Is “supporting local” a privilege of the wealthy?

Question

We have all been encouraged or even do the encouraging ourselves to give our money to local small businesses. This tends to be for a variety of reasons- less economic impact, support of marginalized business owners, keeping money within one’s own community, and giving less business to major multi-million dollar corporations. 
However, local tends to be pricier. A local, family owned grocery or farmer’s market will tend to have higher prices than Walmart, sometimes by quite a bit. A small business will have similar products to chain produced products for sometimes double the price you could get a dupe on Amazon. A local community restaurant will certainly have much higher priced food than places like McDonalds or Applebees. (Anecdotally, I grabbed breakfast this morning at a local coffee shop. It was $26 for two mini breakfast sandwiches (egg, cheese, bacon) and one coffee). Something similar at McDonalds would have probably been $9-10. 
Sitting there drinking my expensive coffee I started realized what a privilege it was. This type of luxury and shopping local isn’t a realistic venture for many families. I continued thinking about how hard it must feel for those families when they are constantly pressured to buy local for the reasons above. 
Tl;Dr, do you agree that buying local is an economic privilege? Should we be more conscious about this when encouraging others to purchase locally?

Answer

It depends on the product, place, and business practice. Some local is same price as chain goods, other more expensive. For example, food is about the same now as local where I live. 
I think ethical clothing is generally more expensive. 
Generally, yeah, it is a privilege even out of cost. Most of our local places aren’t on bus lines or are in inaccessible locations. Unfortunately local owners cannot afford bus line locations, which is a significant issue here. 
I do think it’s annoying and generally privileged to tell poor people how they should spend money to be ethical. If one can afford to buy local all the time, then yeah, one is privileged. I try to buy local when we can, and even that is a privilege I am grateful for.

Answer

I dont think its necessarily a privilege of the wealthy only, but a privilege non the less yes.

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Maybe for some it is,  but where I live it’s just a way of life. 
I live in a small town with the next largest city being 40min away. For all of us in our town, it’s our only option to shop local 🤷‍♀️ 
People rarely scoff about it. And being this far from chain stores actually makes the prices just as cheap here in our town as they can be found near the larger populated towns.
This morning I paid for an iced coffee with cream and sugar at a local coffee joint. Cost me $4, the same price at Starbucks.

Answer

In my area, depends on the product.  We have a local family run coffee shop, home based bread maker and produce farms who sell for cheaper than the chain stores.  Local services tend (generally) to price similarly or a little higher to those run by chains (oil change, car detailing, cleaning, from home hair salon/nails, etc.)
Locally made furniture though HA - wayyy more expensive and sadly way out of my budget.  
Since I quit my job and we’ve gone from 2 incomes to 1 - I have realized what a privilege it was to be able to regularly donate to and support local charities and initiatives that are important to me and my partner that we want to see succeed.  I despise that I cannot contribute to some of these causes right now like I used to be able to.

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Abso fucking lutely

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I think it depends. There is one family owned grocery store in my town and I try to shop there whenever possible, but the prices are significantly higher than at chain stores. I do try to stop frequently and buy smaller items, like letting my daughter pick out a snack or getting drinks for the two of us on hot days. But as a single mom, I can’t afford to spend $5+ on a gallon of milk when it’s $2 at our Walmart. 
A few years ago, I lived in a very small town. There were no chain stores unless you were willing to drive 20 minutes. It was much easier to support local businesses there. The prices at all of the mom and pop shops in that town were basically the same as what you’d find at Walmart or Kroger.

Answer

I say yes… I think it’s great if people want to support small or local businesses. But you can’t be mad or hate on people who can’t afford to do the same. We have several boutiques and a few locally owned restaurants where I live, I have never bought anything from any of them. Their prices are way to high, even recently looking for someone to make my son spirit shirts for school and the prices were just outrageous. I’ll continue to buy from Walmart, Amazon and other similar stores. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Answer

I think it depends. In general where I live buying local is usually cheaper. The only real exception is clothing as it is always gonna be hard to compete with like Walmart of a cotton tee for many reasons. But where I live produce, meat, dairy is cheaper if you go to the farm, butcher, dairy, or farm stands/farmers market. On the rare occasions I get coffee not made at home I go to our local Cafe and a 16 oz vanilla breve is $3.15 vs I think like $5.15 or something at Starbucks. We have an IHOP 45 min away but our little greasy spoon restaurant makes better pancakes for less. Our local mom and pop hardware store us always cheqoer than hone depot oe lowes. There are 100% areas where yes buying local is insanely more expensive because of a ton of factors. The bigger issue to me is why are people telling others where to spend their money anyways??? I grew up poor as all fuck amd we shopped all local for what we didn't make/grow because it was cheaper and we could barter. If we had just cut some firewood or been hunting we could trade cut wood or some steaks or ground meat for a service or product at our local mom and pop shop. Don't think we could have bartered with Walmart to get a bike with a trade of firewood. When I lived in Boston for a bit it was much more expensive to shop local because it was at a premium. Farms were not every few miles and it was more of a niche or weekend event...$50 brunch and farmers market type deal...than it was a accessible way of life. So I think it isn't always more expensive but surely can be. It isn't a rich vs poor thing always but it can be. Big take away is people should just spend their money where they choose for whatever reason. I rarely rarely but things (electronics/cars/tropical fruits excluded) that are grown/made more than 100 miles from my home. Part of it is economic and it cost my family less but some is ethical and I fully acknowledge I am in a place in life to have that ability. But when I was growing up and we made 15K a year total for a family of 7 we still shopped local more often than not because it was easier or cheaper. So like so many others things I don't think it is black or white with privilege or not...it varies so much between circumstance and location. I do try to avoid Amazon like the plague because they are the literal devil and those fuckers can have as little of my money as humanly possible and usually get none.

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With the insane inflation we are experiencing, EVERYTHING is expensive and there’s never been a greater gap between the wealthy and the poor.

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I think so.
At least where I live. My city, Perth, is very isolated from the rest of the major Australian cities. Early on this year, the main railway between us and the eastern states was damaged, and we had food shortages for 3 months. We were encouraged to buy local, but my partner and I are low-income, so we had to just tough it out at the grocery stores. We really worried about being able to feed the cat and we had to ration his food for a week. I’m very lucky my grandma’s cat changes her preferences monthly so she had a whole heap of food her cat wouldn’t eat 😭 
I’d love to support local businesses, rather than major supermarkets, we just simply can’t afford to.

Is “supporting local” a privilege of the wealthy?

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