Good morning and welcome to another Wisdom Wednesday post. Last week we focused on selflessness. This week we turn our attention to the virtue of thrift. Thrift is the attribute of using or spending minimally. It also has been related to savings.
There was a time in American history where thrift was a admired and notable character virtue. Parents and teachers taught it to children while religious leaders preached it to their parishioners. In this time in America, thrift represented part of a threefold meaning of national principle of hard-working, attentive, and penny-wise society. It was a principal that many Americans habitually unsuccessful achieved.
In the present day, a small amount of Americans sees thrift as a virtue. The original thrift seekers, the generation known as the” greatest generation that ever lived”, are aging and dying. Their customs, traditions, and the collective milieu wherein thrift once was appreciated and esteemed are fleeting from memory. It is not surprising that very few (Generation X and beyond)Americans can identify thrift or explain its importance. For the most part, when we hear the word “thrift” we think of it as a categorization for second-hand clothing. Thrift still maintains some impression of meaning for pre-Generation X Americans. This is particularly true for those who can remember their parents and/ grandparents practiced forms of frugality created by the scarceness of the Great Depression and World War II. Much of this frugality was continually practiced in families during post-war prosperity. Remember my grandmother saving jars and plastic bags for reuse, fixed broken pieces and shopped for second-hand items before buying new.
Thrift may be a fleeting memory in most Americans minds, but it is still very strong in many families. Consignment shopping for baby items can contribute to considerable saving for families, as can thrift store shopping, buying in bulk, and couponing.
In our family, we try to repurpose older items and are not quick to buy new. One of the reasons (and this will make me sound as old as my grandmother), they just do not make things as good as they use to. Case in point, I have this older refrigerator that I acquired when I purchased my last home. It has to be 35 years old if not older. In the time that I have owned this refrigerator, I have never had it out on me. The two “new” refrigerators that I have owned in my last and previous homes both have needed service. The same is true with cars, clothing, and furniture. So, there is something to be said about the virtue of thrift and being thrifty in general.
How do you practice thrift?
10 Wisdom Wednesday Quotes: Thrift
“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.”—Gertrude Jekyll
“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Industry, thrift and self-control are not sought because they create wealth, but because they create character.”—Calvin Coolidge
“Be thrifty, but not covetous.”—George Herbert
“I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living.”—John D. Rockefeller
“Thrift is not an affair of the pocket, but an affair of character.”—S.W. Straus
“Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.”—Thomas A. Edison
“Thrift comes too late when you find it at the bottom of your purse.”—Seneca
“I was brought up in an era when thrift was still considered a virtue.”—J. Paul Getty
“Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.”—Samuel Johnson
