100 Days of Freedom from Chains

100 Days of Freedom from Chains  - a consumer experiment.

I'm ready

From today*, Sunday 18^th August 2013, I’m doing a little experiment. Maybe you’d like to join me, in full or in part, or do an experiment of your own.

I’m undertaking 100 days of Freedom from Chains. That means spending neither time nor money in any shop, café or establishment where I could whack an indefinite article in front of its name (‘a Prêt’, ‘a Sports Direct’, ‘a Marks & Spencer’). This includes supermarkets, franchises (like Subway or Premier – lots of the local corner shops are actually part of chains).

Exceptions will be travel (I’ll use my bike as much as I can, but if I’m taking a train or flying somewhere, I won’t be chartering my own vehicle) and banks - for the moment at least. It DOES include the internet – I won’t be shopping online, unless it’s from an independent supplier like the people I buy clay from – they have a website, but they’re not part of a huge organisation and they’re very personal. Charity shops too – they are chains, but their fodder varies. My suggestion (to myself) would be that I avoid them as a thing to do on a day out, but that if I need something (work clothes, mainly), they’re a good place to go.

No more cheap gherkins

Work accommodation is another. I’m not spending money there myself, but I will be spending time. However, the alternative would be to shun the accommodation provided by my employer and book myself into a B&B, thus eating into my daily pay. I may research cheaper options and request them, if I feel inclined, but if they’re declined, I will accept graciously and get on with it.

I expect it to be quite hard.

I’ve decided to try this out of curiosity, mostly, and frustration with the uniformity of my current existence. That and my tendency to burn through money on things that don’t bring me lasting benefit, and to spend time mooning about in shops, especially when I’m not very happy. I’d like to see what changes and I’d like to experience a lasting change. Whether or not that happens is by the by. It’s just what I’d like. 

I’m also inspired by Morwhenna Woolcock, who has spent a long period free of supermarkets altogether and is a hugely committed ‘repurposer’, making stuff into new stuff and enjoying the process, rather than buying into the throwaway habits so fundamentally encouraged by marketing, capitalism and the stuff we’ve all got so used to that it’s no longer down to some villainous mastermind – it’s part of how most of us operate.

See ya

As it stands, I can go from one town to another, from one country from another, even, or just from one branch of whichever chain to a different one, possibly just around the corner, and have an almost identical experience. The smells, the sounds, the lighting, the furniture, the behaviour I know is accetpable and expected in them. The people working in them are often wearing uniforms and following protocols. No doubt they have to go through performance management reviews.

I’m also a beautifully trained consumer. Even as a child, my father routinely pointed out that money ‘burned a hole in my pocket’. There’s a satisfaction and a safety in spending, in a familiar transaction, in the capacity to buy. I have a huge comsumer habit. I’m a user, big time, whether it be the coffee/chocolate habit (or dummy) when I take a long train journey, the evening supermarket scour when I’m unhappy or distracted or the mental space occupied by a constant wondering about what to want next, what will make my life better… there are certain things, such as a bike, which do make my life tangibly, noticeably better, from the second I have it to the second it’s gone. My world is smaller without one. Most of the things I ‘need’, though, are not in the least bit needed. Let’s see what happens when it’s harder work to obtain them.

Thanks, Sainsbury's. I think I will.

At this stage, it’s not an ethical choice, as such. It’s a simple experiment, a challenge, a thing to experience. I shall endeavour to be disciplined without being anal about it. Perhaps a local corner shop owner who happens to run another one in another part of time is more acceptable than Tesco Express number 4,338. The intention is to stick to solo concerns, but buying milk from a mini-mogul is not the same as regularly contributing to the 7p in every UK pound that (it was mooted a few years ago) are raked in by Tesco.

On the entertainment front, how does it work. Lovefilm and Netflix are out. What about the BBC? A purist would be making their own music with a boiled egg slicer and a shewee, but I’ll make that decision as I go. I don’t watch much telly anyway. I’ll continue to get my fix in the library, no doubt. Perhaps I’ll even write the odd thing.

Speaking of which… I commit to one proper post per week about this, and possible ditherings in between.

I’m excited. Phooo! Let’s see what happens!