www.montereycountynow.com APRIL 24-30, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 25 represent her values. “What really provoked me to look at my spending—beyond my belief that local spending is the right thing to do— was seeing the CEOs all bending the knee,” Adler says, referring to the symbol of pledging allegiance to a leader. “And I thought, why am I giving them my money?” Adler decided to not renew her subscription to the Washington Post, owned by Bezos, and stopped buying books from Audible, another Bezos company. “I’m basically trying to put my money where my mouth is and stop buying from anything owned by Jeff Bezos,” she says. “I don’t want to give him my money. It’s not a hell of a lot of money, but I don’t want to give him my money.” This is not virtue signaling, she says: “I just want to live up to my values. I have choices.” Adler’s not the only one who feels that way. A Harris poll released in February showed that 4 out of 10 Americans said they are shifting their spending habits to align with their political and moral views. Of those polled, 31 percent said they had no interest in supporting the economy in 2025. A quarter of respondents said they had stopped shopping at their favorite stores due to their beliefs. On Feb. 28, the People’s Union USA organized a 24-hour economic blackout, followed by a schedule of boycotts of different companies through the spring, including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Nestle and others. Another 24-hour blackout took place Easter weekend, April 18-20, and more are scheduled. The impact on companies thus far has been mixed, although a boycott of Target led by U.S. Black churches, prompted by the company’s announcement it was eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion policies after Trump was elected, has apparently made a serious dent in Target’s business. The chilly Inauguration Day has transformed into a chill on spending for many who feel like controlling their spending is the only power they have to protest what they see as unfair and even immoral policies and actions. Adler and others in Monterey County are joining millions across the country in this charge. For Adler, that means shopping at local businesses as much as possible, but she also added a new mega-chain to the rotation to replace Amazon. “I joined Costco,” she says, noting the company announced it would not back down on its DEI policies. “Costco didn’t bend the knee.” M onica Glatzel Williams of Prunedale was never a big Amazon shopper, but her teenage children were regular customers. “I put the kibosh on that,” Williams says. She told them they would have to shop elsewhere, in hopes it would be a lesson about spending money with morals in mind they will carry throughout their lives. Her husband canceled their automatic annual renewal of Amazon Prime. “One of the most powerful things is voting with our dollars,” she says. “It seems like the only thing people pay attention to.” Williams’ feelings about her family’s spending habits began to change right around the time Trump was elected to a second term in November, when she also read the book The Year of Less by Cait Flanders and she watched the Netflix documentary Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy. The book and the documentary caused her to rethink how they spend their money, and how they can do with less, or find alternative ways to acquire the things they need. One way they’re doing this is by using the Prunedale Buy Nothing Facebook group, where people can post items they are giving away for free. Williams recently found a rice cooker through the group— which she acknowledges is an imperfect platform given that it is owned by Meta, the company Zuckerberg leads. Choosing where to spend her money is not new for Williams. She’s “One of the most powerful things is voting with our dollars.” Monica Glatzel Williams shows off lemons from her tree in Prunedale. She and her family have changed their spending habits to avoid supporting corporations and prioritize local businesses. She often offers and finds items on the Prunedale Facebook Buy Nothing group. DANIEL DREIFUSS
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