Me being a miserly skinflint clearly has nothing to do with it. Clearly.

Today is Buy Nothing Day, when we're all supposed to take a holiday from consumption and not spend any money at all. Unfortunately for my hippy-pinko-commie-terrorist-loving-Guardian-reading-bleeding-heart-liberal-wuss credentials (of which I am justly proud), I completely forgot about it until after I had spent a couple of hours in Enfield's high street.

I am not a good person to go shopping with. This would be because I hate shopping, and I'm not quiet about it either. If I have a choice between staying at home in front of the rugby (well done Wales!) or going out in the cold and drizzle among crowds of grumpy people with their crying children to fork over handfuls of cash for things that I need but don't really want, that's not really much of a contest.

The other reason not to go shopping with me is the "don't-you-know-there's-a-war-on" mentality I've inherited from my parents, which means that if I'm buying things that are much the same no matter where you go (jeans or t-shirts, for instance), I'll be in and out of the shop in the shortest time I can possibly manage, having grabbed the first thing that looks vaguely suitable and left it at that. We have to make do in these troubled times, you know! At the other end of the scale, but oddly covered by the same attitude, is the way that if I'm buying something expensive (which translates to "gadgetry"), I will look at absolutely every option to make sure I'm getting the best product at the best deal that I can.

The same behaviour's spilled over into my food-buying too, to the extent that it's very unusual for me to buy something that costs more than £2 unless I can get a number of meals out of it. There's other effects as well. When I was a student and money was tighter than it is now, I had a mental list of foods that I'd buy from the supermarket's ultra-basic-value range, and one where I'd only buy the "proper" kind. I reproduce the second list in full below.

Foods Where Good Quality Matters More Than The Price

• Jam
  
• Chocolate digestives

Even now, that second list has only expanded by two entries ("sausages" and "orange juice", if you're interested). Incidentally, if you do end up buying really cheap sausages, don't make the mistake of reading the ingredients list. I did once, and the sight of "Beef connective tissue" didn't do wonders for my appetite.

Now that you have some background of my general feelings towards shopping, you won't be surprised to know that I was walking round the supermarket today directing feelings of deepest malice at everyone and everything I saw. Everywhere I looked, I was constantly reminded of the incessant urge to spend and consume thrust on us every day. From the canned goods aisle and its hideous convenience foods – all-day breakfast in a tin, anyone? – to the little "Price Dropped!" tags hanging off almost every shelf, urging us to spend ever more money. It's not unusual to hear the phrase "spend our way out of the recession" now – correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it wild, thoughtless spending of money we didn't really have that got us into this mess in the first place?

All that said, I don't think I'd have participated in Buying Nothing even if I had remembered it, if only because of practical reasons; my working hours make it next to impossible to do the shopping I need to during the week, so Saturday is the best chance I get. What's more, I don't think there's that much mileage in complaining about the mere existence of these gigantic shops, as they're getting prices down to a level where the poorest in society can nearly always get enough.

The consumerist cycle – see something, desire it, buy it, have it, see something else – goes faster nowadays than ever before. Internet shopping, Paypal, contactless payment (which sounds like the most stunningly bad idea I've heard in a while), digital deliveries; all of these have their benefits, but I do sometimes wish that we could start seeing purchasing as something that is generally necessary but utilitarian, as opposed to a leisure activity or a way of validating our existence.