Money Crashers: Cheapskate vs. Frugal

One problem we frugal folks often struggle with is being dismissed as "cheapskates" or "stingy." Cracks like these can really sting, because they imply that our efforts to save money are somehow hurting other people. To someone who's embraced ecofrugality as a way to avoid waste, protect the environment, and have more money for the things that matter—including charitable giving—this feels really unfair.

However, there's no denying that sometimes, in our zeal to save money, we overlook the fact that we could be causing problems for other people—or for ourselves. This leads us into silly situations like spending half an hour making homemade laundry detergent to save a penny per load of laundry, or awkward ones like showing up to a potluck party with a bowl of popcorn that cost 25 cents to make, and took less than five minutes of work, before helping yourself generously to everyone else's homemade delicacies.

My latest Money Crashers article is an attempt to draw some clear, bright lines between the frugal and the just plain cheap. I sort cheapskate behaviors into categories—unethical, stingy, unsafe, and wasteful or inefficient—and give examples for each one. Then, for every case, I give a counterexample of a genuinely frugal behavior that could save you at least as much money as the cheapskate behavior, if not more.

Explore this thorny question here: Cheapskate vs. Frugal – 12 Signs You May Be Crossing the Line

An Election Week request

I'd like to start off with an apology: this post is going to be a bit off-topic. It's not directly related to ecofrugality, though it is about avoiding waste. Specifically, in this case, the waste of a vote.

I usually try to avoid posting about anything overtly political on this blog, because I know politics is a topic that divides people, and I'd like us to be able to focus on the common areas that interest all of us: saving money and living green. But in this case, something is going on that's so important I feel I have to speak out through any forum I have available, and this is the best one I have.

As you probably know, Donald Trump has been encouraging his followers to go out and monitor polling places for signs of voter fraud. Some of them have responded by saying, in so many words, that they intend to use racial profiling to spot voters they consider illegitimate and challenge them. The Christian Science Monitor quotes one of them, Steve Webb of Ohio, as saying he plans to look for "Mexicans. Syrians. People who can't speak American. I'm going to go right up behind them...I'm not going to do anything illegal. I'm going to make them a little bit nervous."

What Mr. Webb apparently doesn't realize is that what he is proposing to do actually is illegal. It's voter intimidation, and there are laws against it. As the website of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) explains, it is against federal law to "intimidate, threaten, [or] coerce...any other person" in order to stop that person from voting, or from voting in a particular way. If anyone does this to you, you can report it to the Department of Justice or to any local official. Election Protection even has a hotline (1-866-OUR-VOTE) that you can call on the spot to respond to this kind of behavior.

The problem is, the average voter may not know this. So if someone like Mr. Webb "goes right up behind them" in a threatening way, they might not know how to respond. If they become "nervous" enough to flee without casting their ballots, it will be a victory for the lawbreakers and a loss for democracy.

So what can we do prevent it? So far, the best thing I can think of is to make sure this information about what voter intimidation is and how to respond gets out to as many people as possible. And that's where I'd like to ask for your help.

This PDF contains all the information from the ACLU site in a printable form. I'm asking you to print out copies of this document and post them in whatever public places you can think of in your town - community bulletin boards, utility poles (if that's legal where you live), or anywhere else that people will see them as they pass by. Ideally, they should be posted as close as possible to the places where people vote, so people will see them on their way to the polls and will be aware of the issue. Maybe not that many people will read the notice, and maybe not many will learn anything from it they didn't already know. But if even one person who sees it is encouraged to stand up for their right to vote, that will be a victory.

Let me be clear: My goal here is not to support or oppose any particular candidate. I just want to make sure that everyone who's legally allowed to vote is able to. And I believe that all of you, people who care enough about the world to read this blog, would agree with that goal. No matter which candidate you support, surely you would want to see that candidate elected fairly and legitimately, not through vote suppression.

I'm also encouraging you to pass this information on to anyone else you know who you think would share this goal. Send e-mails to friends, put it on Facebook, tweet the link, or whatever you think will help to get the word out. This, too, is a request I wouldn't normally make...but as I said before, I consider this election a special case.

Thank you for reading. Tomorrow we'll return to our regularly scheduled program of posts about DIY, thrift shops, and local produce.

A Burning Question

Normally, I believe in the principle that good fences make good neighbors. Take the case of our resident groundhog, for instance. Back when we first put in our garden, the furball was regularly getting in and chomping our veggies, rousing our normally peace-loving natures to such wrath that we talked more than once about shooting, poisoning, or trapping him (as we were eventually forced to do with the rat). But once we'd managed to install an effective groundhog-proof fence to protect our plants, we were able to coexist peacefully with the groundhogs, and even enjoy their antics.

