Of the Merits of Thrift Part 2

Only in retrospect is it a blessing to have been through relative poverty. How easy it would be to romanticize the halcyon days of youth when hopeless poor? Those days when money didn't matter, but what did was the experiences of traveling, or studying at university, or just learning about life. Yes, these are great memories, and many of us have them. But it is not right to glorify the hard times and conclude all discussions with the wistful breaths saying, those were the days.

Rather, it's those gained experiences that shape the way we are, the way we think, and perhaps the way we act. In the impoverished days of my youth, I never once felt poor. I was a college student and I worked my way through school the same way all of my classmates did. I worked all sorts of jobs, many of them at the same time. I worked in retail, restaurants, offices. I did temp work like unloading semi trailers or recycling old files for law firms. I even had a brief stint as a street performer. What I learned was this, especially at that particular time of history and my history, it doesn't take very much money to live.

I lived with roommates in old apartment buildings in central Denver. I owned no car so therefore had no car payment, no car insurance, no car repairs, and no dependence on oil. I ate all of my meals at home, mostly vegan meals. I was not a vegan, but I had very little money. If I was given an opportunity to eat a hamburger or a steak, I never said no. But this was not the way I lived my life.

Rather, I was thrifty, and I didn't even know it. Anything I had I either found, was gifted or bought second hand. I would use something to its fullest capacity and anything that I had I would maintain and repair until otherwise efforts became ridiculous. I reused everything. Even down to the paper I used to do my homework which came from the recycle bin at school.

What this really meant to me was that I needed less money than most because I had learned how to live without it. There are many facets to living a frugal life, but I think for most it is having more time than money.

I did not have a car to hop into on the weekends to take an out of town trip. I did not have the disposable income for dinners in restaurants or drinks in night clubs, well not frequently anyway. Any weekend trips I took, any experience going out, meant something to me. Instead of a simple trip or a simple night out on the town, these experiences became legendary events worthy of a telling and a retelling.

Then there were the real freedoms. The biggest freedom may have come in form of the jobs I got to take. What was available to me was just about anything. Since my expenses were so low, any job, and I mean any job, was enough for me to pay my bills. I was not trapped in any specific job or industry because I was strapped with bills and overhead. I took summer jobs out of town. I took short term jobs in Mexico City. I got to see places and do things and meet people I would have been unable to experience had I needed to support a more expensive life.

Being thrifty to me, at least in the formative younger years of my life meant living in such a way that I could be free. I would then, like I would now, rather spend a day under a tree reading a book, than to work an extra shift to pay a debt on something I don't need. It seems like a better deal to live a day without an extravagance if I get more time to do other things, simple things, human things.

I know that I never thought deeply about the things that were going on. I never thought about the fact when I needed to go somewhere I rode my bike, I just went. I never thought that riding my bike was a healthy alternative for me and a healthy alternative for the environment. I also never thought then, like I do now, what a subversive act riding a bike is: ride your bike and you no longer support the automobile culture or the gas and oil industry. I just rode my bike because that was what was available to me.

The other thing I never thought about in my youth was how I was really experiencing the world. I had ample time to make friendships and maintain them. I had ample time for my studies, and I really got to absorb what I was learning. When I say I lived in central Denver, I really lived there. I had apartments in Denver, I went to college in Denver and I worked in Denver. Denver is a big place, and my daily map inside of Denver was less than two miles in radius. I went for walks, for bike rides, and I went visiting friends. I had no need for a car, and I had no need for a workaday life. There is a good possibility that I had been somehow predestined to live a life like the one I describe. Rather, I think living a life as such takes a little bit of thought or a little bit of planning. I have always wanted to spend my time writing or creating something rather than working. For those of you who think time is money I am glad that has never been the case for me.