i understand your arguments, but i see this as the "buy american or the terrorists win" type stuff.

i refuse to pay more for a car because it was union made in the usa, to my own detriment. I will not be without something so that a line assembler can make $45 an hour. that is not capitalism.

I was pretty shocked by number 1. My wife works as Target and loves it there, however, Target is just as anti-union as Walmart. All that bad press that Wal-Mart gets can really be applied to all big box retailers, and if you look at Target they aren't much better that Walmart over all. Please read over this for more information:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13508

I understand and agree with some of the listed questions, however I think that being "too" frugal is a very minor issue in the US's economy issues. I think in fairness that if the heads of state and corporate leaders want people to spend more, then I feel inclined to ask them to maybe spend less.

Carrie--
I really appreciated both the thoughtfulness and the beautiful honesty of this post, for it's not often that people a) examine the impact of their habits on others and b) admit that they are lacking in some areas.

I had a serious moral awakening when I started drinking coffee in college. I walked into Wal-Mart (oh, the shame!) and noticed that those nice large cans of coffee were only $4 apiece. There must have been hundreds of them. Then I thought about all the Wal-Marts and all the other supermarkets and the sheer volume of coffee being produced, and it dawned on me: there's a lot of brown hands working very hard every day for next to nothing so that I can have my $4 can of Folgers.

What pained me even worse was that I knew if I paid the people the fair cost for their labor, I would not be able to afford coffee. But by drinking the coffee I could afford, I enabled this unjust system to remain in place. In fact, I encouraged the system to remain in place.

I then generalized from there and felt overwhelmed. At the end of the day, I still drank coffee and buy other similarly procured items. I don't know if it's better to do this while knowing the cost on others or whether it was better, morally speaking, when I didn't know the cost.

Keep up the good work and let us know if you reconcile the dilemmas.

I also think it's too cheap not to buy at least some books and magazines. Cutting back on subscriptions and trips to bookstores is one of those things that frugality websites are recommending. But how are publishers going to publish books if nobody will pay for them? Ditto for plays and movies. If you admire a director or an actor, or you want to have the arts alive in your area, invest some money in the arts.

Wow, I just finished reading a Wisebread entry about how gasoline is cheap compared to other things, and now an entry about how being frugal may be bad for us.

Was Wisebread recently acquired by Fox?

$1 hamburger and $1.98 ribs! Do you live in 1975??? ... (Insert Laughter here).

I don't see how spending less can be bad for the economy. It's not like I'm going to take any savings and hide them under a mattress. If I save on something, then I'm going to buy something else, or invest it in an economy that is amidst a credit crisis. How is that a bad thing?

Whether you give something to Freecycle, or Goodwill, etc (and a LOT of middle class people shop at those places too, and pick up some amazing buys) you are probably doing an all-around good thing. Everything rescued from a possible resting place in some landfill is also something not being mass produced immediately, saving resources. I think my frugality here is well-placed. And I don't know where you are, but around here I have NEVER seen the shelves and racks at the local thrift store sit empty. More stuff is coming in than most places can sell or give away, and I don't mind keeping it moving. Multiple streams are more efficient in this case than just one picky or overwhelmed Salvation Army per county.

The other end of the decision making process comes down to what it costs in real consequences when we save money on purchases. I must have cage free eggs, natural meat, as much local and organic food as the budget will bear. Not only do I prefer to buy these personally, I know that if people who CAN afford to spend a little more on responsibly produced food will do so, that that will help those farmers and growers stay in business, make more of these choices available, and eventually help ease the price down for everyone (or help it ease upward more slowly if that's the direction everything is going.)

Thanks for a thought-provoking post.

If something is unreasonably cheap, there's always an unsavory reason. Child labor? Poor environmental practices? Unsavory sources for raw materials?

We must all learn to consider the full costs of our purchases. The 39 cent head of lettuce is cheap today, but how much more will we pay in the long run for the environmental cleanup? A $3 head of romaine or a $15 organic t-shirt is a vote for the future.

Sustainability isn't a trend - it's a return to a mode of life that never should have been forgotten. Everything is interdependent.

it always makes me LOL when I hear people say that they hate Wal-Mart but love Target.

BRAUN coffeemakers last longest, best quality, reasonable price, under $25.

