Tiers of Money and Effort: Learn Skills, Help Your Community, Then Send Your Money Away
If you can do it locally, do that.
I’m not a billionaire but I like to think that even the small amount of money I spend year-to-year could have a tiny impact. If my neighbour runs their own business, then it might actually make a difference to them whether I choose to buy something from them vs buying from a huge company. I try to keep this in mind and spend locally whenever I can. You might hear this described as “rooting money in the community”, rather than buying from a company whose headquarters are somewhere far away.
For future reference, here is how I think of the tiers of options:
Best Tier: Learn How To Do It, Make It Yourself
Learning a new skill is almost always useful. You can work to be more self-reliant. It can save you money making or repairing things yourself. You’re getting better at something you might be able to trade, bargain, or barter with. And you’re improving your brain by exercising and learning new ways to think. Learning any new skill is a great investment.
Fun examples: wood working, gardening, building compost, mechanics and car repair, appliance repair, plumbing, minor electrical work, cooking, baking, brewing, sewing, writing, editing, cutting hair, animal raising and training, soap making, house and building construction. It’s a long list. I was very dumb at all of these when I was a teenager but I have learned something about all of them, and I’m a better person for it. It has also saved me a ton of money.
Skill Example: Beer Is Great To Gift And Trade
Intellectually, I know that alcohol is bad. It’s a carcinogenic. It’s bad for your brain and organs. I very much enjoy the process, art, and science of brewing beer – but I often feel guilty for making it or consuming it. But one thing I have never regretted is having some extra bottles of beer on hand to gift to a neighbour or to give in exchange for some bartered goods or services. The recipients are always happy, and it feels good every time.
Second Tier: Buy From Your Neighbours
If I can’t do it or make it myself, who do I know who can? I will always try to ask my network first and find someone local who can do this. Maybe it’s advanced wood working that needs to actually look good. Finding a specific native plant for the garden or yard. The CSA farmer who can grow larger volumes of carrots and beets than I can, or who can grow a much nicer variety of vegetables. Buying from the Farmer’s Market or a local craft fare. Over time I have built up a decent sized list of goods and services we can get from a neighbour or someone in the community who owns a business that does that. This always feels good to buy from someone local, because I’m helping out an actual person and hopefully making a difference to them.
Neighbour Example: Your Friendly Local Game Store
There is a board game shoppe in town that is excellent. The owner is friendly and bends over backward to get and find anything you need. The staff and environment are pleasant. It’s a great place to hang out. Any time we buy a board game I will *always* buy from them. I don’t care if costs a few extra dollars. I don’t care of it’s only in stock on Amazon and I have to wait a few weeks. I will go out of my way to buy from the local game shoppe. I tell all of my friends and coworkers to buy from them. I proselytize whenever I can.
An excellent book on owning and running a board game store is “Friendly Local Game Store: A Five Year Path To A Middle-Class Income”, by Gary Ray (though judging by his blog posts and the book itself, a more accurate title would be “the ten year path” or “the twenty year path”…). Ray attests that running a game store is hard work. Profit margins are thin. Most of them fail and go out of business. We should give them all of the help they can get, because they’re a great neighbour, a great resource, and they help to improve our community.
And Your Local Book Store
Don’t buy that book through Amazon! Any book. Buy from your local book store. Join your local credit union.
Buying Locally Keeps Local Companies Alive
I think this tier is crucial because if we all just buy only from Amazon and Walmart, eventually no stores will exist except for Amazon and Walmart. The more money we give large corporations, the more power they gain to just make things shittier – worse products, worse services – but still keep charging money. If the only thing they care about is competition, let’s give the big businesses all the competition that we can.
Does this take extra time to find local businesses? Yeah sometimes it does. Does it always work? No. Sometimes I just can’t find a place that carries what I need, and I’m forced to go elsewhere. But I still think it is worth the time to try. I want local businesses to continue to exist! That gives us more options. That helps people earn money and make a living. And it helps to make all communities and our whole planet more resilient if we can do more things ourselves locally, and not all rely on huge faceless companies far away.
Final Tier: Buy From A Big Store
Sometimes you just can’t find or get something. Fine. Then as a last resort, get what you need. I will still try to buy from a smaller store or chain when I can. If it’s a local chain instead of a national chain – choose them first. If it’s a company with four outlets vs a huge nation-wide store – choose local first. If it’s a company that is at least headquartered in this country or majority-owned in this country – choose them over the international conglomerate. And for esoteric items like electronics, sometimes you can find smaller online shops that carry specialized things before going straight to Amazon.
Advanced Tier: Just Do Without?
I have a skilled neighbour who regularly says: “If I can’t make it myself or buy it here, I don’t really need it”. That is quite hardcore, and commendable. Personally I don’t know how to build an entire car from scratch, so I will probably always have some external dependencies. But I salute their resolve.
It May Not Be Much, But It Is Something
If I add up all of my purchases in a year, is this a ton of money I am able to redirect from big companies to local ones? Perhaps not. But every single dollar counts for *something*. Every dollar is a vote for the future that I want. I want more options. I want richer neighbours. I want more money to stay in my community so we can all grow and thrive, and all be better off. So it’s worth doing each time.