Every holiday season we are bombarded with emails, advertisements, commercials and social media posts asking us to use our bucks. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, and expectations of gift giving for various winter holidays all fuel this rush to buy and lean into this hyper consumerist time of year. While we buy gifts for our loved ones or donate money to organizations we want to support, we invite our community to opt to spend local and support small businesses.

In the last few years there have been more pushes for conscious consumerism, or intentional spending during this time. Being a conscious consumer means thinking more critically about where you spend, how you spend, and why you spend. Our money is important, and how we spend it can set the precedent for how our world determines what is valuable or not. Many big corporations have been under fire for using our dollars to produce lower quality products with practices that harm the environment or its workers. Shopping small gives you more control over your money and local economy and ensures you are receiving quality goods while supporting your local community members.

We also recognize that there may be barriers to shopping small for some. If you are only able to buy big, conscious consumerism suggests to offset the cost! Offsetting the cost can look like donating all or a fraction of what you paid to shop big to an organization, group, or cause that you want to support. By offsetting your cost, you mitigate harm done by shopping big by putting resources into groups that will do good in the community.

If you must buy new things this season, why not buy as a conscious consumer? We made a flowchart to help you shop with a conscious consumerism mindset: