Shopping for Britain

I couldn't help noticing the number of sales being advertised on my way into work this morning.

Nearly every shop on Gentleman's Walk had big signs - "50% off", "Up to 75% off" - there seems to be a frenzy in the air to sell of the last of the unsold stock.  Which makes me think that all those shops must have overstocked in the first place.  Or maybe shops make a calculation that if they order 1000 items before Christmas, they'll sell 600 of them before Christmas at full price, and the remaining 400 at next to nothing after Christmas, and still make a profit.  And they probably know that the psychological impact of the "Sale!" sign means that people will buy more than they intended, get sucked into the madness of buying just anything, simply because it's on sale.  It's all a bit crazy.

I won't pretend I'm immune to the craziness, but so far this year, I haven't been in any of the shops so have managed to avoid any impulse buys.  Though having said that, I was very much hoping to pick up a Christmas pudding at a knock-down price, but it looks like the real bargain hunters got there before I did and there were none left...

We're so often encouraged to spend our way out of the recession, as if the culture of spending money we don't have wasn't one of the things that got us into this mess in the first place.  So I was very intrigued by Mark's link yesterday to Adrienne's "Buy Nothing Year 2012" - I'd completely missed last December's "Buy Nothing Day" which I usually support - but a whole year would be a great challenge.  I'm looking forward to seeing how she gets on!

Pic: www.telegraph.co.uk