This November, as in beginning this Thursday, I'm going to try something. For one month, I will buy only from local businesses. As if there were no chain franchises, no multinational megastores. If all we had were homegrown businesses, how would my life be different?
In turn, if we all shopped locally, how would our local economies be different? If business owners and developers lived in our communities buying homes and spending money and employing the people they see at church. Would the extra cost of what I buy be an investment in my community?
Here are my rules:
- One month = November 1 to December 1
- Local = My hometown and surrounding communities
- Regularly blogging about the experience here on GFF
- All "normal" purchases for the month (I'm going to fess up right now that I plan to do some Christmas shopping online)
- Home-grown, locally-owned businesses only
- When an affordable choice is available, buying products produced locally in addition to sold locally
I'll let you know how it goes!
4 comments:
The shame I feel. I don't even know which store in our community might be the local one. OK, I know of one, but it's the local organic/health food specialty store.
(Where in the heck are you going to buy diapers?)
I'm looking forward to hearing all about your experiment!
I'm looking forward to the report...
Cool idea, and one I've considered. Not sure I really could afford it though. Honestly. If the "special" foods we eat were more readily available and affordable, maybe I could. So, I recognize my failures in some areas (like supporting Sam's Club) and celebrate the victories (like buying meat from a local farmer). I'll be interested to see how your month goes.
I'm looking forward to hearing how you'll do this. We only have a couple of local, not chain groceries in the area, and oh my, those veggies better be gold plated for what they charge! Good luck, and keep us posted...
:)
Post a Comment