Today is Black Friday. It’s early in the morning as I write these words—a Black Friday tradition for me—and yet the buzz of America’s second biggest shopping day is still loud enough.
This entire weekend, we will be inundated with emails, advertisements, and invitations to buy things we don’t need.
Yesterday, we celebrated gratitude for all the wonderful gifts in our life. But that topic was short-lived. Starting today, our culture will celebrate shopping.
We will see ads for Black Friday sales every time we open our computer, turn on the radio, flip on the television, or pick up a newspaper, magazine, or piece of mail.
News stations will cover the event—again on websites, televisions, radio stations, and podcasts. Before Thanksgiving had even ended, we were pressured to move on from gratitude and begin rushing out to get all the things manufacturers and retailers convince us we want and need.
Black Friday will be followed by “Small Business Saturday,” “Cyber Monday,” and now “Travel Tuesday.”
Both subtly and not-so-subtly we are told this weekend that everybody will be out shopping, buying stuff. And we should too because that is what today is for: Black Friday! An entire day dedicated to shopping…
Their messaging will have a profound effect on many of our lives and homes:
Americans will have spend $24 billion shopping this weekend alone. And $241 billion over the entire holiday season.
That amounts to, on average, $1,000 spent by every single American over the age of 18.
Meanwhile, all of this spending will occur while nearly half of us say we live paycheck to paycheck and 56% of Americans are unable to handle a $1,000 emergency.
This might be fine if we were in need of more stuff in our homes. But that is not the case. 74% of Americans completed a decluttering project last year and over 72% intend to declutter next year. Our homes are already filled with more than we need.
And yet, still, many of us will rush out today to buy even more.
Why? Because retailers have conditioned us to do so. Fifty years ago, Black Friday was not a celebrated day in American society. In historical terms, it is a relatively new phenomena. But for many of us, it just feels normal—the thing you do today.
But this entire weekend has been manufactured by those who profit from it.
In the late 1970s newspapers in Philadelphia began using the term “Black Friday” to describe the start of the holiday season following the conclusion of the Thanksgiving holiday.
By the 1980s, companies fully embraced the term to promote sales hoping to lure customers to their store to begin the holiday gift-purchasing season. Add in the Cabbage Patch riots of 1983, and both the momentum and folklore around Black Friday began to grow.
And now in 2024, the one day of sales has become an entire month of offers and promotions. Walmart began offering their Black Friday deals on November 11 this year.
The entire day was manufactured to get us to spend more, buying things we do not need.
So today I want to leave you with one simple, but life-changing reminder: Today gets to be anything you want it to be.
You do not have to buy into the frenzy and spending of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, or Cyber Monday. You get to choose how to spend your time today.
You—and only you—get to decide how you are going to use these 24 hours.
You can spend them on any activity that brings joy and meaning to your soul.
Today, I chose to wake up early and write an article that I hope inspires people to rethink the trajectory of their life and habits. On a day where we will be inundated with messages to buy more, I want to be one voice inviting us to own less.
After this article is finished, I am going to a movie with my wife and will watch a football game with my son. Somewhere along the way, I will make a turkey sandwich just like my grandmother used to make when I was a kid (with lots of butter and pepper). I’ll make apple crisp with my daughter. And we’ll play card games tonight as a family.
That is how I will spend today. Regardless of how hard retailers will work to get control over my attention (and wallet), I get to decide how I will spend today.
And so do you.
Today gets to be anything you want it to be.
So does your entire holiday season.
And so does the life you live.
Take back control.
You don’t have to live like every one else.
In fact, you’ll probably be happier if you don’t.
Other helpful Black Friday posts from Becoming Minimalist:
- Maybe The Best Gift You Can Give Your Family This Year is to Get Out of Debt (2023)
- How to Save $1,500 This Black Friday (2019)
- Is It Time for Us to Rethink How We Give Gifts? (2018)
- 9 Things That Shopping Can Never Deliver (2014)
Super article! Thanks to reading your work over the past 3-4 years, I have gained so many positive insights. I have told my family this year I do not want any gifts. I will be happy to see my grown children in New Orleans for 2 days, having family time is the only gift I want or need. Have a Merry Christmas Josh!
I watched the Netflix documentary The Shopping Conspiracy and it’s heartbreaking. We think companies are working on recycling issues and slowing down fast fashion items but they aren’t. It’s up to us the consumer to see the effects over consumption and put the breaks on adding to the problem. Thank you Joshua for mentioning the documentary.
I wonder will there be a Wants Wednesday soon? ‘Encouraging’ people to give in to all of their wants.
I am so glad I live in France. Not much Black Friday here from my perspective, mostly emails but there’s a delete button for that. Going to the UK for a visit soon and will be there for a Sunday so I get to go to church in English at Christmas time which I love. We are so blessed, all my family has everything they need. Thank you for all your posts on Instagram and here on my computer which encourage me all year long. A very happy Christmas to you and your family, Joshua.
Great article and perspective! My siblings and their families were visiting from out of state. We lost our mother last month to pancreatic cancer. So it was great to reunite as a family to surround dad and everyone with love and fellowship. We had a Thanksgiving meal and played games. Today on Black Friday, we made memories riding a Polar Express train with all its activities. No shopping just memory making as a family-all 14 of us! Much better than fighting crowds and spending money on things none of us need! The memory of the experience will last and be cherished!
It’s too bad that the day after Thanksgiving, when many of us have family around, can’t be set aside for visiting that isn’t centered around food prep and eating. We walked to our local retail strip and visited a bookstore and I bought a book. Supporting my independent bookseller.
I’ve also seen posts about shopping at thrift stores and getting creative with one of a kind gifts.
I think the hardest part of not falling into the consumeristic holidays is for the everyone around you to be accepting. And when they are not, in spite of all reason, I feel like I’m doing something “wrong”. In spite of all the giving of time, memories, experiences, etc. I think what people are looking for is not a gift necessarily…but a surprise to unwrap. Something unexpected. So even if you wrap a jar of Maraschino cherries, that tearing of paper is the real joy we miss when we find what matters most. ❤️ Keep up the great perspective Josh.
I like that idea, Jessica. I am in the process this weekend of giving away things on my local Buy Nothing group. I almost wish I had wrapping paper, or at least Sunday comics, to wrap the stuff up in. It could make it extra fun for the recipients.
It’s a sunny Friday for us here in Las Vegas, and soon I will be seeing my barber for a trim. After, with my rangefinder camera, I will be out and about, shooting street photos and enjoying the fresh November air. Maybe I’ll capture a few shots of all those harried souls huddled in shopping lines, enmeshed in Black Friday madness. Thanks for the reminder, Joshua, and wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas.
It’s funny to me how the more something is pushed the less I want it. For example, I eat less–almost none, in fact–sweets during these last three months than I do in the other nine months of the year. It feels like every ad I see, every offering someone makes to me, every bakery or candy store I pass by puts that sugar into my body and makes me feel a little ill. So I am not even tempted to make myself more ill by physically eating it.
Same with shopping. I get those newsletters from stores and websites; Wirecutter is a horrendous sender of “buy, buy, buy” email but I don’t unsubscribe as the can be a good source of information when I need to buy something. But it’s far from the only one. I sometimes enjoy looking at things being pushed this season but I am already a little ill and see no need to become more so by spending money.
If I buy anything at all, it is something I have identified earlier in the year as needing, such as a second external hard drive. It must disappoint my credit union terribly but I love January’s lack of a credit card bill.
I have the seasonal decor I love; no need to add more and no interest in doing so. I stopped exchanging gifts several years ago (and have been very happy with that decision) and so what I do is what I have always loved most about the season: decorating the inside of my home and going out to all the fairs, festivals, tree lighting ceremonies, concerts, walks and more that encompass the holiday season. I am on an incredible high all season, loving each part, and enjoy it so much that it fulfills my need for the joyfulness and I do not suffer the January letdown blahs.
Truly a season for which to be thankful.
Thank you Joshua for reminding us of the true meaning of Christmas.You have inspired us to live more meaningful lives.I no longer partake in the marketing or consumerism of the season.
I will be participating on Giving Tuesday and making a generous contribution to The Hope Effect as I have the last several years..All on honor of my grandkids..in lieu of gifts.????
Brilliant!
Great article! We live 5 minutes from a mall and multiple shopping centers surrounding it. We don’t go near it from about Nov. 15 until Jan. 15. Spending the day listening to Christmas music, decorating and time later with the (adult) kids.
Merry Christmas all!
Joshua,
Another wonderful & insightful article.
You are certainly a light in the darkness for many who seek an alternative and rewarding lifestyle to that which modern America wishes for us.
Many blessings to you and yours this holiday season!
Beautifully said. Wonderful concept for the day after Thanksgiving…or any day.
I worked in retail for 15 years and the disgraceful behavior I often witnessed on Black Friday, and during the rest of the holiday season, turned me away from the idea of consumerism and nudged me further along my path to becoming a minimalist.
Now, on Black Friday I look through my home for things to donate and research charities I can support financially instead of contributing to the consumerist chaos so typical of the day.
The only day of this season I will participate in is Giving Tuesday, and those donations will be the gifts I’ll give in honor of loved ones and will serve as their holiday gift.
Annie, I’m convinced that nothing cures the constant push for “want and need” than working in a retail environment for several years. I have to wonder the percentage of minimalist that have a retail background.
I, too, worked in retail-hourly and management-for both the largest retailer, and several others, both independent and corporation. I worked in wholesale prior.
It’s madness…consumerism.
We do not decorate. We don’t prepare ‘traditional’ meals. We do not travel. We stopped gift exchanging decades ago. And we spend ‘holidays’ as we do any other day, enjoying our ranch, the outdoors, and our animals.
We’re continuing on a minimalistic path, donating and deowning weekly. It’s a splendid life!
Yes! Thank you for the reminder Joshua. Blessings during this holiday season.