How do you vote with your wallet?

How do you vote with your wallet?





If "money drives politics" then vote where it count$.

Votes

I don't watch Entertainment Tonight.
Steve
I love to buy local IF my local store offers something unique or provides a service the big box does not. Sometimes this is the case and I am happy. If your only virtue is that you are a local small business that is not good enough.
not "the man"
second-hand!
s
LOCAL! CSA! Made in the USA! Humane! Organic! Handmade/homemade!
steph
When it comes to bananas, chocolate or coffee, I only buy fair trade. I can´t afford to buy organically grown produce regularly but I do so whenever I`ve got the money. I boycott brands that treat their employees badly or don´t pay minimum wage at least. My clothes come from the american apparel store who doesn´t support sweatshops.
Sophie
I support local business
Kizamu
I don't frequent McDonalds.
Steve Dawson
I don't buy meat or conventionally raised vegetables, if at all possible.
Stephanie Anagnoson
I don't buy meat.
Alex
I've never set foot in a Walmart. My kids have never set food in a McDonald's or any other fast food emporium. We get basic cable only (for Jon Stewart and PBS), no HBO (big Republican donor.) Netflix rules! No advertising, ever (we record anything we watch in advance). I get lots of stuff used through eBay -- especially great great for kids clothes and toys. We grocery shop once a week, from a list -- no impulse buys. No debt. No commercial "feminine products." Sea sponges, Moon pads, and Diva cups are great! Local produce, meat and eggs whenever possible -- it costs more, but the money goes to neighbors. (Besides, I get my kids clothes used!) We roast and grind our own fair trade coffee and make our own cappuccinos with a stovetop espresso maker and steamer. No soft drinks. We make our own ginger ale and buy locally brewed root beer (no corn syrup, no preservative) for a once a week treat. Shampoo, toothpaste, face cream, soap, laundry detergent -- we read labels and don't buy anything with chemical preservatives and harsh or carcinogenic ingredients. Once you start playing the "Vote with your Dollars" game, it's amazing how many choices you have, and how empowering it is to make them every day.
Ideasinca
Stop looking at sales flyers - I find that if you don't even look at them, you buy way less. They create need - when you see something on sale, you think you need it NOW, just because it's on sale, but if you'd never seen that it's on sale, you would probably never have bought it (or needed it) at all. Sales flyers are voluminously distributed for a good reason - they work.
shlala
My cell phone "contract" is about up. I'm going month to month afterwards. If things get dicy, I turn it off.
Farmer Chuck
i unplugged cabled tv services
erik the red
Buy used such as yard sales, thrift, etc.. Don't borrow money. Pay off your home asap! Make a payment every 2 wks instead of monthly. "Use it up, wear it out!" Buy local or USA made instead of supporting China, etc... If you want something, wait a few wks and see if you still want or need an item such as non-essentials.
Coletta
If I can't pay cash for it, I don't buy it...
Larry
Give up TV. It's indirect, but you recede from a whole world of passive, manufactured desire.
Roy Batty
if it ain,t on sale don,t buy it !
rocketwdl
I don't subscribe to cable TV. Until I'm able to purchase channels à la carte, I'm loathe to underwrite the 100+ channels of absolutely worthless crap that monolithic cable plans subsidize. Pity, because The Daily Show is funny, and everyone should have access to C-Span. Then again, I also tend to think of cable companies as anti-competitive monopolists whose Internet services I'd never trust with my personally-identifiable packets, so perhaps I'll just never subscribe to cable. Oh well.
c
It's far from radical, but when presented with two products, one of which is made locally and another from farther afield, I choose to buy the more local of the two. It's a vote for regional farming and enterprise, and a vote against the environmental costs of shipping products in from far-away places. Don't buy Taiwanese Veat®!
c
I buy all my gas from Chevron. It's not that they're awesomely green or without sin (though they'd certainly like you to thinks so) -- show me a petrochemical manufacturer that is... please -- but their gas is good, and I'm a shareholder, so it's pretty much bare-faced self-interest that drives this particular monetary vote.
c