Never.

When you buy things on sale you are still spending money.

National holidays are celebrated by shopping. We have Veteran's Day sales. That's how we honor our servicemen and women -- by shopping, by consuming more stuff.

And we are passing this legacy of consumerism on to our children. More children go shopping every week than read, go to church, participate in youth groups, play outdoors or spend time in household conversation, according to consumerism expert and Boston College professor Juliet B. Schor, author of "Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture."

"Although children have long participated in the consumer marketplace, until recently they were bit players, purchasers of cheap goods," Schor writes in her book. "That has changed. ... Children's social worlds are increasingly constructed around consuming." Schor adds: "Contemporary American tweens and teens have emerged as the most brand-oriented, consumer-involved, and materialistic generation in history."

Our children are courted as consumers even before they have full-time employment.

"The kind of consuming people have been encouraged to do is undermining, not enhancing, our economic situation," Schor said in an interview. "And all this consumption has become financially and ecologically unsustainable. Doing more of the same makes those long-term problems worse, even if it props up some failing enterprises in the moment."

Rather than keeping things the same, why don't we again become producers?

"Households and the country need investment, not consumption," Schor says. "We need to invest in energy conservation, degraded ecosystems, a sustainable food system, education, community building, human connection, and skills for everyday living."

Aren't you weary of being a consumer with all the accompanied debt it requires to keep up this occupation? If so, make 2009 the year you stop defining yourself as a consumer.