Buy Nothing Day (document en anglais)

Thanksgiving will be on all the great deals and crowds for Black Friday, that isn't the only event that is taking place. In addition to this well-known shopping day, November 23 is also Buy Nothing Day, a day where the goal is to get consumers to have a 24 hour moratorium on all their spending. In essence, it's the anti Black Friday.

No Spend Days are becoming a more and more popular tool championed by frugal communities to help people learn about their personal spending habits, and Buy Nothing Day is the king of all of these. With a million people participating in over 60 countries, it's a rebellion from what they believe is the takeover of the real meaning of Christmas by consumer forces.

While the first step of Buy Nothing Day is to get individuals to not spend money on Black Friday, they also encourage participants to take things a step further. This includes doing such things as distributing Buy Nothing Day posters, organizing group credit card destruction groups and doing Christmas Zombie walks through shopping malls. All these are supposed to draw attention to the over-emphasis of consumerism at this time of the year.

Despite its continual growth over the years, Buy Nothing Day participants are still minor compared to those shopping on Black Friday. With over 147 million people expected to participate in Black Friday shopping, the anti Black Friday still has a long way to go to convince the masses of their message.

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