I grew up with a father with a lingering shtetl mentality. According to him, his parents punched holes in tea bag labels after each steep so they could get the most out of each bag. That may seem incredibly cheap now considering tea bags are waiting room and office giveaways, but it's also a pretty clever method for tracking usage.
While some consider a shtetl mentality to be crippling (apparently the Democratic party suffers from a shtetl mentality--who knew? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/opinion/27dowd.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) I recently realized that much of my desire to be green is driven by this mindset. Leaving lights on in a room you were no longer in, taking long showers, using paper towels to clean up spills--these were all forbidden when I was growing up. My dad's motivation wasn't the well-being of the planet--it was his bills. Going through a roll of paper towels a week wouldn't have broken the bank, but using a rag was certainly cheaper. He wasn't footing the water bill, but a long shower was simply excessive. Unlike my grandparents who were struggling Ukranian immigrants, my dad didn't need to be this stringent, but his parents had long ago influenced his behaviors, and in turn, he would influence mine.
Why pay a subway fare when I can walk to work? Why have more lights on than I really need? Why throw out food even if there's only a small scrap left? Why buy lunch everyday at a deli if I can make it myself? So many of the small "sustainable" things I do on a daily basis are grounded in a tradition of being cheap--I guess having a shtetl mentality has some benefit after all.
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