Four magazines arrived in my mailbox yesterday, tempting me to take a break from deadline to dive into their pages. Why is it that magazines always seem to arrive when I am at my busiest? With a sigh, I placed the newest batch on the growing pile in my office and returned to my computer. Soon, I’ll get to them, I tell myself. Soon.

Truthfully, I’m happy to subscribe to multiple magazines—even if I don’t read every single page of every single issue. I subscribe because magazines represent one of my favorite ways of escape. Whether it’s travel, food, or wellness, I love to leave the everyday world behind and sink into inspiring new realms. Hopefully, you share these same feelings when reading Tidewater Women!

The other reason I’m happy to subscribe to a variety of magazines is I like to support the publishing industry. If consumers don’t buy magazines, as well as some of the products and services they advertise, print magazines will cease to be. And I don’t know about you, but reading on the computer screen just doesn’t do it for me. It feels too much like work, if you know what I mean.

Spending money, even on something as minor as magazine subscriptions, helps in other ways, too. It keeps people employed. The economy, as you know, continues to sputter. We’re all afraid to spend money because we don’t know what the future holds. Well, guess what? The outlook for the future is going to get worse if we don’t jumpstart this economy.

We have the tools to do that in our wallets and our purses. If we all commit to spending more in the coming months, the wheel of commerce will begin to turn. It’s inevitable.

When we can, buying local makes a huge difference as well. Besides creating jobs, buying local keeps money in the region, encourages entrepreneurship, builds a sense of community, creates more choice, and helps the environment. It’s a win-win.

We all make choices every day: what to cook for dinner, how to spend our free time, which goals for the future we want to focus on. Sometimes it’s easy to get so caught up in our own little worlds that we forget to see the big picture. Politicians are among those guilty of not seeing the forest for the trees. In fact, their squabbling has taken an emotional toll on Americans, I think. It’s hard to be optimistic about the future with all the political power plays going on.

After the debt-ceiling crisis—which isn’t over by the way, everything came to a screeching halt when Irene came to town. Next it was reliving 9-11 as news stories and memorial services took us all back to that fateful day. No wonder people have been feeling depressed and lethargic. Seems like the last month or so our lives have been fraught with anxiety.

I think it’s time to shake off our listlessness and move forward. Thinking about making some home improvements? Buying a new car? Revamping your wardobe? Go for it. Take some money out of savings and SPEND. It’s really what we need to get the economy moving again. An economics expert said in a recent interview in Time that money is like blood. It needs to move around to keep the economy going. Spending money at big-box stores is like letting the money flow out of the U.S., like blood from a wound.

Make a plan today to do your part to get the economy going. Visit local business and buy local products. Get help from local craftsmen and service providers to do the things you’ve been wanting to do around the house. Take a vacation this fall, and spend your dollars in Virginia. Then relax with a magazine in your favorite cozy chair and be proud that you helped get our economy going again.