Saving Money Isn't Ghetto

Photo courtesy Flickr

As I was hanging laundry to dry some years ago, one of the tenants next door walked past the 1890 lattice-screened back porch and muttered something about obsolete practice. That was the same week I had read a historic comment about how sparingly the prosperous early adopters of electricity used the utility.

A cousin recently told me about a digital pioneer who skimmed the headlines of the paper while it was on the stand rather than paying seventy-five cents for his very own copy. A friend mentioned that her mother had risked her health on an expensive cruise to the Near East by melting ice cubes rather than paying for bottled water. Those are doubtful economies, but the attitude is sound.

Every dollar spent is a vote for something. The dollars left over are leverage. I consistently find that basing a decision on how big a carbon footprint it will leave generates cash to use for smarter, healthier behaviors.

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