This garbage picked broomstick transformed my backyard broom back into a functional tool.
I’ve been thinking lately about how any major life change, either good and bad is constructed from a thousand tiny actions. Sure, writers like to list catchy top ten ways to spend less money, save the environment, or even how to irritate Alex Trebek, but nothing is ever that simple. Life is about the minutiae, the teeny-tiny choices we make each and every day.
The life is about the tiny changes mentality started swirling around in my head when I was buying eggs the other day. I had walked to the New Seasons store, (no sacrifice, as it’s two blocks from my house) and as always I made sure to tell the checker that I did not want a rubber band around the carton. That’s right, I made extra special care not to bring a rubber band into my house. I neither wanted an accumulated nest of rubber bands, nor did I want an extra rubber band to be manufactured because of me.
At first, this sounds insane, but really, it’s just part of the thousand tiny actions, (or inactions) that I make on a daily basis. I walk to the library to return a book before accruing a 25¢ fine, and I stock up on loss leader Tillamook cheese, ($3.99 for a two pound loaf!) bringing my own bag to save the nickel. I take advantage of every possible sunny day to dry my laundry and I delight in curb finds as simple as a new broom stick to replace a broken one at home.
Ashley English over at Small Measure writes about, well . . . small measures. That is, the small changes we can all make on a daily basis that accumulate into large changes. For the most part, you only have a couple of lifetime opportunities to make huge and sweeping reforms. However, there are endless opportunities for the little changes.
So when you hear well meaning friends or even yourself utter the words, ‘That’s hardly worth doing,” know that your tiny life choices are adding up to a lifetime of positive life changes.
Do you find yourself willing to make small measure changes in your life, or do you only save your efforts for the big guns? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s the day-to-day actions that have the biggest impact on our lives. In my case, it was the $6 meals that played a big hand in my debt. It wasn’t a lavish vacation to Spain or buying a luxury vehicle. As you mature, you really realize how many limited resources that we have and hopefully learn to respect what we have. Great post, Katy.
Thanks, Natalie. That means a lot coming from you!
Katy
The little choices are the ones that have made the biggest difference in the way I live today. Minutia matters.
I totally agree. I’m always trying to get 1 more hair washing out of a bottle of shampoo or 1 more toothbrushing out of a tube of toothpaste. Before I realize it I’ve squeezed another week out of something I was going to throw away. All those weeks add up.
I try to do every little thing….it doesn’t always happen but I do my best.
I am pretty frugal overall, but the last hard thing for me to give up was my little treats, I have felt like I could justify them because I am going through a hard time. I used to get myself a little Starbucks or a fountain coke, but I am slowly realizing that this is $50-$100 a month and since I am not working and going through a divorce, it really adds up! I would rather any extra money went to do something nice for my kids, not get frittered away on silly stuff.
I still treat myself, but I do so consciously and deliberately. And often for free.
Katy
I get intellectually how the small things add up – or at least I choose to believe that. However, sometimes I find it exhausting. I, too, take my already acquired rubber bands to Whole Foods to use on the eggs/strawberries/whatever else they band so I don’t get more. But it is nearly a struggle to prevent the cashier from getting one on there before I catch her. Little things – and a lot of effort.
I felt the same way today, when I reused a plastic produce bag at the store. I also feel that way when I reach for a reusable quart jar of tomato juice at home. I avoided having a large can to recycle. There are some amazing people out there doing so much to reduce and reuse, but I don’t think the majority of people are. I see just a handful of people in a calendar year using their own shopping bags. It saddens and scares me that people are taking resources so much for granted. I’m so glad you are out there in the blogosphere using your life as an example of not just frugality but environmental consciousness.
We’re always so focused on the big goals, dynamic stories, etc that we forget the little things. It can be keeping all that loose change in a jar, pennies, and it turning into over a hundred dollars by the time you cash them in, to stopping on your walk to smile at how happy your dog is and smelling the honeysuckle. It is like folks who focus on the wedding day not on the thousands of mornings of waking up to the one you love and if you turn to give them a kiss or just rush off into the day.
Why do they put plastic bands on your egg carton?
I never heard of that before. Or maybe I am just having a moment.
I’ve never seen it either, Twyla. Perhaps the part of the country I live in, or perhaps the discount grocery store?
They do it to keep them from popping open and the eggs falling out. It seems like more of a recent thing to me.
I’ve noticed that if we aren’t conscientious in the small things, when the opportunity to make big changes, we aren’t ready.
That should have read, “when the opportunity to make changes arises,”.
I am very consciously aware of the many “small economies” I pursue in my daily life. Writing a to-do list on an envelope, recycling cans (evens ones near my car when I park), using canvass bags, hanging out clothes, sharpening very short pencils, washing out the shampoo bottle over and over–all easy and the savings for the environment and my economy are both small. But, in the grand scheme of things, I envision millions of others doing the same thing plus all the other efforts I make. Yes, “I brake for mop and broomsticks.” They make great stakes in the garden!
I have a” friend” who does not stop about my “silly saving” until he has completed a tirade. Okay, we have not talked in a year, so I did have a friend…. He always points out he makes plenty of money. He just does not get it.
I never saw a rubberband on eggs. ??? Why, Katy?
Good post, Katy.
You gave me pause to think…I haven’t stepped into a mall for about a year now, but get great pleasure on my trips to the Blue Hanger Goodwill Outlet. For $2 today, I found 2 like new cotton tops for me and 3 cotton dresses that I deconstructed to use the fabric for baby quilts I make. Reuse, reinvent, and upcycle. Small efforts lead to big changes.
OMG! Hubby and I were just talking about this last night. In relation to extreme couponing. He said “Why does it have to be all or nothing?”
