National Buy Nothing Day encourages people to skip the malls and trade with neighbors on Black Friday
What if you could go on a shopping spree where you didn't have to pay for anything? Well, two apps let you do exactly that.
Liesl Clark is the co-founder of the Buy Nothing app - a place where neighbors post things they are trying to get rid of completely for free.
“This is 100 percent an alternative economy that we can all participate in,” Clark said.
The app tracks you by location. You can post anything from clothes to appliances and it will pop up on your neighbors feed for them to browse.
"Someone might say 'I'm looking for a microwave' ... and low and behold there is a neighbor close by who's literally trying to get rid of that item," Clark said.
The Nextdoor site is the same way, offering up things you don't want anymore to anyone who could give it a second home.
“I just saw someone giving away a free snowblower so some lucky neighbor just got hooked up with a free snowblower to get them through the winter," Joseph Porcelli of Nextdoor said. “Typically it's gently used items … and sometimes there's new things people don't want and they just missed their window to return the item.”
Getting things for free from your neighbors not only helps you save money - it also helps the planet.
“We’re not throwing them out. We're not putting them in landfills and so we are recycling, reusing, upcycling,” Porcelli said.
Even if you get something for nothing, it still brings the same rush as swiping your card at the register.
“You always feel this enormous sense of delight and gratitude,” Clark said. “The purpose is absolutely about being neighborly. We help communities to connect, engage and strengthen.”
The apps founders encourages users to share their items everyday, but they especially support the free transactions on National Buy Nothing Day.
The annual holiday is always on the same day as Black Friday.
According to NationalCalendarDay.com the movement started as a way to protest the biggest shopping day of the year and to stand up against consumerism. While some groups encourage peaceful protests in malls by putting up signage and cutting up credit cards to show their dedication to changing their consumer habits, others call for a more simple way of celebrating the day by not spending and only trading items with your community.