A Small Amazon rant

The other day on Insta I posted a story about my personal progression with shopping on Amazon. As some of you might know, for a very long time I purposefully did not buy from Amazon. I was disgusted with their labor practices (still am) and wanted to give myself guardrails to help me make purchases at more local stores. This worked great! 

Until it didn’t. 

Over the past year I noticed that every other month or so my husband or I would need to buy something that we couldn’t find anywhere other than Amazon and, because we didn’t have a Prime membership, we would end up paying for shipping. After tracking for a couple of months it became really clear that even if we said we weren’t shopping at Amazon, we still were and annoyingly, we were spending more money by not having Prime. Yuck! So, we caved and got a Prime membership. And you know what? Usually when I do the math, reflect, and determine that making a financial habit change is the right thing to do I feel really good about that decision. This time is different. I don’t feel bad - I know the math wasn’t lying, but I definitely don’t feel good. Instead I just feel kind of icky. 

I believe that in order for Amazon (or any other large company) to change its labor practices it will need more incentive than a few Carolines here and there not getting a Prime subscription. It will need massive government intervention. And, for now, I’m not in a position where I have the capacity or expertise to push for that except through my vote and periodic calls to my representatives. Instead I’m going to work on accepting that I don’t love Amazon, but I do love make smart financial decisions for myself and my family and sometimes those things just don’t jive together super well. 

I’m curious if you’ve had similar experiences or are trying figure out how to spend money in a values-aligned way! 

As always, I’m rooting for you. 

XOXO