‘Buy Nowt!’ Saving Money This Black Friday - With A Yorkshire Twist

Bradford District Credit Union is leading the charge in promoting an alternative Black Friday for the Covid world - with a Yorkshire twist called ‘Buy Nowt’.

The event, now in its fifth year, is organised by the Anti-Poverty Events Group in Bradford, UK who have adapted to the Covid World by turning it into an international webinar that has seen high demand for bookings.

Six years ago the American import of Black Friday took off in the UK with stories of stampedes and people jumping long queues to get pre-Christmas bargains. Black Friday began in the USA in the 1960s, pushed by retailers keen to encourage consumers to begin their Christmas shopping early to increase profits on the day after Thanksgiving.

Opponents to the concept came up with ‘International Buy Nothing Day’, a protest against consumerism that encouraged consumers to avoid the free-for-all frenzy that had created a “brand of shoppers who will trample and fight each other to get their hands on next year’s landfill”.

Designed by Bradford charity Artworks Creative Communities five years ago, ‘Buy Nowt’ sought to offer residents in Bradford, Yorkshire a place to go when they couldn’t afford to participate in Black Friday.

Deborah Collett from Artworks explained:

“We recognised that Black Friday puts huge pressure on people to spend their Christmas money early, so we created a Currency Free Zone where people could buy ‘nowt’ (an old Yorkshire word for nothing) at our Bradford city centre base, and invited people to take sanctuary from the spending frenzy, try making things, explore our human worth not our monetary value, and find out where to get some help and advice about money. 'Buy Nowt' has grown each year and is an extraordinary Bradford invention; one of the latest in an historic tradition of innovation and dynamic responses to social need.”

Ian Brewer, the Financial Inclusion Officer at Bradford District Credit Union said:

“‘Buy Nowt’ is Yorkshire’s answer to Black Friday and aimed to encourage financially vulnerable people to save their money rather than spend it early and be short for Christmas. In past years we worked with Artworks to give vulnerable residents the space to come down and make Christmas cards, learn other crafts whilst getting debt advice that achieved national media attention.

“This year we carried out the #LoanSharksAreMonsters campaign, a Covid Safe partnership project that helped give free Halloween activity packs to 10,000 vulnerable families with tips on managing money and avoiding high cost lenders. We are following that up with an international community practitioner webinar with stories from across the globe about tackling financial exclusion and poverty.”

The webinar is being hosted by the Association of British Credit Unions (ABCUL), that also celebrates the international Credit Union movement, and one of the speakers is Hank Hubbard, CEO of a Credit Union in Detroit, USA.

Hank said "It’s great to be part of an international webinar exploring solutions to financial exclusion. Detroit has a large African American population who are marginalised by the mainstream banks and taken advantage of by predatory lenders so our Credit Union is vital to our community."

Hank will be sharing a session with his UK colleague Karen Bennett, CEO of Enterprise Credit Union in Liverpool on how vulnerable residents got into the savings habit that helped them to build financial resilience in their communities.

The Bradford District Credit Union and Artworks are part of a partnership of eight organisations called the ‘Anti-Poverty Events Group’ who have held conferences, roadshows and events aimed at tackling financial exclusion and poverty with great success. They will also be providing stories from Bradford on how collaboration and partnerships result in building financial resilience in their communities.

Cllr Hinchcliffe, leader of Bradford Council, is opening the ‘Buy Nowt’ webinar and said:

"Bradford is a world leader in creative collaboration and partnership, in financial inclusion and anti-poverty work that has helped our diverse cultures work together through partnerships. The Anti-Poverty Events Group was shortlisted for the Service Excellence Awards and is a great example of that innovative and collaborative spirit in Bradford and it’s great to see ‘Buy Nowt’ providing international stories of communities working together from all over the world."


Free tickets to the event are going fast but people can still book by going on to Eventbrite and typing in the words Buy Nowt in Online Events.