Buying Stuff

I don't celebrate National Buy Nothing Day. We're not going shopping today, but if we discover we're out of milk, we're going to get some from the grocery store. And if we stop through Hearts and Vines (Pines? I forget which, the one in St. Anthony Park) and my mom spots candles that go in her dining room candle holders, I will be glad if she buys them. We'll likely buy lunch, coffee, some pastries maybe. This will be fine.

I hate the mall frenzy on the day after Thanksgiving. So I avoid the mall. That's a personal preference, not a moral superiority on my part. I agree that wasteful buying, spending money for the sake of spending money, spending more than you can afford, is a bad, bad idea (or a pair of bad ideas, depending on how you look at it). It was a bad idea yesterday, and it will be a bad idea tomorrow.

Buying is not in itself bad. Spending money is okay; that's what it's there for, either to use now or to use later. Going to one extreme one day and another the rest of the season or the rest of the year doesn't make any sense to me. Pick your philosophy, think it through, stick with it.