Thrift is HIP!

Forget Sex and the City and its extravagant women. Haven’t you heard? Thrift is in vogue.

Every cloud has a silver lining, they say, and if there’s a silver lining to problems like the subprime mortgage crisis and escalating gas and food prices, it’s that some Americans are waking up to the old-fashioned idea of thrift.

Out of the blue, and out of Washington D.C. (not a place known for controlled spending) comes a multi-year, national campaign to confront the debt culture. It’s called “Confronting the Debt Culture” and a report, released in May, called “For a New Thrift: Confronting the Debt Culture,” outlines ways in which to confront the debt culture.

I know all about thrift. I was a music student, after all, and lived on Ramen noodles (10 for $1 at Jewel) throughout my early years in Chicago while my MBA friends dined at Charlie Trotter’s. I also subscribed for a time to The Tightwad Gazette, an excellent thrift newsletter produced by Amy Dacyczyn (say “decision”) out of Maine. All this while maintaining an aura of glamour and gaiety.

From Ms. Dacyczyn I learned a dirty little secret. It’s that thrift can be FUN. Why? Because you’re in control. “Thrifty” doesn’t mean “cheap”—in fact, the word “thrift” springs from the verb “to thrive.”

Make no mistake. I like a nice Anne Klein handbag as much as the next girl, and I’m willing to eat thin gruel for a month in order to afford one. But this way I’m calling the shots. It’s a better system than the bland, mindless consumerism we see so much of across America. My elegant girlfriend Carol, a musician of limited means who regularly looks like she just strolled off a runway in Milan, once pointed out to me that buying Ferragamo shoes can be an act of thrift, if you use and enjoy them for a lifetime. And then there’s the classic bumper sticker that reads SAVE MONEY—DRINK GOOD LIQUOR.

Thrifty people, I’ve noticed, can also be the most generous of souls. They have more to give away.

So the planners of Confronting the Debt Culture really ought to have asked us Midwesterners about the subject. To a degree, they did. Among the thought leaders nationwide who have formally endorsed the initiative are the University of Chicago’s Jean Bethke Elshtain, a formidable scholar and kindly grandmother, too, who writes about civic virtue, and Allan Carlson of the Howard Center in Rockford. The Institute for American Values is the chief sponsor, with funding from the John Templeton Foundation.

Peruse the website, newthrift.org, and you’ll find what I consider the best definition ever of thrift, from a vintage 1929 American thrift poster. It reads: REAL THRIFT IS THE SAVING AND INTELLIGENT USE OF HEALTH TIME AND PROPERTY OF ALL KINDS, INCLUDING MONEY.

Millions of low and middle-income Americans who might become savers and investors, the report tells us, are becoming debtors and bettors instead. We’ve all heard the horrific statistics but here are two fresh ones revealed in the report:

—For the first time since the Great Depression and amid historically low unemployment, Americans spent more than they earned in 2005 and 2006.

—One in seven families is dealing with a debt collector.

The report proposes some excellent solutions—most broadly, to replace what it calls “anti-thrift institutions” in the U.S. such as payday lenders and subprime credit card issuers with “pro-thrift” initiatives, such as “a public education campaign for thrift modeled after [those] to reduce smoking and drunk driving.” While some proposed solutions entail federal spending, a decidely unthrifty option, others are viable. Expanding school savings programs to encourage the habit of saving for purposes other than buying consumer goods (emphasis mine). Banning credit card companies from marketing on college campuses. Launching employer-sponsored savings plans in which employees must opt OUT instead of opting IN, an arrangement that reportedly boosts participation enormously.

An accompanying traveling exhibit includes a pictorial lesson on how thrift was an idea embraced by most American women in their domestic lives early in the twentieth century. No doubt this was out of necessity, not choice, but it’s still a positive view of thrift, one that’s underscored in a cookbook I own that combines real-life stories and recipes from the Great Depression. Janet Van Amber Paske writes: “[Girls] were right at their mother’s side observing and learning her ingenuity as a way of life. As a result of the constant need the women became near magicians in their large kitchens, outperforming [each other] in putting meals on the table. They improvised warm clothing for the family to sustain them through bitter cold winters where children often walked miles to school.”

Tell that to Sarah Jessica Parker.

Several new books were launched at the May conference at which the report was released. Even their titles are telling: Forgive Us Out Debts (Andrew Yarrow) and Up to Our Eyeballs (Tamara Draut).

In addition to good, counter cultural ideas, newthrift.org offers an amusing trinket you can order. It’s a wooden change box with a slot at the top, for saving spare change. There’s lots of political talk in the air these days about Change. Ha! This is concrete.

You can also purchase a copy of the full report online for $7 but I was too cheap—er, thrifty—to do so. Instead I share here some pragmatic ideas from the good old Tightwad Gazette, which I paraphrase.

Credit card spending out of control? Destroy all your cards but one, and start paying cash. Take the one remaining card (to be used only for emergencies) and place it in a bowl. Fill the bowl with water and place it in your freezer. This means that the card is accessible to you, but only with planning, and thaw time.

Along with down-to-earth tips like this one, the Tightwad offered great concepts. One article explored the joy of limits. Playing any sport entails boundaries and rules. Therein lies the fun! Take them away and there’s no challenge. Unfettered spending, like unfettered freedom, leads to boredom or worse.

Thank God that we enjoy such prosperity in this country, where our dogs wear clothing and even inner-city kids chatter on their own cell phones. But times are changing, and in some ways for the better.