I remember when I was younger people made fun of me because we shopped at Walmart. We wore hand-me-downs. We went to yardsales. Only poor people did that. Only poor people or cheapskates used coupons, shopped by what was on sale, or worried about cutting down on electricity or water, or how much gas costs. Only poor people made their own clothes, furniture, decorations, etc. Or grew their own vegetables. Now there are classes on "couponing" and a tv show. People are paying money to learn how to save money. For real. Now "re-purposing" everything is all the rage. Taking old, used, sometimes broken stuff and making it something new is cool. Being "energy-efficient" and "going green" is considered the responsible thing to do. Who knew? Here I thought mom and dad were just worried about us running up their light bill, when all along they were "energy efficient" before it was a thing. And Pinterest has created world of people who are addicted to making home-made everything. Everything. Baked goods, furniture, wedding decorations, clothes, bags....you name it. It's even ok to grow your own produce and even (gasp) can it yourself. Oh, and Walmart. Everyone shops at Walmart now! Unless they don't have one, or they're deliberately boycotting it. And hand-me-downs? Well there are stores and websites dedicated to re-selling used items. Clothes, books, toys, appliances. Ebay anyone? And everyone is worried about wasting gas now. People are suddenly concerned about their "carbon footprint", and "greenhouse gasses" and "renewable resources" and the oil in the Middle East. We were just worried about having enough gas to get us around until we got paid again. But I'll take "environmentally friendly". It's funny how ahead of our time we were. Who knew that being on a tight budget (aka broke as a joke) actually made us so freaking cool? Now I just need some celebrity to say using a clothesline is fashionable, and maybe give it a hipster name like green-laundered or something. Maybe the poor (aka under-funded) and the cheap had it right all along. We just needed the media to latch onto some catchy phrases to make it popular. Thank God they did, or I'd still be broke and cheap. Instead, I'm a couponing, energy efficient, gone green, environmentally friendly, re-purposing, carbon-footprint watching, totally modern and cool person. If I can get that clothes-line thing going, I'll be a superstar.