Backing independents does not cost more money. It costs the same money, spent differently.

Someone left a comment on one of my videos, pulled from a submission on keepthemopen.com, and it said: it's easy for you to say, you've got money to throw at the butcher and the independent high street. I want to address that directly, because it is the most common misreading of everything I put out.

This was never about spending more. Not once. It is about changing the till you walk up to.

Same coffee budget. Same meat budget. Same fruit and veg run. The only variable is which door you push open to spend it. The pound leaves your pocket either way. The question is where it lands after that.

I understand the cost of living pressure is real. Inflation, stagnant wages, bills that have gone up faster than pay. That is not invented, and I am not dismissing it. But here is the part that rarely gets said: some of that pressure is self-reinforcing. When we spend in the big chains, that money routes to shareholders who are largely based outside the UK. It does not circulate back into the local economy. It does not pay the wages of people who then spend in your neighbourhood. It leaves.

When you spend locally, the money stays. The butcher pays his staff, who get a round in at the pub down the road, whose landlord fixes the roof using the local builder. That is the economic multiplier at work, and it is not theory. It is just how money moves when it is not being extracted.

Spending in Aldi, Lidl or Tesco is not a moral failing. I am not pointing fingers at anyone trying to feed a family. The mechanics are what they are. But the idea that supporting independents requires a bigger budget is the thing I want to pull apart, because it is the excuse that lets the habit continue without examination.

You do not need to spend more. You need to spend somewhere else.

If you have made that switch, or you know an independent that deserves more footfall, send your story to keepthemopen.com.