Checkout for Change

Let’s admit it: online shopping can be fun. And addictive. Seeing all those glorious things you didn’t know you needed, realising you definitely need them, filling and editing your cart, then paying for it all with those deliciously immaterial credit card dollars that seem to never run out. Problem is, once the transaction is complete, we tend to forget about it (though our bank balance doesn’t). Then some parcel from the other side of the world turns up a few weeks later, containing garments often significantly less exciting than they seemed at 1am that Sunday night last month when you couldn’t sleep. So how do we quit this cycle? How do we stop buying all this stuff we don’t need? My personal tip is to just cut off the last step of the whole transaction: the actual checkout part. Fill as many shopping carts as you fancy – it’s more than likely you’re not going to remember, or regret, abandoning them come morning. Another (better) idea? Shop til you drop at Rana Plaza, a site named in memorial to the Bangladeshi factory where more than 1,100 textile workers were killed when the building collapsed in April. You can spend all you want on clothes, shoes and accessories – you just won’t be sent anything. Instead, everything you ‘buy’ will go towards ActionAid‘s work aiding victims and their families and ensuring rights and safety for some of the world’s most poorly paid workers. In this case, we say buy up big!