Where Do You Spend Your Money?

Earlier this week, I posted an entry on MNSpeak, also titled "Where Do You Spend Your Money?". Having recently signed up with a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture, a.k.a. a local farm), I got to thinking about how well (or badly) the interest in local & regional economies intersected with consumers' actual spending habits. That is, I hear a lot about keeping my money local, but does anybody actually commit to spending their money that way?

The MNSpeak post went well (over a hundred comments--woohoo!), and I'd like to use today's post to summarize and analyze those comments. Here's what I found:

• Restaurants: Lots of people spend money on local restaurants. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, but it's good news anyway. I saw very few chain restaurants mentioned, although I've been given to understand that Americans by and large are big fans of chain restaurants. I suspect that the readers (and posters) on MNSpeak are skewed in favor of local restaurants over chains. I did see fast food places mentioned a few times.



• Groceries: People seem to be very committed to their local groceries. No one mentioned shopping at Walmart, even though it's the nation's largest grocer. Posters were very supportive of Lunds, Kowalskis, and the various co-ops in the area.



• Media: When it comes to books and music, there were people on both sides of the fence. Some posters preferred to buy their media from a local store (Cheapo, for instance), while others favored online retailers like Amazon.