Looking at the Buy Nothing Day From Political and Spiritual Perspectives

The week In Income Inequality: Feb. 28, 2025

The Dutch used guilders from 1434 until 2002, when they switched to euros. Guilders are worth nothing today except as novelties. Consider this a reminder that money is only worth what everyone agrees it’s worth. (Photo by Michelle Teheux)

Today is Buy Nothing Day. We are all supposed to make zero non-emergency purchases today in order to send a message, and I am participating.

But like roughly half of Americans, I participate in Buy Nothing Day most days. Other than groceries, gas, utilities and the like, I’ve often participated in entire Buy Nothing months. Most of 2020 and 2021 were Buy Nothing Years for me; I can tell you exactly what clothing I bought in that period, because it was a single cotton skirt I coveted for months and finally bought.

You may remember the Covid lockdowns

People were going bananas about how hard things were. My life didn’t change. I recall posting something along the lines of this:

If you are upset that you can’t go out to eat or out for drinks, you can’t go get your hair colored or nails done, that you can’t have your housekeeper come clean your house, you can’t take your dogs in to be groomed and have to do it yourself, that you can’t hit the mall to browse for new clothes, congratulations! Now you know how about half the country lives all the time.

At my house, this was followed by a year in which we lived on my husband’s disability for long stretches, thanks to two planned knee replacement surgeries and one very much unplanned broken leg. I could not find a job and was banging my head against the wall applying for every position in the world. I had not yet figured out I would be better off striking out on my own and writing whatever I felt like writing each day. (Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?)

This is all to say that I am completely familiar with the concept of staying home, spending no money and making do with whatever you already have. I’ve spent a lot of my life living that way, and am exceedingly grateful to my readers that this now can be a choice, not a requirement.

Last year was my Buy Everything Year

In July of 2024, I wrote a story that went viral – We Could Learn a Lot About Sex From the Dutch – that has made nearly $28,000 so far. This cannot last forever and I know it, but just this month it has earned about $2,000. To put that in perspective, we had at least one month in 2021 (when my husband was recovering from his broken leg) in which our entire monthly income was less than that.

Thanks to my readers, I had some long-delayed dental work done. I fixed my 20-year-old car that was unsafe to drive. I replaced all the broken crap around the house – a new vacuum, food processor and so forth. I bought some new clothes and a good pair of shoes instead of my usual cheap ones. We splurged on patio pavers and one of those inexpensive seasonal pools. I put some money into a retirement account and saved a chunk.

These purchases have delighted the hell out of me, but I knew better than to get used to living that way. The algorithm giveth and the algorithm taketh away.

Plus, I think there’s a reason so many religions have traditions for fasting or giving things up – Ramadan, Lent, Yom Kippur and probably many others I just don’t know about.

So if you’re fortunate enough that the choice to spend nothing is generally voluntary, you could look at Buy Nothing Days through that lens. Consider it a spiritual money fast – worth doing regardless of whether this day makes enough of a dent to get the GOP’s notice.

And sorry to go all Cassandra on you, but I foresee some economic disasters on the horizon, so you might want to consider it as a practice run for what’s coming.

If you have some hot income inequality-related news you don’t see shared here, please add it in the comments or shoot me a message! I intend this round-up to be a one-stop shop for everyone who cares about this topic and a great place to discover new sources to follow. If you see a newsletter you like, don’t forget to subscribe to it today!

And now, here’s the roundup:

Don’t be fooled. They lie as easily as they breathe.

Ann Pettifor, System Change

… by elevating the ‘culture wars’ to political centrality, the brutal class war waged by billionaires on America’s working people was marginalized. Millions suffering from economic insecurity, stagnant wages and incomes, private healthcare, opioid addiction and unaffordable housing, were sidelined while all energy was focused on the ‘culture wars’.

BREAKING: House passes budget gutting $1 TRILLION from SNAP and Medicaid

Salaam Bhatti, A Paycheck Away

They’re still pushing a trope that giving these tax cuts to the richest people will trickle down to the rest of us. I’m sorry, sirs, but I don’t like being trickled on by anything. Plus, studies show that trickle-down economics doesn’t work — at least not for the 99% of us.

Democracy Is Done: The Rise of Corporate Monarchy

Shane Almgren, The Trumpland Diary

See, people forget that billionaires have political ideologies just like everyone else. And remember, most peoples’ political ideologies are generally tailored to improve the life of the person holding them. Democracy sounds great if you're a peasant living under a king with no say in how things are run. But in what way would democracy improve your life if you're a multi-billionaire who can buy politicians? Once you're up that high on the food chain, democracy is no longer a step UP, it's a step DOWN.

So, all these filthy rich, filthy powerful tech bros have jumped on board with turning America into a corporation run by a CEO with authoritarian power. … The PayPal Mafia has no interest in becoming beholden to the whims of a bunch of blue collar workers from Appalachia.

