GROUND FLOOR: Timing is everything, as I've said so many times before, which is why having a global Buy Nothing Day at the start of the shopping season seemed so ill-advised.

Even if you wanted to buy nothing at this time of the year, it's practically impossible.

By buying nothing on November 29th or December 2nd, all you're doing is deferring your purchases to the following buy-whatever-you-like day. And no matter how lofty the ideals of the activists who want us to reflect on why we're spending, this is probably the wrong time of the year to try.

Despite my years at the capitalist trough, I do indeed support many of the aims and ideals of the people who believe that our society is one of rampant materialism, over-consumption and obsession with trivial matters, especially at the beginning of December.

And of course, as we push our way through crowded shopping centres, we all get a rush of feeling that the season is over-commercialised and that our frenzied shopping is too stressful and too frantic to give us any enjoyment whatsoever.

But buying nothing - that would work better at a time when we're not afraid of being seen as the new Scrooge if we don't shell out a fortune on useless gifts.

I know that's the whole point of it but people pushing "buy nothing" for those reasons haven't entirely tapped into the global spending-season psyche.

Cutting down dramatically on spending by not buying anything at all also contradicts what so many economists and analysts believe - that the entire global economy is in the hands of the consumer who must stay confident and must spend unless we want the whole cat and caboodle to implode on top of us.

Which is why so many of them were urging Americans to get out there after Thanksgiving and spend the States into recovery. It seems to have worked. Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, reported a single-day sales record on Buy Nothing Day of $1.43 billion (€1.44 billion).

That may have had the retailer and the economists whooping in the aisles but it won't have done much for the spirit of the don't- spend brigade.

In the case of the Republic, the suggestion that we buy nothing was essentially a protest over the general feeling of having been ripped off since the introduction of the euro rather than the more lofty ideals of making the world a better place.

Since there's no doubt that Irish consumers have indeed seen dramatic price increases over the past 12 months, this is a sentiment that I definitely support - but would have supported more if I hadn't been so busy last week that most days already involved buying nothing, which resulted in the cupboards of the home being almost completely bare.

Whatever about the human occupants existing on the remaining few slices of bread for the good of our souls and as a protest gesture, a sense of global activism passes the cat by entirely and so I was forced to go to the shop and buy his dinner, thus condemning my mortal soul. (Like so many things, cat food is more expensive now than it was this time last year!)

There is another side, of course, to the concept of buying nothing and that's how we get the money we're spending in the first place.

Household debt for most Western economies is at extremely high historic levels, fuelled by cheap credit and continued pleas by governments to spend anyway, and these high debt levels, combined with worsening employment prospects, could lead more households into financial difficulties (not rocket science, I know, but sometimes it's important to look at the obvious).

Whatever about the implementation of Charlie McCreevy's SSIAs, the sentiment was right. Most of us do not save enough.

As a child, I was encouraged to save for things. And when I got round to buying whatever it was I wanted, I was secure in the knowledge that it wasn't going to be obsolete in three weeks time as a newer, flashier model came on the market.

The problem now is that almost everything we buy is some kind of fashion statement and we then feel the need to upgrade almost immediately. And to buy them, we borrow, even though sometimes we'd be better off hanging on to our cash.

In some ways this is merely a muted reflection of government activity, when high levels of receipts over the past few years were carelessly spent so that now we're obliged to do the belt tightening thing all over again.

The real issue, whether as a consumer or as a government, is getting value for your money. If I upgrade my computer and am more productive as a result because I can do things more quickly and efficiently, then it was worth spending the money.

But having poured a fortune into public services and infrastructure, it's quite hard to see where the value-for-money factor has kicked in.

Transport, of course, is notoriously tricky because all of us want to drive our upgraded cars on empty roads, which is impossible. Recently as I walked down the Howth Road I counted 35 cars in the queue at the traffic lights. Of those, only three had more than one person in them. And I bet they all complain about gridlock.

It's funny, though, how difficult it is to solve the capitalism versus quality-of-life equation. The more we earn, the more we want. Yet the more we want, the more difficult it is to enjoy it.

Unless, of course, you're my cat and you've been given a sachet of beef in jelly on Buy Nothing Day.