and potentially move past it.

I'm also one who prefers experiences over things.

For ten years I was an airline employee (1969-1979) and took full advantage of the travel benefits available to me. And the small airline I worked for had far and away the very best benefits. I go unlimited passes on my own airline, as well as on Eastern. One a year on every other carrier out there. Plus, I did shift work, so while I worked weekends and holidays, we could swap shifts with each other, so it was easy to get an extra day or three that way, and take off somewhere exciting.

These days I'm in a senior living facility, and I'm pushing very hard for us to do various experiences, such as taking the train from Santa Fe (where I live) to Lamy, about 20 miles south. There are actually several themed train rides on that route, and I think the margarita one would be my choice.

Almost all my non-essential spending is on food or books. I do like good, clean food and I do enjoy reading (books in paper form specifically).
If I have to give gifts, I go with money. It is less fun, but you can’t really go wrong with money (especially these days).

I very rarely buy clothes..Anyway, it would go the way of Diderot’s dressing-gown :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot_effect

It doesn't take long to find alternatives and in many cases you will never go back.

Once you realize how much better life is without all the busyness of buying and accumulating and the subsequent increase in your savings accounts along with realizing you never needed that latest shiny object you never go back.

well said.

Staying with inlaws who never get enough food to feed the large group (12 this year).

So I had to get food to make dinner tonight

No one would fault you for that.

They don't understand that when you make thanksgiving dinner. You need to cook enough so that you can at least get lunch or dinner the next day out of leftovers (seriously, watch an episode of friends...leftovers are the best part).

But sister in law and brother in n law hate to eat leftovers, so they try to cut it uncomfortably close so that the teenage grandkids are afraid to eat their fill because food will run out

Back when I hosted Thanksgiving years ago for a very large family I always made way too much so that those people who were struggling financially or brothers who were single and didn't know how to cook would have an entire container of all the foods to take home with them in addition to whatever pie they wanted. I always made three or four pies the day before. That's just stingy not thinking about having enough for everyone.

I've got everything I need.

i havent gone out on black friday in years due to the crowds , frantic buying , and the hype for years. im hiding today.

That word Trump invented. I'm the 'coupon king'.

"things you put in a bag"

What does a few days do when most are just going to go back to buying from this companies. That is just a reset not a movement or message if people aren’t willing to change the deeper problems of consumption.

Consumption has been the driver of the economy but at what cost? Americans insatiable desire to buy crap, fill their house with crap, jam closets with more crap than they could ever wear (and don’t wear most of it), and waste 40%of the food grown in this country, All while creating unmanageable waste in its path, geopolitical upheaval to get raw material resources, and taking on record credit card debt. We are not better off mentally or
in national security because of it all.

A few days of boycotting something is placebo and does nothing unless you change the consumption pipeline everyday that feeds this sick system. Make do with what you have, learn repair skills, mend clothes, share what you don’t need with others, make things, reduce food waste, buy local whenever possible, STOP unsustainable ONLINE SHOPPING, drive that existing car for decades and just keep it maintained, and value experiences over “things”.

Shopping does not make up for what is missing in your life. Get your dopamine elsewhere through walks, volunteering,
socializing, helping a friend with a project, getting off your butt and finding what makes you happy because “stuff” feeds what ills you.

Take this lady’s advice: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTrrMf9pS/

All of what you said is true. Every single word. But Americans are for the most part lemmings. If everyone's doing it, well, it must be important. The food waste issue is one that really gets me angry. We all end up paying for the epidemic (yes, it is an epidemic) of obesity in this country, yet so many people don't have enough food to eat.

Last edited Sat Nov 29, 2025, 05:40 PM - Edit history (1)

But one year, I had to run to Target or somewhere for one thing on Thanksgiving Day, maybe even the day before? Anyway, our Target is next to a Best Buy. Much to my bemusement, there were big groups of people (they mostly seemed Mexican) already lined up at Best Buy, with chairs and pup tents and thermoses and blankets.

They were having the time of their lives. They were happy, and socializing with each other, and chattering about deals. It was one of the most festive things I have ever seen. It reminded me of when I was a freshman in college and we camped out all night for football tickets (before all this online anonymity).

At that point I decided to drop my snobbery about people who enjoyed Black Friday. I like people to socialize and have fun. It really lifted my spirits. The people weren't there because of materialism, really. Sure, they were being enticed in to buy a few seasonal items, but they all knew it. It was like a game.

What I don't like is that now the greed of the CEOs, their willingness to kowtow to Trump, has put up another barrier to joy. I don't want to give money to those people either (though it's better than giving a nickel to Amazon or Airbnb). But I don't want to take away the fun the shoppers were having either. People have shopped for millennia and wares have been displayed in fun ways all that time too.

The only thing I'm buying today. We'll, that little stuffed chicken fir her. 😋

for the world you want

for the world you grudgingly accept

for the world you actively resist

Pretty sure my husband is ordering stuff but I'm not. We do go to a gem show on Saturday. Otherwise we're taking the weekend off.

we have lost much of our power. One of the levers of power that we still have is our money as it relates to corporations.

Remember right after Trump's failed coup attempt when a number of corporations said that they would not support politicians who had engaged in cooperation with the attempt to end democracy?
These corporations should have been flooded with calls of thanks from people across the United States. Instead people didn't seem to care. And the corporations went back to supporting politicians "on both sides".


Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.
Juvenal