Buy-Nothing Groundhog Day

I am admittedly bemused by an article appearing in the Guardian today, in which the author Patrick Collinson appears surprised that the Coronavirus epidemic has created a constellation of "Buy Nothing Days".

It's now newsworthy to not spend money for several days in a row.

Pardon me while I dissolve into an absolutely non-Covid-related coughing fit.

Buy Nothing Day is an annually recognised protest against rampant consumerism, in which the public, for just one day each year, is encouraged not to spend any money. No takeaway lunch, no movie theatre, no click & collect, no grocery shop, no new clothes. Such is our addiction to spending that we need a Day to wake us up and to actively choose not to spend any money. Just for one day a year. Because not-spending for just one day each year is presumed to have a palpable impact on the world's economy, or on your bank account, or on, uh, something. Most likely the only tangible impact will be in the number of social media posts or in the level of feelgood hippie vibes.

To be fair, it's a well-written article and he examines the new distribution of spending. Those with less are still spending, because all they could afford before were necessities, and even in a pandemic, you have to buy your necessities. And those with more are pocketing more savings because they're no longer grabbing their non-essentials. Surprise, what we see is the rich get richer and the poor continue to be largely ignored. Coupled with the fact that those with the property assets are still collecting the dough - but that's a whole 'nother article.

Now I digress. My original, lost and belaboured point, is that it should be normal not to spend on most days. It isn't all that difficult to arrange your lunch before you leave the house. I mean, you accept all the other things you need to do (like getting dressed) and you don't see people moaning that they didn't have time to change out of their pyjamas.

Takeaway lunches aside, we as a planet do far too little of considering our purchases. Simply put, we buy that thing because we can. We don't stop to consider whether it's a worthwhile spend, or sometimes, if it's even necessary. I am just as guilty at times. I went into Poundland (bad me) and blinked and had spent £21. I accept that several items were necessary, but a whole lot of "I want" also went into that basket. I could excuse it by reminding myself that I can't buy clothing second-hand right now, but I also wasn't prepared to wait a few weeks to grab myself a couple of summer shirts.

People talk about making sacrifices, but you know what's far less painful? Nurturing a non-spending habit. In a world where clawing your way out of the land of the have-nots is hard enough, who really wants to abandon the best chance we have by spending our limited cash on crap? It merely entraps us at the bottom of the food chain. And it's not a place that I want to end my days.