college is the quintessential time for young people to realize and take advantage of exercising frugality...of finding ways to be extremely, painfully cheap so that they could afford to be more lavish later on. for me, the college years were not the beginning of my training but rather the fine-tuning of it. i have been exposed to the values of saving and scrimping since i was a little tyke, thanks in large part to one person: my dad. so for me, taking hotel toiletries from the maid's cart is as normal as brushing my teeth.
friends, teammates, roommates...they could all attest to my frugal ways. depending on how you look at it, i am either down right cheap or ingeniously resourceful when the situation presents itself. i think it was sometime in high school when i rinsed my first plastic straw after enjoying a homemade smoothie. starting my sophomore year in college, i would rip out all the perfume adds from magazines i could get could my hands on. clinique one night and chanel the next. i never once bought a bottle of perfume. i use paper grocery bags to wrap packages and plastic bags to line bathroom and kitchen trash cans. did you know that empty coke cans make excellent depositories for grease? and if you smash an empty cereal box so that it's flat you save that much more space in your disposable bin?
but how did i get this way? let's go back to dad, the master of this game. dad does not like to waste things. not gas, not water, not energy, not toilet paper. and if you really know him, definitely not to-go cups. when he leaves a coffee shop, he will return home with at least a half-cup refill so that a) he has a "free" cup to enjoy later in the day and b) can rinse the cup when he is finished and store it in his paper cup warehouse. oh yes, the paper cup warehouse. i wish i had a picture, but just imagine a whole shelf filled with stacks of cups from starbucks, caribou, peet's, and several other local "breweries". complete with stir sticks, plastic lids, and sugar to boot. oh, the sugar! we tease my dad every time we leave a cafe because there is a 99% chance that he will have stuffed some sugar packets in his pockets for the road home. he also saves every container possible for later use...i couldn't leave an empty plastic container in the pantry one day without discovering that it was now a storage place for coffee grounds or plant life the next. he'll cook dinner for himself and eat right out of the pan so that he saves the water form having to clean another dish. i once caught him leaving the kitchen after having microwaved his tea and noticed that there were a few seconds left on the timer..."dad, why don't you hit 'clear'?" he wanted to save those seconds for the next item that was to be heated.
growing up, i viewed this as strange. obsessive. embarrassing. but now, i see it as being smart, not only for the environment but for my wallet. i proudly bring my brown paper lunch bags and sandwich bags home for round 2 (and 3 and 4). my dad has taught me how to take something that is "used" and make it useful again. why throw something out that can still serve a purpose? we like to cling to things that are new and shiny, getting into a wasteful routine of using things once and then starting all over the next day. i think it's definitely easier to start these practices when you are in a tight financial situation, but it is actually wise to allow yourself to adopt them even when you feel no pending financial burdens. i'm not a tree-hugger, but i'm not a careless consumer either. without my dad's influence i would've never realize the value of saving and come up with signature moves of my own (i'm wearing giorgio armani). times are tough right now, and when i catch myself doing something conservational (or borderline "are you seriously saving/stealing this!?") i smile and think of him.
happy father's day dad :)
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