Today I watched my dear friend poor some extra water down the sink. After doing the No Impact Weeks, I always imagine having to walk miles to get water. I would never waste a drop if that were the case. Now, If I have extra it goes to a plant or the cats. I also empty the dehumidifier water into some jugs for the plants. I TOTALLY agree that it’s the little things.
There was a traveling exhibit at the science center titled Climate Change. If you drive just 2 miles less per day this has a HUGE environmental impact in less CO2. It’s amazing. 2 miles. 2 miles or 2 cents it all adds up.
I’m prone to all-or-nothing thinking, so this post (and the comments) are a good reminder about the little things that are really important.
OK, not to be all bitchy, but have any other New Yorkers noticed that if you bring your own bags to the grocery store or the Duane Reade, the cashiers just refuse to help you bag?
Wow! I can hardly believe that. Around here, I found the store clerks (especially younger ones) usually compliment people who bring their own bags in.
Most of the time, I’d rather bag my own groceries anyway, but they frown on that in this area.
Greta, the best advice I ever heard about dealing with such rude people is to be even more polite to them (heard that from Isabella Rossellini, Ingred Bergman’s daughter – I admire them both).
I’ve noticed it depends on the type of bag I bring in (although I’m in Oregon, not NY). If it’s all floppy like the ones you can crunch up in a pouch, they have a harder time, or if it’s too tall and keeps closing up, they complain sometimes. Of course, most of the time they seem fine with whatever.
I tend to make small changes with my health. I try to reduce calories a bit during the non-holiday parts of the year. I also try to increase my exercise slightly when possible, or maybe walk around a bit more at work than I would otherwise. These small changes seem to make a small but noticeable improvement in my weight and health.
Like a lot of people I love the big win, but I know that the little things I do every day make the biggest difference. Daily changes are easier for me as well. If I focus too much on the big things I can get overwhelmed. So everyday I do a lot of little things which amount to so much at the end of the day, week, year.
Great post! I couldn’t agree more that the small things matter. And often, they have a bigger impact than I realize when I do them. Here are three “small things” that I have changed over the past year in an effort to be more frugal and environmentally conscious: 1) having morning coffee and oatmeal at home instead of on-the-go at Sbux, 2) taking the MAX to work, instead of driving and paying for parking downtown, and 3) packing my lunch instead of buying a “cheap” $6 lunch downtown. All of these changes create less waste — no to-go containers, less gasoline burned, etc. and the old way cost me $21/day (!!!), whereas the new way costs me a $4.75 MAX ticket plus a few dollars, at most, in grocery money for the breakfast and lunch food. It adds up to almost $300/mo. saved!!! (Embarrassing that I used to spend that much without realizing it!)
Your savings, cash and environmental are AWESOME. I just wanted to congratulate you.
When I graduated from university the second time, for me, it was ensuring that my jobs were in reasonable commute time. I managed to do one better and my past three jobs (including this one) have actually been in walking distance. I pride myself in walking to work daily(3 miles one way), which pays for my son’s guitar lessons.
Susan, you’ve totally inspired me! I can walk to work, but sometimes I get lazy and get out of the habit. I’m getting back on the wagon (or off the wagon, if I’m walking? 🙂 ) on Monday!
Thanks for the inspiration to keep plugging along with the little things. Sometimes it gets hard to see that they do add up.
Great post Katy! I stumbled across your blog a couple of months ago and now read it every day from New Zealand. I totally believe it’s the small things that count and I do every little thing I can every day to save money and do my bit to help our planet. I have been thinking about keeping a ‘savings journal’ in a notebook so I can write down all the things I do and how much they save me – both as an inspiration boost and to quantify how big the little things do actually add up to. I truly believe it’s the little and often that will get us there.
Great to hear from you, and great idea to do a savings journal.
Katy
I think I have a different take on minutiae. Doing the small things gives me a lot of satisfaction and keeps me in the right mindset to be open to trying bigger, more difficult things that can have a really big impact. Even if my saved rubberband (I do things like that, too!) doesn’t make that much of a difference, it reminds me of the kind of life I’m trying to live.
One of the things that I like best about the small measures approach is that it focuses on what you can do, and how any small steps that you take really do make a collective difference. Unlike some heavy-handed environmental approaches that often backfire, by dissuading people from even bothering, it’s not about beating yourself up for what you don’t do because of time or money constraints, and I think that’s really important.
I’m convinced that real change comes from those small steps that add up. It’s great for people who take radical steps in every area to illuminate the realm of possibilities for the rest of us, and that can help to establish more widespread popularity for those practices, which is wonderful, but it’s not realistic for everyone to do that, and it can be very counterproductive to expect them to. When people look at the never-ending list of steps that they could be taking, it can be overwhelming. Judgment and guilt can just make it worse, but if we focus on the small measures that we can take, and take pleasure in them, those measures truly add up and make a real difference, especially if they are adopted by lots of people. We aren’t all going to go off the grid or grow all of our own food. At least not anytime soon, but we all can take small measures to save energy, like line drying our clothes when convenient, or buying something used, and growing some herbs in pots on the window sill, or tomatoes in the backyard. Those small measures that can realistically be practiced by many people are what can actually make the biggest difference in the end.
Right now personal finance for me is mostly about the minutiae. I feel like we’ve done all the major changes that would make sense at this point, leaving only small stuff to work on. We too bring bags to the store to save a little change and walk as much as possible to do errands. It gives me a sense of being in control and making forward progress.
All of these things seemed small when they happened…
learning to can, mend, knit, sew, bake, garden, paint, tat, write, save, volunteer, tend chickens, trade meals, create community. Just one more thing to try.
It all seemed small and now it is BIG, it is my life. I had no idea and I am so thankful.