WEBVTT

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Funding for \"Escape from
Affluenza, was provided by

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the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
the Summit Charitable Foundation,

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the Merck Family Fund and
the Pew Charitable Trusts.

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[music]

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We interrupt this program

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to bring you a special news bulletin. This is Roberto
Dinero with a shocking development to report.

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Those are the Jones\', the American family we\'ve
all been trying to keep up with for years.

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But as you can see by the white flag,
they are surrendering. We\'ve had it,

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we\'re exhausted, we never see each other
anymore and we have so much debt,

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it\'s just not worth it. So please
stop trying to keep up with us.

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So what\'s next? We\'re just gonna
try living better on less.

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And there you have it,
the Jones\' surrender.

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I\'m Wanda Urbanska,

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about 10 years ago my husband, Frank
Levering and I decided to call a halt

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to keeping up with the Jones\'. The cost was
too high. The long hours we had to work

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to pay for it all, maybe hardly ever saw
each other. We were successful writers,

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but we weren\'t happy. At the suggestion of

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Frank\'s elderly parents, we moved here to the
Blue Ridge Mountains to take over the orchard

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that had been in their family for generations. It was
a big gamble because the orchard was deep in debt,

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making it profitable again, meant we
had to learn frugality in a hurry.

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[music]

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It wasn\'t always easy, but
we found living simply

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to be full of rewards. Time was the
biggest, time for family, friends,

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community affairs, and good conversation.

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Farm work is hard but seasonal.

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We still had time to write, and we wrote a book
called \"Simple Living\" about our experiences.

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The response we got told
us we weren\'t alone.

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In 10 years since Frank and I left
the fast lane for a simpler life,

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we met many other people who were finding ways to
live better on less. You\'ll meet some of them too,

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a little later in this program.
But first, some history.

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Four out of five experts say millions
of Americans have fallen victim

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to a debilitating disease called Affluenza. Oh,
my God. Symptoms include swollen expectation,

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shopping fever, chronic stress, fractured
families, festering social scars,

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and resource exhaustion. Affluenza is a painful
addiction to the relentless pursuit of more.

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And if not treated, it will
lead to perpetual discontent.

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Experts believe Affluenza will become a household
word as the epidemic continues to spread.

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[sil.]

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Survey show that most Americans regardless of income,
think they\'d find happiness if they only had

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twice as much money as they do now, but
they also show we\'re no happier now

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than we were 40 years ago, when we only
had half as much or less. People feel sad

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and what do they do? They go to a mall
and they shop. And they buy a boom box

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and it makes them feel better but it makes them feel better for about
a week and after that they\'re still sad and they have the boom box

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sitting on the shelf or something.

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Hard Rock Café, Las Vegas.
You were in Las Vegas?

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Right and I bought a T-shirt and as you can
see, I haven\'t even taken out of the bag.

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People usually lose their shirts in Las Vegas… At a public
forum in Chicago, 40 people have been brought together

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by an organization called The Center for New
American Dream, to discuss their buying habits.

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They were randomly chosen by a polling
firm to represent the regions diversity.

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All were asked to bring one item they
purchased but didn\'t really need.

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This is the incredible food dehydrator, isn\'t
it? Yes, it is. It\'s quite a little item.

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Well, tell us how you happen to acquire it.
It was on TV, credit card 800 number and UPS

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and I\'m in business. Well,
no, they\'re in business.

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Yes, they are and that was it. And then the thing
was, I think I spent more time cleaning it

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than I actually did using it. So you didn\'t get up of a given
morning and say, \"You know, honey, we really need a dehydrator.\"

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No, but I do this all the time. My wife
and I do it. We have… Our whole kitchen\'s

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filled with things. It sounds like we can
have your whole kitchen on the table here.

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In my garage too, I\'ve got everything. You know,
everything, yeah. You know, we just buy everything we can.

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Soon most of these products are
likely to end up in a land fill.

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When I first started working here,

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I was really amazed at the amount
of material that people threw away.

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A lot of things, I thought could be
salvaged and reused. Take it carpeting,

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sofas, chairs, tables, and over
here there\'s a lawn mower,

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a computer monitor, kitchen
sinks and whatever.

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This in a city, Seattle, with one of the highest rates
of recycling in America. Even here, the piles of stuff

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simply throw away, keep growing.
Recycling has been

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a real successful product, but it\'s
partial. We don\'t want to lean

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that far on it because really the big success story
would be preventing the waste in the first place.

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Just how much does

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a typical middle class American consume. In
1990, Sid Quarrier tried to figure that out,

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by adding up everything his family
had used in the previous 20 years.

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Seriously, M&M\'s almost every day. Did you
figure that in? Three packs of M&M\'s per week

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is 3,000 bags M&M\'s.
Two pounds of beef a week,

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that\'s 4,000 pounds… Quarrier shared
his calculation with Allan Williams,

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a colleague at the Connecticut Department of Environmental
Protection. Six radios, one VCR, three alarm clocks,

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two stereo systems, 700 batteries,

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3.5 tons newspaper, 10,000 gallons
of heating oil, three televisions.