Unfortunately, we have another neighbor who's creating a nuisance that can't easily be fenced out. Namely, an offensive smell. No, we don't now have a skunk living in our back yard as well, although the odor is nearly indistinguishable; instead, we have a college-aged neighbor who smokes a lot of really bad pot.

Let me say here, for the record, that I'm not anti-pot on principle. In general, I feel that if people want to use a mind-altering drug in the privacy of their own homes, that's none of my business. However, as the old libertarian saying goes, "Your right to swing fists ends where my nose begins." And in this particular case, our noses happen to be stuck right in the middle of a cloud of nasty-smelling smoke emanating from our neighbor's yard. (He seems to smoke only outdoors, probably at his mom's insistence.) The smoke from his yard gets into our yard and, from there, into our house if the windows are open.

To make matters worse, our house does not have central AC, so opening windows and running fans is our primary means of staying cool in the summertime. But if we simply open up all the windows in the evening to let in the fresh air, we know that at some point that air is inevitably going to turn not-so-fresh. So then our choices are to swelter with the windows shut or choke with them open. (We can usually manage to air the place out early in the morning if we get up early enough, but we have to be prepared to close everything up again at 7 or 8 am when our neighbor steps outside to light up his first joint of the day.)

I keep going online to search for a solution to this problem—some sort of good fence to enable us and our next-door pothead to be good neighbors once again. Unfortunately, the suggestions I've seen so far haven't been very helpful. They include:

1. Just get over yourselves and live with it, you #*@%ing puritanical hypocrites.

This is the advice I seem to run across most often on pro-drug discussion boards, although it pops up often in other places as well. Basically, the folks offering it take it as axiomatic that pot smoke is harmless, so anyone who claims to have a problem with it is obviously lying and just wants to stop anyone else from having a good time. For me, naturally, this advice is both unhelpful and highly offensive. As I've said, I don't care what people put into their own bodies, but I don't think I should have to let them put it into mine as well.

2. Just talk to them about it. They probably don't know it's a problem, and once they do, they'll be happy to accommodate you.

Here's my response to this one: hahahahahahahaha. These people have obviously never attempted to talk to my neighbor. This is a kid who once literally stole the recycling bin out of our yard right in front of me. I'd just gone out to take in the bins, and I was standing not ten feet from him as he picked up the bin from our yard—having walked right past his family's own bin, which was sitting in their yard, to get to it—and carry it back to his own. I didn't see how this could possibly be an honest mistake, but I gave him every possible chance to correct it if it was, making a big show of standing there in the yard with the bin lid (which he hadn't bothered to pick up) in my hand and a puzzled expression on my face, looking very theatrically back and forth along the street as if to say, "Gee, where could it have gone?" He ignored me completely as he headed back into his own yard and retrieved his family's own bin, stowing it alongside the one he'd just taken from us.

Finally, I figured nothing but a direct approach was going to work, so I walked straight up to him with the lid in my hand and said, "Excuse me, but is there a chance you might have taken our recycling bin by mistake?"—still going out of my way to give him a face-saving excuse. And his response was....nothing. He looked straight past me like I wasn't even there and then turned around and went into the house. So basically, even when I had asked him as politely as possible about something he'd just done right in front of me that he very clearly had no right to do, he was not only uncooperative; he refused even to speak to me.

Despite this unpromising precedent, however, I did once work up the nerve to go and knock on my neighbor's door when the smoke started pouring into our house. His mom answered, and I said, perhaps a little awkwardly but with perfect civility, that I was very sorry to bother her, but the smoke from her yard was getting into our house, and was there any chance she could ask them to put it out or take it inside? Now, she didn't refuse to respond as her son had done, but she did give me a blank, uncomprehending stare, as if I had just uttered a completely random collection of syllables that made no sense whatsoever. Clearly it wasn't the case that she literally couldn't understand me, because she said, "Uh...okay...I'll talk to them," but it was pretty obvious that she was only saying it to get me off her porch. I don't know whether she actually did speak to her son and his friend, but I do know that the problem has in no way abated since then.

