Buy Nothing Day Date in the current year: November 29, 2024

Buy Nothing Day was observed for the first time in 1992 in Vancouver, Canada. It was organized by the artist Ted Dave, who wanted to draw attention to the issue of over-consumption. It's interesting, that original Buy Nothing Day was observed in September and it was moved to November only in 1997.

The reason of movement of the observance was Black Friday, one of America's busiest shopping days. The Canadian magazine Adbusters' ads, the general promoter of the holiday since 1992, were declined to be advertised by almost all American major networks, except CNN. This event pushed observation of Buy Nothing Day even further and the campaigns started in the United Kingdom, Austria, New Zealand, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, France and Norway to name the few. As of 2015 Buy Nothing Day is observed in 65 countries.

There are many events organized on this day, including sit-ins, free street parties, protests and even strikes. All these events are used to draw our attention to the problem of over-consumption.