Black Friday = America’s Running of the Bulls

On the day after Thanksgiving each year, Americans partake in a strange pastime where they line up for hours (or even days) in order to be one of the first to rush into a store and snap up all the supposed bargains on offer. I have a very hard time understanding the allure of this [...]

Changing the Culture of Consumerism

Throughout the Global Financial Crisis and the Great Recession we’ve all heard it: Governments and economists telling us to get out and shop to save the economy. I’ve even seen Facebook friends ponder on their status update, “Should I go shopping to save the economy?” Our Culture of Consumerism Consumerism is about more than just the [...]

On getting out of Debt (I bought back my Freedom)

Two years ago I was in a lot of debt. I mean A LOT! We are talking seven figures here. I was ok with it because I considered it ‘good debt’ (i.e. it was all investment related). I earned a good wage, worked in a secure job, could comfortably make the repayments and my assets were [...]

7.0 ways you can help Haiti

Image from: Winking Owl Studios Today on Unstuffed’s blog, she links to The Urban Field Guide who lists 7.0 ways you can help Haiti. We tried to use the texting method but for some reason it didn’t go through, so I went with option one instead…..shopping. If you click on Etsy and enter Haiti, many of the shops are [...]

Cognitive Dissonance in the Age of Cheap

Photo by: henri ismail “We rail against exploitation of low-paid workers in Asia as we drive twenty minutes to the Big Box to save three bucks on tube socks and a dollar on underpants. We fume over the mistreatment of animals by agribusiness but freak out at an uptick in food prices. We lecture our [...]

I *heart* the library

Photo by: sendung One of our favourite outings is to spend a couple of hours at the local library and that’s where Brendan and I spent yesterday afternoon. It’s simple, educational and frugal, so we try to go at least a couple of times a month. I’ll check out a couple of books and then [...]

The Story of Stuff

I’ve watched a lot of videos in the last 18 months, but one of the first films which really helped my see how many of our problems are intertwined was The Story of Stuff. The Story of Stuff is a 20 minute, fast paced, fact filled look at the underside of our production and consumption [...]

August reading

Photo by: ailatan Over the last 12 months I have been reading more and more non-fiction. This whole economic collapse has been fasinating to watch, even if it’s not so much fun to participate in. For people of our generation, who have never really seen a recession, I think this last year has been a [...]