3. What they're doing is illegal. Just call the cops.

Since recreational marijuana is still illegal in New Jersey (and I'm pretty sure this kid and his buds aren't lighting up for medical reasons), this is technically an option, but it's one I would consider only as an absolute last resort, for several reasons:

• Calling the cops on my neighbor is definitely not going to improve relations between us. At the moment, we mostly ignore each other; I don't want their attitude to become openly hostile or even aggressive. I already know this kid is capable of taking stuff from our yard with no provocation whatsoever; I don't really want to know what he might be capable of if he saw us as enemies.
• As I said earlier, I'm actually not anti-pot. If I narc on my neighbor, I could possibly get him arrested for possession, but I don't really see that as a victory, since I don't think possession should be a crime in the first place. What I'd like to bust him for is polluting our air, but I don't think there's actually any law against that. (If he were smoking tobacco in his back yard, for instance, I don't think we would have any legal recourse.)
• I don't think it's likely to work. Even though it's technically illegal for him to be smoking pot, even on his own property, I doubt there's much chance the cops would do anything about it. The comments I've seen online seem to suggest that the police generally won't act against marijuana smokers unless they actually catch them in the act of lighting up, and merely being able to smell the smoke—as you certainly can from the street—is not probable cause to march onto someone's property and conduct a search without a warrant. And actually getting a warrant is almost certainly more trouble than they'd be willing to take.

None of these suggestions really fits the definition of the "good fence" I'm looking for. What I want is something that will allow him to smoke in peace, and also allow us to breathe in peace, without having to bother each other.

Now, the thing is, such gadgets do in fact exist. There's a simple device called a sploof, for instance, that you can easily make with a toilet paper roll and a couple of dryer sheets, and blowing smoke through that supposedly traps it and neutralizes the odor. There are also commercial "smoke eaters" that do much the same thing with more sophisticated filtration systems. And a couple of sites note that smoking weed via a water pipe (a.k.a. a bong) or a vaporizer produces far less smoke and odor. But the problem with all of these solutions is, they're tools to be used by the marijuana smoker, not by the innocent bystander. I suspect that even if I were to buy one or more of these devices for my neighbor and present it to him as a gift, he would refuse to use it. I suppose I could make it a carrot-and-stick proposition, with the gift joined to an open threat: "Please use this from now on, or else I'll have to call the cops." But then I'd have to be prepared to follow through on the threat, which brings me back to problem #3.

So what I really want is some sort of system that will somehow allow us to cool our house without drawing in all the smoke from our neighbor's yard. Central AC would obviously be one such tool, but it's an awfully expensive one, both to buy and to run—particularly since our house doesn't have forced-air heating, so we'd have to install a whole separate system. I know from a previous summer when my in-laws came to visit that running a window air conditioner in just one room, for just one week, nearly doubled our electric use for that month; I shudder to think how much it would cost to cool our whole house that way all summer long. And from an ecofrugal perspective, it also bugs me that we should be forced to abandon our green lifestyle just because our neighbor is choosing to pollute the atmosphere.

We have noticed that when our neighbor is smoking, we can still keep windows open on the far side of the house without any noticeable odor problem; it's only the windows on that neighbor's side that are letting in the smoke. So a possible solution would be some sort of fan arrangement that lets us draw air in through all the windows on the opposite side and blow it out through all the windows on the smoky side—thus creating a reasonably good breeze through the house while blowing all the smoke back toward the yard from whence it came.

Brian has already made one attempt at rigging up such a system with materials we had available around the house. He took an old desk fan that we'd stopped using because it was stuck on "high," removed the base, and mounted it in a frame he cobbled together from scrap wood to fit our window. This is certainly better than no ventilation at all, but even running constantly on high speed, it just doesn't generate that much airflow. It's on the right track, but I think a truly ideal system would have to be a good deal more powerful.

Since I haven't been able to find a good fence for this particular neighbor problem, I'm turning to you, my readers, for help. Do any of you know of some kind of system that can ventilate a house in one direction only, so as to keep out smoke from the upwind side? Do you know of some other energy-efficient way of cooling a house without air conditioning? Can you offer suggestions for approaching my neighbor about the problem in a way that might make him more tractable? Or can you think of some other approach to the problem that I haven't yet considered?

Jolly green corporate giants, part 2

The latest issue of the InBalance newsletter from the Center for a New American Dream contained several articles that tie in with with topics I've covered before on this blog. For instance, the article "Go Green This Halloween" follows up on my recent Halloween post by proposing additional "ways to celebrate that don’t involve devoting hours in front of a sewing machine or parting with significant amounts of cash," from costume swaps to all-natural decorations. The same article contains a link to the Green Halloween site, the same one I complained about last year because its suggestions for alternative treats were all either really expensive and/or really lame. (The site has since added a few new ideas, such as printed-out puzzles, which seem marginally less lame, but I'm still not sure what percentage of sugar-craving rug rats would perceive them as treats rather than tricks.) There's also an interview with Tammy Stroebel, the blogger whose transition to a minimalist lifestyle prompted me to muse about the distinction between frugality and simplicity, and how it's possible to value one without necessarily wanting the other. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder whether the editors of this site were reading my blog to come up with ideas.

