About a month ago, I got to listen to Jane Mosbacher Morris speak on using our money to impact the world via values based spending, not just ESG investing or making donations.

Why values based spending? Because ESG investing has many traps (a story for another day), and many families don’t feel like they have the money to invest or donate. Or even if they do invest or donate, that amount of money is minimal, and maybe one check is written near Christmas time. But what if you could impact the world with your daily purchases, getting that dopamine hit on a regular basis, and providing a more steady stream of income rather than the feast/famine cycle of holiday-based donations.

A household earning $57,000 per year is at the 42nd percentile for household earnings in the United States. And yet even at that income level, where they may not feel like they could donate or invest, they still spend an average of $1,000 per year on gifts just for the midwinter holidays, obviously their annual gifting total is likely higher, after birthdays, anniversaries, and other small gifting holidays (Valentines chocolate for the kids, etc).

Intrigued, I borrowed her book, “Buy the Change You Want to See” through the Rochester Public Library via one of my favorite programs, Inter-Library Loan (ILL).

I liked her concept, of buying fair trade goods that support life changing jobs for women and children in disadvantaged situations around the world, through purchasing artisan goods they made. There are definitely a lot of women and children in the world who could use a way out of their current situations. But my own personal values and spending habits meant this wasn’t the right option for me. I don’t buy purses, I don’t buy jewelry, I don’t buy fancy decorative clothing, and I don’t drink coffee.

Was I doomed to be unable to spend my money in a way that agreed with my values?

Absolutely not.

When I started thinking about my purchases, I found I was already spending my money in a way that aligned with my values. I buy rarely. When I buy, I tend to buy from American or Canadian companies [1, 2, 3]. I buy sturdy goods that I or my kids will use until we wear them out, or until they can be handed down or sent to a resale shop. I often buy used, again those same types of sturdy goods that will last me for years even after having been bought used. When not in a pandemic, I like to be able to try my clothes on, both because I hate the hassle of returns due to an item not fitting the way I want, but also because I dislike the effect of running trucks back and forth and for many companies who knows if what I send back will even be eligible to be sold again (or will it instead be destined for a landfill after return). Obviously if I buy used clothes, that’s local reuse. Reduce, reuse, recycle! I buy my tea in bulk from Canada, to minimize the ecological impact of shipping. Gifts in my family tend to be long lasting goods like books, or consumables like locally made chocolates from a family-owned shop. If I splurge on sending flowers to my Mom, the flowers may have been grown far away, but they’ll be through a local family-owned shop where I can call and talk to the florist/owner, instead of through a national chain, and even many of them may have been more local as we’re very fond of native flowers not just commercial roses. On the few occasions we’ve bought take-out from restaurants during the pandemic, we’ve tried to support our local non-chain Chinese restaurants, both to try to fight the anti-Asian sentiment to keep them in business, and because they were early adopters doing far better infection control than any other restaurants.

So I do align my purchases with my values – specifically the values of caring for this world, the only world we’ve got. Yes, if I could figure out how to help people around the world out, that would be good too, but there’s nothing wrong with minimizing the ecological impact of world-wide travel or shipping and supporting other values instead.

How about you? Can you pick a category you consistently spend money in, choose a value you can support with that category, and feel good about what you’re buying?

What will you buy, and from whom? How will you make a difference?