Every year, in the wake of overstuffed stomachs full of Thanksgiving mashed potatos, pumpkin pie and tryptophan, the denizens of the United States of America arise from their football drunken slumber to attend Black Friday, a quasi-holiday born out of immense consumerism and passed off as preparation for the holiday season. Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year. Stores mark their success for the whole year on how much they sell on this most sacred of shopping events, and consumers come out in packs, biting, kicking and scratching for the best deals, in spite of the fact that the stores are chalk-full of other likeminded money-exchangers and some establishments are so packed that it practically involves copulation to make it through the aisles (aka queues).

But never fear, there is a solution. Buy Nothing Day is an anti-Black Friday, anti-c0nsumerism holiday meant for the most part to directly lower the end-of-day sales and slow our ever increasing reliance on exchanging money for goods. It is also a time to truly reflect on what we already have and find appreciation for it. To sit back and look at that sweater you’ve been wearing since college and appreciate how much wear and tear you got out of it. To think about your girlfriends or mothers or children or friends and how happy they make you, and to realize that the old saying really is true, “The best things in life are free.” Or at least as cheap as you want them to be.

Buy Nothing Day in the US is today, November 24.

Buy Nothing Day in the UK is Saturday, November 25.

Enjoy!