I learned to be frugal from my depression era parents

I have a theory. My mother is 84 (I'm 53) and lived throught the depression and WWII. She was also from a "poor" family. Nothing was wasted...she often talks about rationing during the war..and that no one threw anything away, especially food. She was recycling before it was common, and saved and stored paper, metal, glass. We composted all kitchen
scraps. Today she is horrified at the waste that is exhibited by our society.

I think that so many of us take for granted that we can just hop in the car and go buy anything we want. We waste so much food...think about what a restaurant discards each day, much less our own households. We are used to having everything plentiful and conveniently available. If you lived through times where food and energy was scarce, or unavailable it would have tremendous lifelong impact.

I think the farther we get away from true shortages, and the real fear we could have and can have shortages the less respectful we are on what we do have. My mother taught me to eat all your food, find uses for everthing, give away what you don't need to someone less fortunate, recycle and reuse. Don't take your bounty for granted!

I poo-poo'd these values, but now am in total agreement. I spend way less on food when we actually eat all of it. Our household has one small bag of garbage at the end of the drive each week because we recycle and compost everything we can.