Taking Stock of Buying Local

Today, we are in the kitchen making chicken stock.  The stock we make today will last us all winter as a base ingredient to make flavorful recipes.   Imagine our big pot on the stove, filled with the ingredients for the stock, the liquid simmering, steam rising with a rich and tasty fragrance. 

Now imagine that the stockpot is our community, and the stew inside represents all of us working and striving to add value to the recipe of love, ways, and means that enrich our households.  The imaginary stockpot is different.  It has a spigot on the bottom that is always stuck open to some degree, running off the broth.  So, to make the recipe, we must continually add at least as much as is flowing out. The ingredients for this recipe are limited to the goods and services that our commerce sells to the world outside our community. This is our challenge, to add more than flows out and keep the makings in the pot longer to increase the quality and flavor.  Over time the runoff in our community has been higher than the input.

Currently, we are approaching the holiday season of potential joy combined with the tension of financial choices.  It might be the best time to practice investing in ourselves and our neighborhood to make a better broth. 

When we buy outside our community, cyber shopping, Mall of America style, we open wide the spigot.  According to the American Independent Business Alliance www.amiba.net/resources/multiplier-effect, when we buy from a local chain or mass merchant, we keep about 43% of the dollar you spend in the community stockpot. However, the best investment is when you buy from local, independently-owned businesses.  This is when you keep 68% of the stock in the pot, give it more time to cook, and allowing enriching the flavor and quantity of this stock we share. It is a delicate balance that is reliant on the small choices we all make every day.   A vibrant local business community adds flavor, character, and improves your financial stock.

There is no price low enough to overcome the cost of buying something that does not bring you joy or deliver value. The value that includes keeping your dollars working in the community pot.  Chicken stock is a recipe where better is more unless you like a tasteless, watery soup.

You have the freedom to choose how you cook. Will you decide to invest in yourself, your household, your neighbors, and your community?