Welcome to Purchasing Power – a blog about shopping smarter!
In this blog, you will find tips and basic principles on how to make your money go further in your everyday shopping. Although I will focus mainly on grocery shopping, I will touch on other topics, too, as well as offering the occasional anecdote for flavour and real-life context or a reflection on the bigger picture.
Who is Purchasing Power for?
Purchasing Power is for anyone who wants to find or share tips on how to save money by the way we shop. Whether you are having trouble making ends meet or you want to have a few extra dollars in your account at the end of the month, we can all benefit from shopping smarter. After all, it’s the rare person who has enough money to buy whatever they want whenever they want without second thought.
It’s also for anyone who is concerned about much more than just the bottom line, for anyone who is interested in where their money goes and about making the most of their money rather than just paying as little as possible.
Why “Purchasing Power”?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, purchasing power is “the capacity of a monetary unit, sum of money, etc., to buy goods and services; the financial ability of an individual or group to make purchases.” It’s a fairly familiar term and concept.
There has been a lot of noise in the media lately about inflation, rising costs, and the inability of wages to keep pace. All of this negative rhetoric serves to fuel people’s anxieties about the constantly rising cost of living. It’s not just our expenses that cause us stress but also the feeling that it is all beyond our control.
I want to help us alter that narrative. There is nothing I can do to improve the state of the dollar, the pound, or the euro. But there are things I can do in my own life that ensure that I am living comfortably with the money I have. And if I can do it, you can, too.
It involves developing skills, knowledge, awareness, and self-control – all things that are within the grasp of every single person. We may not be in control of prices, but we do have some control over where we spend our money and how much we pay.
The purpose of this blog is not just to save you money, though I hope it does that. My greater mission is to help us change the way we think about how we spend. I want you to understand that you really do have a lot of control over what your money will buy.
That’s real purchasing power.
Think about it this way: You may not have control over how much of a particular product (say, a pint of milk) your unit of currency can purchase. That’s the traditional way of thinking about purchasing power. However, you do have control over how many meals your money can buy and who gets your hard-earned money in exchange for the products you buy. That’s my idea of purchasing power.
And I believe, too, that when we are more aware and more intentional about what we do with our money, that has the potential to transform our society. Can we turn our capitalist, profit-hungry society into one that prioritizes people, communities, and the environment simply by the way we spend? I believe that is certainly one important part of the solution.
That’s real purchasing power. And the power is in your hands.
Who am I?
I’m Kristina Glicksman, a writer and editor living in Toronto, Canada. I came up with the idea to start the Purchasing Power blog when I was out of work and looking for a project to keep me busy and writing while I looked for a job.
Like most people, my life has been a series of ups and downs and plateaus. I spent quite a while as a graduate student, have experienced more unemployment than I had ever expected, and none of my jobs has been particularly high paying. But I have managed to live fairly comfortably on a sometimes low, sometimes moderate, often precarious income, and along the way I’ve learned a lot about how to make that possible. I’ve also noticed that many people struggle to survive on a much higher income
As I read in the news and hear anecdotally more and more about people’s inability to cope with the rising cost of groceries, I thought I could do my best to share what I’ve learned over the years in the way that comes most naturally to me – through my writing. I’m not one of these enviable people who have retired in their 30s, so I have no reason to be smug, but I hope you find some useful tips in the information I have to share.
Become part of the solution
Whether you’re a student, a senior, a new parent or an experienced one, a single professional, a freelancer, a stay-at-home mom/dad, a caretaker – basically if you exist in the world and you shop, you have wisdom that you’ve heard from others or come to understand from your own experience. Please share it with others! You can add your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of articles. There are only two rules: be respectful of others and do not suggest tips that are illegal, immoral, or unethical. You can also contact me directly with any suggestions for future posts.
