I received a lot of feedback about my story earlier this week about people who have decided not to buy anything new for a year. It was based on a local woman who joined the online collective last year.

Reporting this story really made me think. I put back a fabulous pair of $17.99 Vera Wang ballet flats (those aren’t the exact ones) that finally hit clearance– whether it’s because of the Compact or because I really want to save a boatload of my salary this year, I don’t know.

But the concept of not buying anything really rubbed some people the wrong way.

Some readers think my story will cause the recession– as if 8,700 people who signed up for an online user group can sway the economy. Others wanted to know how a newspaper reporter could be opposed to printing newspapers (cutting down trees is bad for the environment).One guy basically said he hopes I lose my job.

Then there were those who felt slighted because they’ve been living this way– buying used, making do without, since the Great Depression. And people who were mad at me because they wanted to know the address and phone number of the Prop Shop, where the photo was shot. These gals thought the story was about the store!

One thing I do know is it was a talker– it’s still of the list of most e-mailed stories on the Star Tribune site. And last I looked 32 more people joined the MN user group since the story ran. So….do you think buying nothing new is a terrible idea? Good or bad, do you think you could do it? If you could do it, would you want to?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under shopping, spending. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.