The article that interested me most, however, was this one about "The Scarecrow," a new animated short produced by Chipotle restaurants to draw attention to problems with factory farming and promote their own supposedly more sustainable practices. The video itself, available on YouTube, is both charming and moving, but it's provoked a barrage of attacks from two directions. Supporters of Monsanto have flooded the YouTube site with comments arguing that corporate agriculture is actually the best way to "feed more people while using fewer resources," while environmentalists have denounced the video as an example of greenwashing by a "giant corporation." The author of the article disagrees with both viewpoints, arguing that "Chipotle does have a strong, if imperfect, record on sustainability" and that "'large company' does not always have to equal 'unsustainable.'"

This caught my attention because it's exactly the same argument I made three years ago in response to the protests surrounding the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, which many of the holiday's original founders considered to have been "perverted" from its original purpose by corporate influence. I thought this was a bunch of hooey, because let's face it, there are always going to be corporations, and having those corporations adopt more sustainable practices is decidedly a Good Thing, even if they're just doing it to attract more customers. Heck, especially if they're doing it to attract more customers—because if it works, that will give the other corporations an incentive to do the same thing.

So it's nice to see that there are some folks in the sustainability movement—even some fairly influential ones—who agree with me on this. But seriously, have they been reading my blog for ideas?

Hershey update

This just in: since my last post about the difficulty of finding more sustainable treats for Halloween, I have received word that Hershey has followed M&M/Mars in pledging to get 100 percent of its cocoa from sustainable sources by the year 2020. So as from today, my boycott of Hershey is officially over—although I still went with M&M/Mars products for my own Halloween handouts. Their deadline for sustainably sourcing their chocolate is the same as Hershey's, but they have a two-year head start and are already more than 20 percent of the way toward their goal, so I figure that makes them 20 percent more moral (or, to put it another way, less evil) than Hershey. Plus, as I may have mentioned before, I just happen to like little Snickers bars.

A Halloween dilemma

September is drawing to a close, and that means that stores are beginning to gear up for Halloween, with prominently placed displays of candy and costumes. (Well, actually, they've been doing this pretty much all throughout September; I just do my best to ignore it while it's still technically summertime.) In preparation for the annual candy-fest, I received a bulletin last weekend from Global Exchange, a Fair Trade organization, announcing a month-long program about choosing Fair Trade goodies for Halloween. This is an idea that I like in theory but have some problems with in practice, because the Fair Trade treats this site is promoting are Equal Exchange chocolate minis, which cost $35 for a box of 150 (the smallest size they offer). Now consider that last year, I paid just $4 (on sale) for two bags of mini Snickers bars from M&M Mars. This company is not 100% Fair Trade, but it got more than 20 percent of its cocoa last year from certified sustainable sources, making it the largest buyer of sustainably sourced cocoa in the world and putting the company ahead of schedule to reach its goal of 100 percent sustainability by 2020. I suppose you might argue that, for a product that's 100 percent sustainable instead of 20 percent sustainable, I ought to be willing to pay 5 times as much—but that would still be only $20, not $35 plus shipping. And sustainable treats from other companies, like Endangered Species chocolate, Divine, and Dagoba, are equally expensive or more so.

Now this week, Green America has stepped up to propose other alternatives. The bi-monthly Green American, which arrived in my mailbox on Friday, has an article on ways to "Green Your Halloween," starting with ditching candy in favor or "healthier treats and non-food 'treasures'" that are "recycled, natural, or sustainably sourced." It profiles Corey Colwell-Lipson, the founder of Green Halloween, who says that she founded her group because of concern about how candy harms children's health. The article cites the statistic that "One out of every three children is overweight, and the same number is expected to develop diabetes in their lifetime" as a result of "poor eating habits." The article doesn't attempt to explain exactly how a once-a-year candy splurge on Halloween qualifies as a "habit" that is supposedly responsible for child obesity and rising diabetes rates, but it does claim that when kids attending Green Halloween events see the alternatives to candy the group offers, "from polished stones and seashells to temporary tattoos and friendship bracelets," they invariably plump for these in place of candy. "[T]housands and thousands of kids came by," Colwell-Lipson claims, "and not one single child of any age, toddler to teen, said that they would rather have candy when they saw the alternatives. Not one."

