Granola Economics
The other night my in-laws dropped in after a fun race in the park that Moses participated in. They are so great with the kids and helpful to us. So my father-in-law was helping me take out the trash, and asked if he could grab a disposable plastic container off the counter and take it out too. "No!" I quickly said. I had bought spinach a week ago, and planned to keep the container to store greens and other veggies pulled from the organic garden we planted this year in our backyard.
Just reading the previous paragraph would convince most people, even (perhaps especially) those who know me, that I am concerned with recycling, weary of chemicals, a back to nature type who wants to stop the human population from mistreating the planet. And they would be right, of course. But every time I begin telling someone why it is that I am the way I am, why I would for instance, recycle blankets into fitted diapers, or wash and reuse aluminum foil and baggies, I get a response that leads me to believe that I would appear much more glamorous if I just kept my mouth shut on what motivates me.
See, I do not do these things because I am worried about the scarcity of these resources. I don't particularly care about the amount of carbon spewed into the atmosphere, even if I do walk to the grocery store and carpool whenever possible. Furthermore, I think that the chemicals they put on food is usually a good thing, because it means that I get to eat an abundance of fruits and veggies in the winter months (and not from a can!)
But if that stuff is not my motivation, then what is? I will tell you, but be prepared- when I reveal my true incentive it changes my whole image. Instead of granola I become, simply, cheap. Not creative but poor. Not urban but trashy.
My sole motivation is saving money. My favorite word is Frugal. Frugal is my middle name. Just call me Hannah Frugal Landis.
See how fast I changed from cool hipster to tired housewife?
Ok, so why be so anally careful with money? Well, we still owe a couple thousand dollars on my '06 Vibe, and a few thousand dollars on Drew's student loan, and sixty thousand dollars on a mortgage. In my mind that means that we actually do not own the money that we make yet. Until we have paid these debts back, then I do not have a right to the fruits of our labor. Furthermore, as a stay at home mom, it is my obligation to create value by using my time to save money. By cooking everything from scratch (provided it truly is cheaper that way), and by respecting my husbands time by limiting our purchases to real necessities. At the same time I believe in real value- not buying mac-n-cheese because it is the "cheapest" thing to feed my kid, but finding the thing to feed him that is simultaneously perfectly nutritious and very inexpensive, like beans or peanut butter.
But what I am really getting at here is not my lameness, my frugality, my practices- but intention. I read an article yesterday about how often driving an SUV into a city can put less fossil fuel into the air than riding a train in. And that is just one example of how all these efforts to conserve resources for the sake of conserving resources are so often either not productive or even counter-productive. But the authors and cheerleaders of the efforts don't care; it is not about the effect; it is only about the intended effect. Not how much carbon you are responsible for creating, but how much you hate global warming! The fact that I don't care a lick about "global warming" seems to make my extreme energy frugality meaningless in the eyes of a more "progressive" person.
And so it is with all of capitalism. Although the effects of millions of self-interested decisions are in fact the most humane, it is the so-called community interest policies that are enacted in place of capitalism's market freedom- regardless of what the actual end result proves to be.
Anyway, I am the way that I am purely for self-interested reasons: namely, money and the retention and ultimate accumulation thereof. But not for it's own sake, of course, but so that I will have resources to give my children opportunities and so that I can have the freedom to someday help others.
I guess I may still be granola, but if I am then I am definitely the $2/box store brand [that is, as long as it has a low sugar content and actual whole grains :)]
Just reading the previous paragraph would convince most people, even (perhaps especially) those who know me, that I am concerned with recycling, weary of chemicals, a back to nature type who wants to stop the human population from mistreating the planet. And they would be right, of course. But every time I begin telling someone why it is that I am the way I am, why I would for instance, recycle blankets into fitted diapers, or wash and reuse aluminum foil and baggies, I get a response that leads me to believe that I would appear much more glamorous if I just kept my mouth shut on what motivates me.
See, I do not do these things because I am worried about the scarcity of these resources. I don't particularly care about the amount of carbon spewed into the atmosphere, even if I do walk to the grocery store and carpool whenever possible. Furthermore, I think that the chemicals they put on food is usually a good thing, because it means that I get to eat an abundance of fruits and veggies in the winter months (and not from a can!)
But if that stuff is not my motivation, then what is? I will tell you, but be prepared- when I reveal my true incentive it changes my whole image. Instead of granola I become, simply, cheap. Not creative but poor. Not urban but trashy.
My sole motivation is saving money. My favorite word is Frugal. Frugal is my middle name. Just call me Hannah Frugal Landis.
See how fast I changed from cool hipster to tired housewife?
Ok, so why be so anally careful with money? Well, we still owe a couple thousand dollars on my '06 Vibe, and a few thousand dollars on Drew's student loan, and sixty thousand dollars on a mortgage. In my mind that means that we actually do not own the money that we make yet. Until we have paid these debts back, then I do not have a right to the fruits of our labor. Furthermore, as a stay at home mom, it is my obligation to create value by using my time to save money. By cooking everything from scratch (provided it truly is cheaper that way), and by respecting my husbands time by limiting our purchases to real necessities. At the same time I believe in real value- not buying mac-n-cheese because it is the "cheapest" thing to feed my kid, but finding the thing to feed him that is simultaneously perfectly nutritious and very inexpensive, like beans or peanut butter.
But what I am really getting at here is not my lameness, my frugality, my practices- but intention. I read an article yesterday about how often driving an SUV into a city can put less fossil fuel into the air than riding a train in. And that is just one example of how all these efforts to conserve resources for the sake of conserving resources are so often either not productive or even counter-productive. But the authors and cheerleaders of the efforts don't care; it is not about the effect; it is only about the intended effect. Not how much carbon you are responsible for creating, but how much you hate global warming! The fact that I don't care a lick about "global warming" seems to make my extreme energy frugality meaningless in the eyes of a more "progressive" person.
And so it is with all of capitalism. Although the effects of millions of self-interested decisions are in fact the most humane, it is the so-called community interest policies that are enacted in place of capitalism's market freedom- regardless of what the actual end result proves to be.
Anyway, I am the way that I am purely for self-interested reasons: namely, money and the retention and ultimate accumulation thereof. But not for it's own sake, of course, but so that I will have resources to give my children opportunities and so that I can have the freedom to someday help others.
I guess I may still be granola, but if I am then I am definitely the $2/box store brand [that is, as long as it has a low sugar content and actual whole grains :)]
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