You may remember that last year my family went extreme on
the Shop Local thing. For three months we shopped from only locally owned
stores. The experience may have convinced my children that their mother truly
is crazy, but they were relieved to discover that shopping locally didn’t put a huge dent in their lives. They could still purchase their beloved Cheezits from
the family owned grocery store and many times the locally owned gifts, food,
and entertainment was much better than expected. My husband and I learned that
not only is it possible to buy pretty much everything we need locally, we were also delighted to discover that we saved money in the process. Cutting out visits to Target, Walmart, and the Home
Depot eliminated impulse buys and streamlined our spending. But the best part
was that we were able to support our neighbors, friends, and local economy with
our shopping. If you missed last winter's blog posts, take a few minutes and read about my adventures during those three months.
We continue to shop mostly locally. I will confess to the
use of Amazon and Drugstore.com more often than necessary, but at least I feel
guilty when I shop those sites. We still buy our paper products and get them
delivered free from Greenline Paper Company in York. I still travel to the
Central Market in York for much of our groceries, and purchase the rest at local
family owned Saubels and Sonnewalds. Most of my Christmas shopping was done in the Central Market District of York. We love our excursions to The York Emporium for books (and a plethora of other “finds”). My husband still buys his
beer from the brewery half a mile away. And Goodwill is our go-to store for
nearly everything.
I’m hopeful that our experience inspired others to look for
locally owned businesses first before being suckered in to buying at the bigbox stores. I know it seems contradictory, but you do save money paying a
little more at a local store because you buy things you truly want and less of what you don’t need.
This lengthy intro is leading somewhere – promise. I’ve got
two upcoming local events to share with my local peeps.