Somehow, I can't help being just a bit skeptical about that claim. I realize it's been about 25 years since I last went trick-or-treating, but casting my memory back, it seems to me that if one of my neighbors had offered me a polished rock in place of a lollipop, I'd be pretty cheesed off. In fact, there were always a few killjoys who gave out things like colorful pencils instead of treats, and while my classmates and I generally refrained from TP'ing their houses, we certainly didn't respond with wild enthusiasm. Sure, I might have gladly forgone the candy in favor of something really cool, like a book or a little toy, but the problem with this is that even really cheap toys, such as you might find at the dollar store, are going to run about a buck apiece, while mini Snickers bars cost as little as eight cents apiece. And the same problems apply to pretty much all the items on the list of alternative treats proposed on the Green Halloween website. Either they're way more expensive than traditional candy (e.g., recycled glass tiles) or they're just, not to put too fine a point on it, lame (e.g, acorns, no matter how much they insist that "kids love items from nature"). A few of their suggestions (like toothpaste and miniature boxes of organic raisins) manage to fall into both categories.

So are there any realistic options for Halloween treats that are healthier and/or more sustainable, yet won't break the bank? In the past, it might have been possible to distribute homemade goodies, like popcorn balls or pumpkin seeds, but nowadays paranoid parents would snatch those away and dump them straight into the trash for fear of poisoning (even though there's no evidence that this has ever actually happened, even once). Even the CDC explicitly warns kids to "eat only factory-wrapped treats." So any homemade edibles are clearly out of the question. And any "factory-wrapped" edibles, such as the ones suggested on this site, are almost certain to cost more than mini candy bars. (Most of them have more calories, too, so it's questionable how much they'll actually help to reduce childhood obesity.)

The list of non-food treats on the same site includes some that are more reasonably priced, but most of them decidedly fail the coolness test. Of all the items on the list, these are the only ones that look both comparable to candy in price and likely to pass muster with kids of trick-or-treating age (which, in our area, can be anywhere from 3 to 16):

• Glow sticks. A flier we recently got in the mail advertised 5-packs of glow necklaces for $1—about twice as costly as a mini Snickers, but not so expensive as to be completely unreasonable.
• Temporary tattoos. (Stickers would also fall within the cost limits but are likely to be rejected as lame by kids over 10.)
• Coins. A quarter is likely to be more enthusiastically received than a Tootsie Pop—but that's because it's worth a lot more. A dime probably won't generate much excitement. So once again, this option means shelling out more per trick-or-treater.
• Used books. This one could be really cool in theory—I would have been a lot more excited as a kid to get a book while out trick-or-treating than a candy bar—but I recognize that not all kids would be equally enthused. Also, to make it work, you'd have to have a wide selection of books so that you could dole out age-appropriate selections to a wide range of kids. And to make it cost-effective, you'd have to be able to pick up a whole lot of books really cheaply—and have a way to get rid of whatever was left over come November 1.

Now, as it happens, I actually do have in my possession a fairly large collection, not of books, but of old Cricket magazines—accumulated during my childhood and only recently cleared out of my parents' house. My original plan was to give them to nieces and nephews for Christmas. But I've started wondering: would it actually be feasible to give these out to trick-or-treaters? Back when I was subscribing to Cricket, before it was split into two separate magazines for the under-9 and over-9 sets, the material was aimed at kids anywhere from age 5 to age 12, which covers most of the range of trick-or-treating age. The question is, would kids actually appreciate getting these? Would they, as Colwell-Lipson suggests, actually prefer them to candy? Or will they, instead, mentally classify me as I did the prissy neighbor who handed out pencils in lieu of goodies?

I'm kind of tempted to put this question to a practical test. I'd greet trick-or-treaters at the door on the 31st with two containers—a bowl filled with my usual mini Snickers treats, and a box of Cricket magazines—and offer them the choice: "Which would you like? Candy, or a magazine full of stories for kids?" Then I'd keep notes on how many kids opted for each choice, and based on the results, I'd have some idea whether to continue seeking out creative ideas for future Halloweens—or just stick with the Snickers bars, which I know won't get any complaints.

Hershey the enslaver

So, for the past year or so I've been boycotting Hershey's chocolate because of its use of forced and child labor on cocoa plantations. Yes, I know this is a problem everywhere in West Africa, and the other major chocolate manufacturers have been involved in it too. But ten years back, they all signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol, committing to clean up their supply chains and address these abuses. To date, all the other chocolate manufacturers have taken at least some steps toward complying. All except Hershey. In fact, they refuse even to say who their suppliers are—so there's no way for any third party to find out whether they are using slave labor or not. The company's recalcitrance has made it the target of a campaign called "Raise the Bar, Hershey" that is petitioning the company to (for a start) trace its supply chain, ask its suppliers to stop using forced labor, and add at least one Fair Trade-certified chocolate bar to its lineup. (You can read more and download a detailed report on the company's practices here.)

