20 Tips to Localize Spending
(Excerpted from The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition, by Michael Shuman)
- Localize your Home
Rent from a local landlord, take a mortgage from a local bank, or own your home. - Live in Local Style
Use local building materials for your house, with local architectural design. Furnish with locally fabricated tables, chairs, beds, and couches. - Minimize Automobiles
Ride your vehicle less by walking, biking, carpooling, living in “walkable communities,” and using mass transit. - Fuel up Locally
Make your next car very fuel efficient. - Local Car Services
Find a food local mechanic whom you trust and who charges responsibly. Use the local car wash, local auto parts store, and local insurer. - Eat out Locally
Avoid chain restaurants, especially fast-food joints that addict children to high-fat, high-salt food. - Buy Fresh
Link up with local farmers and hydroponics operators for fruits, vegetables, and meats through farmers markets, co-ops, direct delivery services, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs. Rediscover local butchers, cheese makers, chefs, and caterers. - Support Local Retailers
Dump Safeway, Albertson, Wal-Mart, and even Wild Oats for local grocers. Be loyal to competitive local pharmacies, bookstores, hardware stores, coffee roasters, photocopy centers, and so forth. - Play Local
Minimize your passion for high-end electronics and television. Spend more time at local sports events, health clubs, playgrounds, pools, parks, games, films, plays, puppet shows, dancing, music, and debate leagues. - Heal Local
Use local doctors, dentists, therapists, acupuncturists, and nursing homes. - Live Healthy
Emphasize local nutrition, exercise, emotional balance, and spiritual nutrition, all of which minimize the need for nonlocal pharmaceuticals. - Sign a Living Will
Have the hard conversations with your family about end-of-life decisions to save them from expensive, nonlocal life-support systems. - Minimize Household energy Use
Add insulation, double pane the windows, buy compact florescent lights, replace the inefficient furnace and appliances, and do the 101 well-known items that cut purchases of nonlocal electricity, oil, and natural gas. Better still, put photovoltaic or wind-electric generator on your roof and sell electricity back to the utility. - Give Local
Target charitable giving at local causes & nonprofits. - Axe Bad Habits
Minimize consumption of booze (except local microbrews and wines) and cigarettes all of which are hard to localize. - Educate Locally
Support local public schools. If they are beyond repair, send your kids to local private schools. - Read Locally
Buy books from local authors or local publishers, sold at local bookstores. Advertise in the local papers. Become a regular at the local library. - Honor Junk
Pare down your piles of “stuff” by repairing, reusing, and refurbishing. Substitute hand-me-down clothing, especially for young kids who never heard of Nordstrom’s. Give more gifts from the heart and fewer gift certificates to Best Buy. - Rent More
Rent or lease more big ticket items, like Zip cars. Create neighborhood tools sheds for shared lawnmowers or snow blowers. - Recycle More
Send more paper, glass, and plastic to the local recycler not only because it’s good for the environment but also because it gives local industries affordable local inputs.
Tools to Access Local Purchasing:
- Check Directories of Local Businesses
- Know about Directories of Local Products
- Be loyal to Local Labels
- Participate in Buy Local Days