The average American will spend nearly $1,500 this holiday season. And Black Friday (the busiest shopping day of the year) is the official beginning of the spending.
In fact, over 130 million shoppers will go shopping on that day. But the entire premise of Black Friday is based on the foundation of selling us things we don’t need.
If you don’t need an item on Thursday… why would you need it on Friday?
Or… what makes Black Friday any different than last Friday? If you didn’t need an item in your life last week, why would it be suddenly needed this week?
And yet many of us will succumb to the cultural expectation of shopping on Black Friday spending over $1,000 this weekend unnecessarily buying things we don’t need, adding to the collection of unneeded items already cluttering up our closets, drawers, basements, and garages.
Look around your home, you already have everything you need. If you really did need something, you already went to the store and bought it—well before a special Friday randomly placed after a holiday in November.
Your family already has everything it needs.
The things we buy on Black Friday are, almost by definition, things we don’t need. Only in America do we wait in line and push past others to buy items one day after giving thanks for everything we already have.
All those Black Friday ads you keep seeing—they are only there to convince you to buy something you don’t need.
And that’s exactly how they do it. Every advertisement, at its core, seeks to convince you that you will be happier if you buy whatever they’re selling. They stir up discontent and work to convince us that our lives will be happier, more convenient, more luxurious, or more impressive if we buy what they are selling.
The goal of advertising is to change our minds about what we need. As a result, what seemed entirely unnecessary last year has become this year’s must-have product.
But if it wasn’t needed last year, it isn’t needed this year.
How do we save our hard-earned money during Black Friday? We turn off the noise.
We turn off the messaging that is directly designed to convince us to buy things we don’t need.
This holiday season, rather than entertaining all the offers that will arrive in your email inbox, unsubscribe from as many retailer emails as you possibly can.
And see how much you save—not just financially, but in your humanity.
At the bottom of every email you receive this week announcing the biggest and best Black Friday sales, you will find a small sentence (usually in the fine print) that says, “To unsubscribe, click here.”
Go ahead, click unsubscribe. And turn off the noise.
At first, the project will seem unwinnable. But trust me, it is a battle you can win—and will be happier when you do.
At first, you might be clicking dozens and dozens of “unsubscribe” buttons every day. But slowly, the number of advertisements you receive in your inbox will get less and less. You may click 50 emails the first day… 40 emails the second day… 30 emails the third day… but you will be surprised how quickly they begin to subside.
When they do, you will discover a new level of peace and contentment in your life. You will discover a new approach to the holiday season.
Rather than being constantly bombarded with pictures of all the things you don’t have, you will be reminded of all the blessings you do have.
Thanksgiving will no longer become a day to map out your shopping path for Black Friday. Thanksgiving will become a day to give thanks for your blessings. Besides, if you are not content today, there is nothing you can buy this weekend to change that.
As you unsubscribe from the constant barrage of emails telling you that you don’t have enough, you will feel less manipulated. You will feel more like a human and less like a consumer.
And you’ll save $1,500 in the process.
Even in Canada, Black Friday is hyped and our Thanksgiving was back in October. However, I believe there has been a movement over the last few years to call this Friday, “Buy Nothing Day”. Make it a goal to stay home and read a book, play some board games, take a long walk, listen to or make music, sit down and write a real letter—so many options to spending money.
I’m using BF as Unclutter SOMETHING Day.
Great idea!
Don’t click unsubscribe to emails. If you do, you will receive more emails. Clicking unsubscribe will show that someone is receiving the email. Leave it and it will eventually dwindle until it stops sending you emails.
That is not true for reputable email newsletters.
It just doesn’t work that way. I tried for years to ignore them. They kept coming, so I started unsubscribing. I also privitized my email and keep a junk email address that attracts emails. Life is much simpler now. There are just too many trackers, even on your bank sites that sell information for profit. Credit Cards are the worst for generating more emails, even from people you never heard of, or never bought from. In fact, there are 6 trackers at work on this very site, all blocked by my software. WordPress, Adobe, Google, Gravitar, Convertkit, and hyros. My computer generates fake fingerprints that are hard to track.
How can I do that? Privatize email, etc…..
We make all purchases intentional. We purchase only for a reason. We have immunized ourselves against impulse buying. Freedom from debt is an awesome power.
My family has always taken advantage of Black Friday to get things that we need (usually not a lot: we usually run our things, and in particular our more expensive things – appliances, cars, computers, phones, etc. – into the ground before we replace them, so we don’t have to do it very often, but when they do die, we *have* to replace them, and thankfully only some of them we actually have to buy new) at a discount, as well as get the specified gifts for Angel Tree and other similar organizations/programs that we signed up for, and get hats/scarves/mittens/etc. at a reduced price for the various donation programs at church. We always bring a list of the things we need to get, and we stick to it.
As other commenters have mentioned, just because you don’t already have something doesn’t mean you don’t need it – “you already have everything you need” isn’t necessarily true, because there are things that eventually break/wear out and have to be replaced; or that, for various reasons, become necessary even when they weren’t before; or that you need but you have to save for and/or are only able to afford at Black Friday’s discounted prices.
Our family tries to stick to wish lists, so that does help somewhat to cut down on the unwanted gifts. It also means we don’t have to stress about trying to figure out what someone might want/need, because they’ve already told us by giving us their list.
This is just what I needed to hear. Thank you for a fantastic article.
I completely tuned out “the noise” so long ago that I can’t believe that throngs of people jump into the fray every year. Thanks for doing the math and letting me know exactly how much money I’ll be saving tomorrow!
We will be participating in Opt Outside, we are going on a guided hike in our local county park on Black Friday.
I really needed to hear that one sentence, “look around your home, you already have everything you need.”
I really struggle with impulse control when it comes to shopping and it is especially challenging during the holidays. This blog is an encouragement for me to change my life and habits even if I have to swim against the current. Thank you!