It was only today that I learned that Hershey is also exploiting workers right here in the United States. Oh, not American citizens, of course—not people who might actually be able to do something about it. These are foreign students here as part of a "cultural exchange" program to experience American culture. Instead, they're working long shifts in a Hershey's warehouse and being threatened with deportation for failing to meet production schedules. The money they're making isn't even enough to cover the cost of the visas they paid for to take part in this "cultural" experience.

What's interesting is that Hershey's approach to this labor problem on American soil is pretty much the same as the one it's taken with its chocolate: know nothing so you can deny everything. In the case of the student workers, they claim that this particular plant was being managed by a vendor and they knew nothing about the abuses taking place there. And with regard to the folks who grow their cocoa, they simply refuse to trace their supply chain so that they can claim they don't know a thing about any abuses taking place on the cocoa plantations. In other words, they simply refuse to look.

I've generally tried to avoid being too overtly political in this blog, but this has pushed me over the edge. I am going to go against my usual practice and ask outright: will you, all you folks who read this blog, join me in my boycott and spread the word to others? Ultimately, I think nothing but a direct hit to the pocketbook is going to get Hershey to take any action.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what the alternative is (since buying nothing but Fair-Trade-certified chocolate would make this a pretty expensive Halloween): M&M/Mars has committed to get 100 percent of its chocolate from sustainable sources by the year 2020, and they're on track to meet the 10 percent mark this year. So to encourage this positive commitment from a major company, I'm getting little Snickers bars for Halloween this year. (The fact that I really like Snickers bars is just a minor bonus.)

The Gates of Heaven

Well, it's official: I don't hate Bill Gates anymore.

I was already on the fence about him, because on the one hand, he turned Windows—which I loathe in all its forms—into the dominant operating system in the world, so that now even those of us who hate it have to use it in order to be compatible with everyone else. But on the other hand, he has taken the billions he made from this venture and invested them in things like worldwide vaccination and better agricultural techniques, helping to ward off famine and pestilence around the globe.

Then today, I read in my "Climate Minute" newsletter that Gates is devoting millions of dollars to the goal of developing carbon-free energy sources—the silver bullet as far as alleviating global warming is concerned. Here's a quote:

Today, we're very dependent on cheap energy. We just take it for granted—all the things you have in the house, the way industry works. I'm interested in making sure the poorest countries don't get left behind, so figuring out how they can get cheap energy is very, very important. Whether it's fertilizing crops or building housing, a lot of it comes down to energy.

Investigating further, I discovered that back in February, Bill Gates gave a talk about clean energy at the TED conference. One of the big technologies he highlighted in the talk was a new type of nuclear reactor that can run entirely on depleted uranium—something we already have enough of in this country to meet our energy needs for the next 100 years. The company in question is named TerraPower, and the new reactor it's developing is called a traveling wave reactor, or TWR. And Bill Gates is one of its biggest investors. So I'd definitely bet on it to be a financial success, because if that man can out-compete every rival with an inferior product, then just think what he'll be able to do with a truly superior technology. (I'd have bought some of their stock myself, but it's a privately held company.)

The point is, we're talking about a machine that can take spent nuclear fuel, something we desperately need to get rid of safely, and turn it into cheap, clean energy, something we desperately need more of. This is ecofrugality on a grander scale than anything I've ever conceived of before, and Bill Gates is the guy who's going to make it happen. How can I possibly go on hating him?

I still hate Windows, though.

Frugal Ethics

A recent article in the Dollar Stretcher newsletter about "Frugal Ethics" inspired me to resurrect the "Tightwad Ethics Quiz" that ran years ago in the Tightwad Gazette. Editor Amy Dacyczyn posed ten questions to her readers about the ethics of frugality and then published the results. I posted the questions in one of the the Dollar Stretcher forums, and it occurred to me that you ecofrugal readers might also find them of interest.

For each question, there were four possible answers: "Yes," "No," "Yes, but I wouldn't do it," and "No, but I would do it anyway." Amy Dacyczyn published the percentage of responses that fell into each category, along with a representative comment that typified the majority viewpoint. (She didn't say which answer she thought was right, though she noted that in most cases she agreed with the majority view.) Here are the ten questions, the response from the Tightwad Gazette readers, and my own response. (Oh, and for those who are concerned about whether my use of this copyrighted material is itself unethical, I believe it qualifies as "Fair Use.")

Is it ethical to:

1. Secretly switch your spouse's favorite, expensive name brand with a store brand to see if they would notice the difference, providing that you eventually let them in on it?

76% Yes; 14% No; 6% Yes, but I wouldn't; 4% No, but I would

Typical comment: "Yes, we both do this all the time."

My response: Yes, but I probably wouldn't do it. I'd most likely let him in on the switch from the beginning. My husband is no more brand loyal than I am and is generally happy to accept a store-brand substitute if it meets his needs.

2. Substitute another receipt to get a rebate if you lost the original receipt? The possible justification here is that you did in fact purchase the product and satisfy the manufacturer's intention.

70% Yes; 19% No; 5% Yes, but I wouldn't; 6% No, but I would

Typical comment: "Yes, I bought the item."

My response: Yes, although I've never actually done it because I am meticulous about keeping everything when sending in rebates. But as long as I actually bought the item, I'm not cheating anyone by taking the rebate.

3. Take all of the unused soap and shampoo from your hotel room?

76% Yes; 14% No; 5% Yes, but I wouldn't; 5% No, but I would

Typical comment: "Yes, but not the light bulbs and rolls of toilet paper."

My response: This one's actually complicated for me. I would have no problem taking the leftovers if I had opened the package and used part of it, because in that case I would assume that the hotel is just going to throw it out otherwise. So I'm just preventing waste. If the package is still unopened and sealed, then I would be inclined to think that if I leave it, the hotel will pass it on to the next guest, while if I take it, they'll have to substitute a new one. So even if I am legally entitled to take it, I'm still promoting waste by doing so. But if the hotel is actually going to discard the package whether it's been opened or not, then obviously it's wasteful to leave it. So I guess that if I didn't know the hotel's policy, it would be best to go ahead and take it. I stay in hotels so seldom that it's not much of an issue anyway.

4. Offer half of the asking price and show a wad of cash to encourage the sale when you are making a large purchase from a private individual? This assumes that the seller does not appear needy.

72% Yes; 15% No; 12% Yes, but I wouldn't; 1% No, but I would

Typical comment: "Yes, that's just good old Yankee trading."

My response: Sure, why not? The seller is under no obligation to take the offer, but if cash on the barrelhead is a big enough incentive to him/her, isn't that a win for both of us?

5. Buy something from a pawn shop, knowing it is likely that someone under economic duress sold the item for a fraction of its real value?

76% Yes; 8% No; 15% Yes, but I wouldn't; 1% No, but I would

Typical comment: "Yes, if the shops did not exist, those in need would have no way to raise quick cash."

My response: Yes, I agree with the above. If I refuse to patronize the pawn shop and it goes out of business, how does that help anyone? The owner is out of a job and people who need cash in a hurry will no longer have a safe and legal way to get it.

6. Return a 10-year-old coat to L.L. Bean, to take advantage of the company's unconditional satisfaction guarantee?

12% Yes; 77% No; 10% Yes, but I wouldn't; 1% No, but I would

Typical comment: "No, this violates the spirit of the guarantee. How can you be dissatisfied after 10 years?"

My response: No. Ten years is a reasonable lifetime for a coat, so I have no grounds for dissatisfaction. However, I would (and have) returned a pair of pants that wore out within one year, because I think pants should last longer than that.

7. Buy toys for a fraction of their original price from a 10-year-old at a family yard sale?

66% Yes; 24% No; 9% Yes, but I wouldn't; 1% No, but I would

Typical comment: "Yes, assume he prefers the money."

My response: Yes. I don't see why anyone would find this objectionable. If the kid is selling the toys, he/she presumably would rather have the money. And "a fraction of their original price" is what you should expect to pay at a yard sale. Unless they're collectibles, they are overpriced at more than 20 or 25 percent of their original value.

8. Take labels off thrift shop designer clothes and sew them onto new no-name clothes for your kids to wear? This assumes your kids know about it.

35% Yes; 45% No; 17% Yes, but I wouldn't; 3% No, but I would

Since this was the only question for which public opinion appeared divided, she published two typical comments: "Yes, if my kids were under extraordinary pressure, I would see this as beating a stupid system" and "No. You're teaching your kids false values."

My response: No. First of all, I think label obsession is just plain stupid, and if I had kids, I would rather try to teach them how to be smart shoppers and pick clothing based on real value. And more than that, I wouldn't want to teach them to be deceptive in their dealings with others. And finally, I think that there's a serious risk that snobbish classmates might be able to spot the sewed-on label, and then their scorn would not only increase, it would actually be justified (because the kid was not just wearing cheap clothes but also being dishonest about it).

