Buy Nothing Day

Buy Nothing Day

I have never heard of such a day until reading about it here, but it actually seems like a good idea. I looked into this immediately to see how those would cope without buying anything. I viewed a blog page (same one as mine!) that was dedicated to sharing ideas and posts on what they would do on this occasion. Ideas such as baking, sewing, reading, cooking dinner for the family, and going skating were a few shared ideas on the discussion board. This day sounds like what I say every morning when I wake up. Each day I vow to spend $0, but I never succeed. Being a student, budgeting is a great skill to learn. I have not mastered this art yet.

There needs to be more awareness of over consumption in North America. Americans are only 5% of the total World population, but consume over 30% of its resources. While the world as a whole is consuming at a rate 35% higher than the limit where nature can sustain and regenerate itself.

I’m really glad I this topic was chosen for us students to do as an assignment. I had not heard of this event, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. It is important for us to recognize how good we have it, and how much we take for granted. North Americans have adopted the belief that wealth and consumption is what makes us happy, even when studies have shown it has actually reduced the quality of our lives.

This event got me very interested and doing research about over consumption in the world and I definitely learned some things I was not exposed to before. I will be an active supporter of this day/event.