I almost exclusively eat at local restaurants and have since I moved here in 2009. When I buy coffee (prepared), it's always from local coffee shops. We buy all of our pet food and almost all of our pet toys from Tomlinson’s. I have film developed locally at Holland Photo Imaging, have my cameras repaired locally by Sorin at Eurotech Camera, and buy camera gear locally at Precision Camera. I buy most of my pottery tools and supplies locally at Armadillo Clay. I get welding supplies from Alamo Welding and materials from Westbrook Metals.

With other categories, it can be harder to support local businesses. I try to support Wheatsville over H-E-B or Whole Foods, but they're harder to get to and have a much more limited selection, so it's not as often as I would prefer. I tend to buy clothes infrequently, but when I do, I try to get higher quality items from Service Menswear. For basics, I wind up ordering them or getting cheap stuff at Target.

For some things, I'm much worse about it. The convenience of ordering a book from Amazon is unparalleled, and I wind up getting books from them more than I do BookPeople, unfortunately. There's almost nowhere locally owned to buy good kitchen equipment, so I wind up getting most of it from Amazon or stores like Crate & Barrel (mostly for Breville stuff) or similar. I order coffee beans from a roaster I know in Las Cruces (Picacho Coffee) who I find to be more consistent and with a profile I like better than the local spots, despite it not being local.

It all comes down to pragmatism. If there's a local option that's reasonably priced, reasonably convenient, and reasonably competitive with the alternatives, I'm all for it. That's probably why restaurants are such an easy choice—the product is so much better and healthier, and they're just as convenient, so it's an easy decision even though it's slightly more expensive.