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My high-school history teacher refused to buy bananas. We thought he was crazy, but he didn’t care. “You don’t understand the conditions bananas are picked under,” he told us. “Those people are like slaves.” This was my introduction to “voting with dollars”.
As part of the personal finance Question of the Day Marathon, Penny at Money and Values asks:
Do you involve your values in your money decisions? If so, what are some examples? If not, why not? Define “your values” however you’d like; I’m asking about the principles that are important and meaningful in your life in a broad and general sense, and whether and how you bring those into your financial/money-related choices.
This is a great question. Here are some ways I vote with my dollars:
- I moved my accounts from U.S. Bank to a small local credit union. I get charged less than I did at the bank, and my money stays in the community.
- I get my haircuts from local guys with small shops, never from chains. All my money goes to the guy cutting my hair; there’s no corporate “tax”. I pay less than I would at Supercuts, and I get to chat about fishing and hunting (about which I know nothing) with crotchety old geezers.
- I rarely eat fast food, but when I do, I choose regional chains like Burgerville and Mike’s Drive-In. The food is a little more expensive, but it tastes better and is produced with local ingredients.
- I boycott Regal Cinemas, which has a near-monopoly on theaters in Portland, and which promotes:
- Ads before movies (and now “The Twenty”, a twenty-minute video abomination)
- Sixteen-screen megaplexes that only show four different films
- Rapidly-increasing ticket prices
- Crappy candy selection (Twizzlers instead of Red Vines? Give me a break.)
- I shop at Farmers Markets.
- I contribute to charities that are closely aligned with my beliefs. These include First Book, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Oregon Historical Society, and my alma mater.
- I always buy whatever kids are selling. I believe it’s important to foster entrepreneurship in children, and to encourage confidence.
- I prefer Oregon wines to those produced elsewhere.
My values are involved in most of my financial decisions. They didn’t use to be. When I was younger, I bought what was cheapest or shopped wherever was most convenient, regardless of the larger social consequences. I’d make a trip to the local Mega-Mart just because it could save me a couple of bucks. Now I recognize there are values greater than myself. Saving money is important, but it’s not the only thing. Now I look for balance.
[Money and Values: Do you involve your values in your money decisions?]
August 29th, 2006 at 9:09 am
Your faith in farmer’s markets supporting local businesses may be misplaced. Much of the produce sold at farmer’s markets is the same out-of-state Truck Farm goods you buy at any supermarket. Here in Iowa, there’s a new movement to certify vendors who sell only locally produced goods, I notice that none of the vendors in my neighborhood’s market are certified local.
Also, I am picky about what I buy from kids. A lot of unscrupulous door-to-door vendors use kids to front their operations, and a lot of times they’re brought in from other communities. I always ask them if the sales are in support of a local organization, and almost invariably they’re not.
On the other hand, I suspect you were talking more about lemonade stands and that sort of thing. That’s purely a local, individual effort.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:13 am
I vote with my dollars! I’ve been Wal-Mart free since October of 2004. I couldn’t possibly support the destruction of local business and workers’ rights.
August 29th, 2006 at 10:20 am
Hope you don’t mind, But I linked this article with a recent post of mine entitled I am not anti-Government
August 29th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Yes, definitely.
I always check to see where my produce is grown. I choose local independent stores over chains - I should add, this is easier than tripping over my own shoes in Berkeley.
I like your policy of buying things kids are selling. I’m going to try that.
August 29th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
I so agree with buying whatever kids are selling.
Sales is such an important skill to master.
I’m even patient with telemarketers
(did telemarketing for bit to help pay for school).
August 29th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
I vote with my dollars every chance I get…and am amazed that more people don’t. A few examples:
1. We will not, under any circumstances, shop at Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club. Target and Costco are “friendly” alternatives.
2. We shop at Whole Foods for most of our produce and meats. We’ve found that they carry more locally grown/produced goods than the farmers’ market here in Dallas.
3. We refuse to drive SUVs not only because of the budgetary and environmental issues of gas-guzzling, but because who really needs a vehicle that big to haul around a couple kids?
4. I recently spent about $200 to switch every light bulb in our house to compact fluorescent. Saving money on electric bills and cutting our carbon footprint at the same time.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
J.D., I’m with you on voting with dollars. It’s important for everyone of us to check to see whether we are spending like how we believe in.
On buying from kids, I used to do that, but not anymore. Oregon is a great place to live.
But ever since I moved to California, I find Californians are a completely different bunch of people than Oregonians. I bought newspaper from a (diligent looking) high school kid, and supposedly the money will benefit their high school classroom. Guess what happens! This kid used my credit card number and ordered lap-dancers “for me”. The lap dancer kept wanting to come to my home, even though I told them that it was a fraud.
I cannot be more mad! If I have a choice, I will definitely not retire in a big city.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Roger’s right that I’m talking more about the “lemonade stand” type of kids rather than the “selling magazines” type of kids. I’ll go out of my way to buy lemonade from a boy on the side of the road. The other day, I bought cookies from girls at a garage sale. I bought a joke from a girl earlier in the year. I’ll even buy magazines from children I know.
But it’s a different matter to buy things from older kids that you do not know. If you’re sure of the source, then do it. (For example, if you know the high school is having a fund-raiser.) But you can really get burned by trying to be nice to older kids. I’ll publish one such story in the next week or so.
August 29th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Don’t talk to me about bananas… In Australia we recently saw banana prices shoot up to $16 per kilo because a cyclone knocked down all the bananas!
As for wines… we have an oversupply down here… you can get some quality clearskins for as cheap as $5 a bottle!
August 30th, 2006 at 6:16 am
I routinely vote with my wallet. I refuse to shop at any business that treats me badly and acts like they don’t want my business.
That is one of the side benefits of being financially secure. I don’t have to shop based on the lowest price (which often results in the worst service). I don’t mind paying a little more for good service and supporting businesses that treat their customers well.
August 30th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
Why prefer to shop only at local places and keep your money in your community? What’s the logic behind that?
People are richer the greater the variety of people they can trade with. Part of the reason the US is so rich is that the total market is some 260, 270 million people before you have to put up with the hassle of international trade.
People in your local community are probably not any more virtuous than people in the rest of the world, and if you’re in the first world then they’re probably far better off than the average person around the world. Why would you want your money to stay in the local area?
And on the other side, whenever I’ve been away and seen signs in shops encouraging people to buy local, no shop has ever refused to take my money even when my accent and appearance is screaming foreigner. If buying local is good, then why don’t shops refuse to sell to people from far away?
If you’re concerned about the travel cost of goods then it makes more sense to lobby for petrol taxes so the cost of the transport gets incorporated into the cost of the good. Sometimes it is environmentally more friendly to buy goods from further away even once transport has been taken into account because there are other environmental benefits from growing stuff in a climate that is more natural.
There are reasons to worry about ethics when buying something. But I don’t understand why the favouring buying local.
September 1st, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Tracy W makes an excellent point.
Similarly, of course there are corporations out there doing evil and reaping huge shareholder returns at the expense of others (Exxon, anyone?), but that is certainly not true of all corporations.
For all you know, Supercuts Inc. could be the greatest philanthropic organization known to man, and might actually pay its stylists far more than what your local barber makes.
I’m as pro-small business as anyone, but a blanket stance that Corporate = Bad is naive coming from someone who appears to be so knowledgeable about finances in other regards. It would be far more reasonable to suggest that people become informed about what the corporations they buy from are doing and make their purchasing on that basis, rather than “buy local!”