9. Get Radio Shack's free battery card, and get a once-a-month free battery even though you never plan to buy anything from them?

63% Yes; 25% No; 11% Yes, but I wouldn't; 1% No, but I would

Typical comment: "Yes, they were trying to bait you, and there were no strings."

My response: Yes. Stores offer promotions like this to get you in the door in the hopes that you'll buy something else once you're there. They know that it won't work on everyone who accepts the offer. There's nothing morally wrong with being the fish that slips the hook. To me, this is just the same as going into a supermarket and buying up a bunch of "loss leaders" and nothing else.

10. Shop at a thrift shop if you have an average or above average income? The possible objection is that you would be buying items that poorer people need.

95% Yes; 2% No; 2% Yes, but I wouldn't; 1% No, but I would

Typical comment: "Yes, most thrift shops have too much merchandise. Profits go to a good cause."

My response: Yes, of course. By shopping there, I am supporting the store, which in turn supports a worthy cause. And I'm also helping the environment by buying stuff secondhand. This is a win-win, as far as I'm concerned.

I find it sort of reassuring that I fell in with the majority on most of these, and where I differed with them I actually came down on the more scrupulous side of the fence. I'd like to think that my frugal choices are, on the whole, making the world a better place.

Jolly green corporate giants

First of all, apologies for the lack of posts this week. I've been rushing to try and get ten pieces published at Associated Content before the end of this month in order to earn a small bonus. At this point I'm up to nine, with the tenth waiting for approval. The new ones include an explanation of how to organize your computer cables with pipe insulation as I did back in January, a reprint of an article I wrote for the "Live Cheap" blog on how to do your holiday shopping at yard sales, a guide to what I call "the three habits of highly frugal people," and an editorial on why a frugal lifestyle shouldn't be seen as a sacrifice. (After this I'll probably ease off on new Associated Content articles for a while, so readers of this blog won't have to be pestered about them all the time.)

So, what with all that other writing I've been doing, it's taken me a whole week to get around to blogging about an article I read in the New York Times last Thursday about the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. The main thrust of it was that Earth Day started out as a fairly fringe-left, anti-establishment event, but now, 40 years later, it's a big, popular festival, and lots of corporations are taking advantage of it to market their green products and services. The article quoted one of the original founders of the Earth Day movement bemoaning the "tragic" way the event has been "perverted" by corporate marketing.

Now, I consider myself pretty close to the salad fork on the political place setting myself, but my honest reaction to this was, "Oh, stuff it." Because personally, I care a lot less about the purity of people's motives than I do about the actual results. Sure, it's likely that these corporations are only adopting green (or slightly greener) practices out of financial motives, rather than out of any real concern for the earth. So what? If the net outcome is less oil drilling, more recycling, and lower greenhouse gas emissions, then isn't that a good thing, regardless of the reasons?

In fact, I'll even go so far as to argue that having giant corporations hop on board the green bandwagon is the best possible outcome. Because think about it: a hundred pure-hearted environmentalists doing absolutely everything they can to be green—going off the grid, raising their own food, eschewing all fossil fuels, and living a 100 percent ideologically pure lifestyle—will still have far less actual impact on the environment than a huge, evil megacorporation like Wal-Mart becoming just a tiny bit less evil. Baby steps make a big difference when you have such a large footprint. It's like buying a fuel-efficient car: you'll have a lot more impact by trading in a huge, gas-guzzling SUV that gets 10 miles to the gallon for a hybrid SUV that gets 20 (thus going from 10 gallons of gas per hundred miles to 5) than you will by trading in a fairly efficient compact car that gets 33 miles to the gallon for a super-efficient hybrid that gets 50 (going from 3 gallons per hundred miles to 2).

It may indeed be true that "a small group of concerned citizens can change the world," but the easiest way for it to do that is by influencing big decision-makers. And I see no point in taking a morally pure stand if it has no chance of making an actual difference. Voting for a tiny splinter-party candidate who takes the right and just position on every issue may make sense if what you want to do with your vote is to "make a statement," but if you actually want to make the country a better place, you'd be much better off giving your vote to a seriously flawed major-party candidate who's far less seriously flawed than the other major-party candidate. The former choice expresses your dissatisfaction with the system; the latter actually does something to change it.

And let's not forget the image of the environmental movement itself. The green movement has made vast gains in popularity, and therefore in clout, with the spread of the idea that going green can be easy and fun. And most people would much rather go to the mall than to a lecture. So if a soy-fiber plush toy can get apathetic, consumerist, mainstream America thinking and talking about environmental issues, isn't that a good thing?