Jack loves to repeat his father's saying, "It's not how you sell them, it's how you tell them." In other words, it isn't the price you charge, but the presentation.
This came home to me today. For a variety of reasons (can you say student loans?) I have never developed frivolous spending habits. That is how I see it anyway; others may (read: do) interpret my tight purse strings as being cheap.
But this afternoon we watched the documentary "No Impact Man," which profiles a family's effort to leave no impact on the earth for one year. No electricity, no elevators (in NYC), local food only, pedestrian or bicycle transportation, and cloth diapers. They even forgo toilet paper.
Moving on.
The wife was reluctant. She likes reality TV, takeout and Starbucks. She hates nature. They made it work and managed to stay married.
Of course, anything like this makes you take stock. Could we do that?
I don't know whether we could ever be that extreme, but overall I discovered that in being frugal (aka cheap), I've minimized my impact.
I'm low-impact girl!
From this chair, I look around and see very few things we've bought outright. Just about everything we did is electronic (TV, laptop, camera, phone, etc.). All of the furniture was either a gift or second-hand (or, in the new lingo, reused). Even the picture frames on the wall were from the thrift store (I painted them). Most of my clothes came from consignment stores. Our trash is mostly kitty litter (how I wish there were a way around that).
Certainly we aren't perfect but it was nice to find that in being economical, we have preserved a bit of our green conscience. Cheap is in!
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