Mrs. Chef

Freecycling is amazing... and a testiment to the fact that one person's trash is another person's treasure. I once had a box of Ebay-purchased dishes arrive broken (poorly packed by vendor).... once he and I had worked out reimbursement details, I offered the shards up on Freecycle. I had over a dozen people contact me. Apparently, there are a lot of mosaic crafters/artists around here, and they use broken china for tesserae. I personally don't care if they sell their crafts afterward: my goal is to get the stuff out of my space and not into landfill... if people inject some value add into the items (fix them up, remodel them, make quilts out of them, craft them), so much the better!

When trying to get rid of accumulated "stuff":

Talk to your local womens'/mens shelters... they are often looking for clothing, soaps/shampoos, unused personal items.

Church organizations: often looking for items to help people set up apartments

Some of our local sports stores collect used running shoes for redistribution in wartorn Africa.

If you are trying to shed or acquire books, check out Bookcrossing.org.

Compost!

There are lots of alternatives to sending your cast offs to landfill... it just takes a bit more effort than depositing your stuff at the end of the laneway each week.

I watched a show one time, and it showed a lady from one of the sweatshop countries, who lived in a tiny room, with hardly anything, and she worked at a sweatshop, making clothes for Walmart. She sewed on the two white stripes on the sides of black exercise pants...a pair that I actually HAVE! Seeing the face of someone who actually made my clothing was weird.
She made about $12 a WEEK at her job. The pants she sewed stripes onto, were selling for $12 a pair.

So they sent people and cameras, along with that actual woman, into a Walmart, to ask customers in the clothing section, if they wouldn't mind paying a little more for their clothing, if it meant that the woman who made them could make more money, and live a better life.
All of them said they would be willing to pay more, for her sake.

I sat there, thinking, NO! I would NOT be willing to pay more!
The whole reason I'm NOT shopping at the GAP, for my clothing, is that I can't afford it! So I'm shopping cheap, trying to make MY life, and my family's lives better. Heck...the reason I hardly ever shop at Target, even, is because they are more expensive than Walmart! They got nicer stuff, but oh well. I gotta make due!
I'm sorry, but I personally want to save MYSELF money...not give more for someone across the world.

I know. I'm gonna get clobbered with angry responses.
But I asked all my friends, and family about what they would say in that situation, and they said that they would say yes to paying more, because the cameras were on, and the sewing lady was right there. But in actuality, they would NOT want to pay more. Their thoughts were the SAME as mine.
Most of this life is "look after you and your own", isn't it?

I want my cheap stuff, and I NEED my cheap stuff. I stay at home and take care of the kids, and my Husband breaks his butt SEVEN days a week, for our family. SEVEN DAYS. I'm not kidding.
It's a running joke on weekends, when I see my family, they say, "oh...where's Jim? Let me guess.....he's WORKING???"
Saturday AND Sunday. Full days. Non stop.
But we believe that kids should be with their parents, and not have someone else raising them all day. So we deal with it.

I know the people in the sweatshops would never do anything to help MY Husband have a day off. So why should I spend more on that striped pair of pants, so MY Husband has to work harder, just so that woman can have more?

Sorry. I'm being honest, and I think more people should be honest about this stuff. Not ONE person I asked, said they'd be willing to pay more. Not ONE. And I know plenty of respectable people. They aren't all lower class, hicks, or anything.

Go ahead. Persecute me for telling the truth.

Not being frugal is what has reduced our economy into it's current poor state. And you would lay the guilt trip on us as consumers, who must be frugal to cope with the rising cost of living? Sorry, but I don't agree with this post at all.

The thing is, you can pay a fortune for a shirt or whatever, and you may be paying for the marketing of that shirt, not the salary of the person who makes it. Every year, I challenge my students to find an article of clothing that is made in the United States, and usually, they can't do it. This year, one kid found a pair of socks. When we look at each others labels in class, we find that ALL of the clothes are made in countries where people are paid next to nothing to produce those clothes. So in the end, it may not really matter how much you pay for that shirt, or where you buy it. Perhaps it just boils down to which corporation you want to have your money.

I absolutely struggle with the need to keep my grocery bill as small as possible, and the fact that buying the cheapest food may not be the healthy choice.

I really WANT to buy fruits and vegetables that are free of pesticides and other scary stuff, but that 10 lb bag of potatoes at Winco for $1.98 just calls to me every time!

I also agree that the lack of frugality is what got our country into the economic mess that we're in (and will continue to BE in, if we just pull out the credit cards to 'help' the economy).

I want to do what's best for ME (i.e. live frugally, become financially secure), while balancing my need to also live lightly on the earth. That is probably my greatest challenge (other than passing up the 50% off signs in the shoe store window. . . .)