All Billionaires Are Addicts

Sky Fisher, Sky Fishing for Sky Fish

If a common junkie can be locked in a state facility to kick their Fentanyl habit, shouldn’t billionaires—who are demonstrably addicts—get the same treatment? At this point, we could sincerely argue it’s for their own good. They're crashing out at presidential inaugurations. It's a bad look.

Do You Hear the People Sing?

Michele Hornish, Small Deeds Done

As of the time I write this, the video of the US Army Chorus singing Les Mis has been viewed over 240k times.

I spent the rest of the day with a song about revolution and community and fortitude and hope stuck in my head.

It’s exactly what I needed.

Will you join in our crusade?

Who will be strong and stand with me?

Somewhere beyond the barricade

Is there a world you long to see?

Tech Moguls Like Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg Are Not Innovators

Ronke Babajide, A Better World Tomorrow

I feel I should end this piece by telling you more about how China handles innovation or how it has executed 14 billionaires during the past eight years.

The Birth of a Monster: America’s Oligarchs and What They Want

Jared Yates Sexton, Dispatches From A Collapsing State

I was asked a couple of days ago what gives me hope. Honestly, right now, in the midst of the crisis I’ve been warning about and fearing for years, and all of the heartbreak and personal crises that accompany it, seeking out hope is paramount. I will admit, I’m having trouble. Continuing on is about searching out oases. But my answer was blooming class awareness. How you can see the beginnings of a backlash in the populace and, at its roots, is clarity regarding the nature of where we find ourselves: smackdab in a class war between the masses and a tiny sliver of the economic elite.

Unfortunately For Us All, A Lot of Trump Voters Do Actually Want This.

Robyn Pennacchia, Wonkette

There is a reason why Trump put it out there that he wants to bring things back to the way they were during the Gilded Age. The Gilded Age isn’t an era people tend to look back upon wistfully — given its hallmarks of extreme wealth inequality, child labor, robber barons, monopolies, and corruption.

The Frugal Life

Julia Park Tracey, Book & Bone

Mending, fixing, repairing, reusing, borrowing, upcycling, buying second-hand. Not adding to the economy if it means purchasing from unethical companies. Eliminating one-use items (gift wrap, plastic packaging, disposable anything). I have cloth bags for my produce so I rarely take a plastic bag. I use washable cotton circles in the bathroom when I remove eye makeup or use toner. I use dryer balls or hang my clothes so I never use dryer sheets. I use less than half of what clothing or dishwasher soap recommends, because they are trying to sell you more soap! Use less!

2 Ways to Push Back On Tax Cuts for the Richest People in History

Salaam Bhatti, A Paycheck Away

I don’t know about you, but I truly cannot afford this tax plan, especially with all the gas I’m using trying to find eggs.

Fire the Muskrat. Now.

Robert Reich

Finally, here’s the biggest conflict of interest of them all: Musk’s cuts — including his coming attack on Medicaid — are a prelude to Trump’s giant tax cut mainly for the wealthy, including the richest person in the world. Unless the rest of government is dramatically scaled back, that planned tax cut would explode the federal budget deficit.

My Apology to Trumpers

Erik Engheim, Erik Examines

If you are Republican you must accept that even if you don't like big government, DEI, wokeism, liberal immigration policies and many other aspects of the Democratic party they are still a party that believes in the rule of law and Democracy. They are still a party that believes in the alliance with us here in Europe on the other side of the Atlantic rather than with Russian autocrat Putin.

Norwegians learned that lesson during WW2. In the 1930s the socialists and conservatives became bitter enemies. But Nazi occupation taught the bourgeoisie and working class to work together for Norwegian freedom. Ukraine before the Russian invasion was also a divided country. Divided between Russian speakers. Divided between those who wanted to be part of Russia, or another reimagined Soviet Union. Now everyone regardless of the language they grew up speaking are proud Ukrainians. The nation is united, but at a terrible cost.

Don't wait until things get that bad before you find unity with your Democrat opponents.

‘Being disabled is super expensive!’

Keris Fox, The Ladybird Purse

As part of my new year financial review (seems like ages ago now! January lasted forever and February has been a blink), I made a list of all the money I’m expecting to come in throughout the year.

The point of making this list was to remind myself that money is coming.

Make Babies Affordable Again

Michelle Teheux, Untrickled

Children used to be seen as part of a family’s “treasure.” They’d grow up to help work the farm or family business. They were a financial asset. The more children you had, the better off your family would be, in the long run.

Now? They’re a financial liability. When you see a family with several children, it’s nearly as reliable a sign of wealth as a Rolex watch or a Birkin bag.

We have declined to devote sufficient tax dollars to family needs like healthcare, child care and education. If you’re a member of the working class, your only choices are not to have children at all or to sacrifice almost everything else in your life to their care, understanding that your inability to hire tutors, send them to camps and buy them the right clothes is probably dooming them to remain forever in the working class.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium. My latest novel is The Trailer Park Rules. Tips accepted at Ko-fi.

All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park

For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.

Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents.

When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.

Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules.