Local Stimulus Package

So as many of you know D and I are very conscious about being green and supporting our local economy. We have decided to make May 2009 the Month of Local shopping. Here are the basic rules.

1. No Major Chain stores...No Shaws, Stop and Shop, Hannaford, Target, etc.
2. No Chain restaurants.
3. No internet ordering.
4. Put as much money back into our local economy as possible.

Some things that we already know will be a problem....
1. Gas
2. Possibly Clothing (only if we need clothing)
3. Perscriptions- If we need them.(although there are local pharmacies, it is best to keep perscriptions in the same place so as to stay still for this)


We ran into our first speed bump today. We were driving around running errands and having some of the Adventures that we Batey's have. I was starving and needed to grab something healthy to eat. Knowing that there was a Hannaford coming up on the right, my first thought was to stop there. My next thought was ...damn....its May. No major Grocery Stores. Ok...now what? Well I thought about what else we would be driving by. The next local thing I knew about was a farm stand. As we pull up we read the sign indicating that the farm stand doesn't open for another 6 days. Do you know what this means? I stay hungry! Oh well!

It is amazing how much this will impact. For example, we had to make 2 grocery lists. One for the farm stand that we know is open and one for a small natural food store that we like to frequent. Also, we had been building a list of things that we wanted to buy for our bicycles...clothing and tools and accessories....we didn't place the order before April 30th so instead of ordering them and having them delivered, we had to go buy them in person.

Stay tuned to see the adventures we run into with our challenge this month!