I know #6 was tongue-in-cheek, but a lot of people don't seem to realize that businesses pay a percentage of each sale to the credit card company.

That's why you see "no Credit Card purchases under $X" signs in a lot of small businesses.

If you want to support an independent business, consider paying in cash, that way they aren't paying the bank a fee for cashing your check, or the credit card company a percentage that could be profits.

My husband works three jobs. I ALSO work. Even so, we qualify for state health insurance. And still I wouldn't want to make a buying choice that hurts someone else.

Frugality isn't about being cheap, it's about making smart choices with possessions and money. Morally, ethically, spiritually, as well as financially, people have to live with their decisions. I want to teach my children about the value of people on this planet.

We don't need all this crap regardless of how cheap it is.

I think that consumer choices are greater now than ever before. Most communities have multiple places to shop for goo-gaws. Those goo-gaws come in many flavors, colors, styles by multiple name and no-name brands. It's easy to get overwhelmed and that's at the center of this post.

I hear you what you're saying. A lot of these posts are clearly written by well-meaning, good people, who nevertheless are used to having the luxury of a lot more choices than many folks in America. I grew up in a family too poor to even afford Wal-Mart; mostly we had to shop at super-discount stores like Family Dollar, etc. In fact, my mom was a sewing machine operator in a garment factory in those days, before retailers like Wal-Mart pressured their suppliers to take advantage of cheaper labor overseas and killed the garment industry in this country. If not for Wal-Mart, my mom might have been making your striped pants. Believe me, you still would have been getting a bargain: Mama's net pay was about $12 a DAY, compared to that foreign lady's $12 a week.

For Wal-Mart, it's a no-lose situation: they force their vendors to move our manufacturing jobs elsewhere, and any manufacturers who do try to keep employing workers here have to keep their wages low in order to be as competitive with the sweatshops as possible. So Wal-Mart doesn't just get lower prices on their stock; by helping to depress wages, they also expand the class of people who are too poor to shop anywhere but -- Wal-Mart! Of course, this goes for Target and all the others as well.

That's why I don't shop at Wal-Mart, even though I know and love lots of people who do (including Mama!). No matter how hard I work, or how carefully I watch my pennies, I can never quite keep up with the cost of living, and I think more and more people can sympathize with that experience. Maybe there's not a lot I can do to change that in the long run, but in the short run I CAN avoid rewarding the very people who are making it so.

You made a number of points that I had never considered before.

And I do think that in a perfect world, I would take all of those points to heart and try to consider more than just the price tag.

But....here are some things that I feel need to be said:
1)Those organic cotton T-Shirts? They were probably trying to sell them for $40 each or something like that. I think that while there are some people who are not concerned about price at all, most people who have a budget are hesitant to spend that much on a T-Shirt, no matter what it's made of. So maybe you're still voting with your dollar by not buying it until it goes on clearance, voting to "pay less" than what Macy's thinks it's worth....

2) I shop at WalMart. And I have given a lot of thought to the fact that, I could not bake bread for a dollar a loaf. I could not make shoes for $12 a pair. And I could not sew a coat for under $40. And I know the reason for the fact that I can buy those things at WalMart for those prices is not a cheerful one.
However, since we are on a hugely tight budget, I cannot feed and clothe my family without buying some things there.

On the flip side, I always check my favorite second-hand store first, when I determine I need an article of clothing or a kitchen utensil, etc. There are so many issues that can be stirred up by this debate. If I go to the second-hand store to buy a frying pan, am I hurting someone in China buy not buying a brand new one?

I vote with the poster who said that any purchase and/or donation that keeps stuff out of the landfill(s) is beneficial. And as far as the sweatshops go, if I decide to spend more money to buy the same things that my family needs, by not going to Walmart, then my family suffers, because my budget now limits me to only buying one pair of shoes (and who gets to wear them?) or maybe even no shoes at all, instead of the three (one for each person) that we really need. And at the very least, my family is uncomfortable for having to keep wearing ripped up shoes, but quite possibly, other people in the community may think (without knowing my reasoning) that since I don't buy shoes for my family when they clearly need it, I am not caring for my daughter properly. So I believe in this situation, you really can't make a good choice. I make the one that works for my family. And I don't feel virtuous about it at all, but I'm not stealing, and if I didn't shop there, the CEOs would still get rich, and I would just have tougher decisions to make.

3) There are a lot of great thrift shops around. Unfortunately, Goodwill has decided that they are no longer in the business of being a second-hand store serving less fortunate people and bargain hunters. They have decided that they will mark their items to the price where someone "might" pay for them. I.E., the Goodwill nearest my house, in MN, charges $6.99 for a used pair of jeans. And higher if they're a name-brand. But I just bought that same brand of jeans brand new at (you guessed it) WalMart, for $8.00. What the heck? So shopping at the Goodwill no longer makes me feel anything except I'm probably padding the pockets of the executives. And also, I don't think Goodwill employees make more than minimum wage, even though the Goodwill had that pair of jeans donated to them at no cost.

The thrift shop in my town is more of what people expect when you shop for second hand stuff...Jeans are a dollar, shirts are a dollar, shoes are three dollars, sometimes very nice items are priced higher than that, but they aren't in it to "make as much money as they can." So I always try to shop and donate there instead of the Goodwill.

But anyhow, my point is, that if I had wiggle room in my budget, I would opt to make more conscience-based decisions when I shop. But seeing as how right now I could only afford that Macy's T-Shirt if it showed up at my local thrift store, well, my thoughts have been provoked, but my actions haven't.

I would love to buy only organic, environmentally-friend and local products, support the arts and buy books and magazines... But my budget means I can't do it all. I'm constantly frustrated by my wealthier friends and family who are wasteful when they can afford the ethically-responsible choices I can't.

My guilty pleasure is library books. I do buy books, but I can't afford to support my reading habits. If I only read books I could afford to buy, I would have to read less rather than buy more books. (Besides, I'm saving trees!)

Pathetic and misguided:

“Hm. Can Target sell an $12 sweatshirt and still pay the person who sewed it fairly? I don't know, and since the answer might make me stop shopping at Target, I'm not sure I want to know.”

“Once I saw videos of chickens crammed into coops, one on top of the other, I could never again bring myself to buy eggs that are not cage free, even though they cost more.”

So, you are fine with humans being mistreated, but chickens are where you draw the line? Have you ever even been around a real chicken? They are probably the dumbest animal on the planet and are one of the few animals that the “Industrial” animal farms can use to make their case for abusing animals (so dumb they aren’t self-aware). I’m not saying that abusing chickens is ok, but this advice is obviously worthless. Spend your money saving humans first, it’s a bigger bang for your buck.

Think before you write next time.

Yes, ALL THE TIME!

If I buy fair trade, organic, second hand, local and I budget carefully for it, then I hope it's the right thing to do. That's the best I have to offer the world in terms of my purchasing. Perhaps these people take advantage of me and the producer of the goods as much as the corporate world does, but it's the closest I can come to my conscience.

Sometimes, I have little choice in my purchasing. Wal-Mart chased away all the other businesses in the small (5K people) town my husband is from. When we visit and I need sunscreen, I go to Wal-Mart even though I know they "suggest" to their manufacturers outsourcing of labor. I don't feel great about it, but I give myself a pass. I could never make the same decision in my home town of a million.

When I play keeping up with the Joneses in my head, I do sometimes wish that my beliefs would allow me to take advantage of someone else's disadvantage.

Ryan:

Buying an American car (and paying more for it) so that an American worker can make $45/hour IS capitalism--or at least the American version of it. The idea is that if you buy that car, then that auto worker can afford to buy some other American-made whatzit, afford outrageously expensive American healthcare, afford to live in a McMansion, etc.

What I am doing--trying to live within my means, live without debt, save the environment--is actually very UN-American in economic terms. This is a country that thinks we are only "winning" if the economy is constantly growing, never stopping to realize that it can't just grow forever.

As to the original post--I just don't buy that much, on sale or otherwise. But when I do, I try to remember who made it and how they are being treated. So, yes, I *do* buy the fair-trade chocolate and the unbleached, recycled paper and the organic produce, even when it is not on sale.

As for buying at thrift shops and such, that is just another form of recycling--keeping things out of landfills is a *good* thing no matter what it does to the capitalist economy. It's *not* my job to keep the mall open.

I liked all of your ideas except the one about ensuring your car was union-made. I'm going to assume you and your family are strong union folk so I won't try to cause an argument, but simply state that I used to work for Honda and it was a great place to work. Their cars are quality made by individuals who enjoy their jobs and work hard for a living at near Union wages and benefits.

I agree that it is sad that someone in China or another foreign country makes $12.00 a week making clothes or whatever else is sold in Wal-mart or Target. But at the same time, if we were to move said sewing operation out of that country, then that person is making $0.00 (okay, yes they could get another job, maybe) a week.