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It just goes on and on. As they examined the
resources required by Sid\'s middle class life style,

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he and Allen were astonished.
And what frightened me is that,

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both Sid and I consider ourselves environmentalists,
and that we were using these resources,

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what about the rest of the world?
What about the rest of America?

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Some scientist up in Canada recently figured
out that, to support all the world\'s people

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at the North American level of
consumption, we\'d need four planets,

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in other words, that we\'re three planets
short. In the name of convenience,

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we\'ve gone from designing products so that they
could be repaired to our reliance on throwaways.

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25 years ago, the large bulk of footwear

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was resalable or repairable. Everybody had
their footwear repaired, it was automatic.

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And now things just don\'t get repaired
anymore. Its a little corner shoe repair shop,

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the one in two man shops that everybody used
to go to, they\'re actually disappearing.

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People just have gotten used to throwing
footwear away. And a lot of other things.

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Despite recycling, the average American
throws away a ton of solid waste each year.

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And for every ton that ends up in the land
fill, another 20 tons were originally used up

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to produce it. Everything
that we buy or use

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in our daily life has an ecological wake that
ripples out across of the ecosystems of the planet.

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I start my day with a cup of coffee.
That coffee started as a hundred beans

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growing on a tree in Columbia, in an area
that was once cloaked with cloud forests,

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a kind of tropical forest, it\'s now among the
most endangered types of tropical ecosystems.

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The beans were picked by a worker who made about a
dollar a day, they were shipped upon a freighter

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made of steel from Japan,
out of Iron from Australia,

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filled with diesel from Venezuela. Then the beans
were unloaded in New Orleans, where they were roasted

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over flames of natural gas piped in from
Oklahoma. The beans were then loaded

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in a Four Ply bag of three types of plastic resonant,
aluminum foil from the Columbia river system

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in Washington State, they were shipped
across the country on 18 wheeler,

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brought home from a grocery store in a brown paper
bag made of Douglas fir trees from Austin, Oregon.

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They were ground in my kitchen in a grinder made
in Taiwan, with parts from six other countries.

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Then they were brewed in a coffeemaker
that was made originally in Germany,

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other parts from a bunch of other countries, the
water came from the slopes of the Cascade Mountains,

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and the electricity came from a dam on the
Columbia River. Then I enjoyed my cup of coffee.

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[sil.]

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Over the past 10 years,

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Frank and I have thought a lot about how much we use. We
try to live by the three R\'s, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

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I still wonder sometimes
though at how much we consume.

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I haven\'t tried to add it all up though like Sid
Quarrier did, maybe it\'s because I\'m afraid

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I\'d be as shocked as he was. But for Jean and
Dick Roy, the numbers would look very different.

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At some point things do have to level off
if we were to live in a sustainable basis.

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Hi, Cathy, this is Dick.

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The office Dick Roy works in isn\'t nearly as spacious as his old
one and his salary doesn\'t come close to what he once earned.

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In fact, he\'s now paid nothing at all.
Dick is the Founder and Director of

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the Northwest Earth Institute in
Portland, Oregon. Our goal was to be

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a resource for people and allow them to adopt
habits and values that would be more earth friendly

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and more sustainable. Dick Roy has always
been a leader, officer in the Navy,

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top of the class in Law School, and then
top of the city, a corporate attorney

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whose office looked out on all of Portland. He could
have lived in luxury, but the women he married

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wouldn\'t have it that way. I didn\'t want to
live in a way that would harm the earth.

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Jean started with kind of live style oriented
toward frugality and I kind of came out

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philosophically you might say. So
despite their substantial income,

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the Roy\'s lived simply, dressing their
children in second hand cloths, going camping

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and backpacking on their vacations,
using a clothesline instead of a dryer.

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Their neighbors thought them a little strange but…
A lot of our friends have taken on our values.

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I\'ve noticed that through the years. I did feel different
at times. You know, my friends would tease me.

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They would tease me about having a old used
bicycle, but I just had to accept that and…

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What Jean wouldn\'t accept were the long hours
that corporate attorneys usually put in.

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She insisted that Dick be home for
dinner and make time for his family.

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As a lawyer, I always had some of the lowest
globule hours in our firm, and so by choice

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I simple worked lower hours. And
what I found in the firm was it,

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if you practice law very well and
you relationships were good, that

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the hours were not essential. Eventually
though, Dick Roy grew tired of corporate law.

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His children were grown and he wanted to do
something that more directly expressed his values,

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especially his concern for the environment.
So at the age of 53,

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Dick Roy left his career for his calling.
As each of us do

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some little bit each day, the collective
impact of that can be immense.

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Volunteers from the Northwest Earth
Institute conduct seminars on simple living

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in many of Portland\'s largest corporations. Already
thousands of people have taken their courses.

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We simply give people a chance to stop, take
the time to consider their values and habits

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and how those are reflecting the earth.
First you have to decide to do it

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and be willing to spend little extra time at first. If
you get into habits where you always have your bag,

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you can save 500 packages a year.
Jean Roy is also an active volunteer,

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a leader in Portland\'s recycling
program, she often teaches other people

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how to reduce resource and
energy use in their homes.

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One of the changes that we\'ve made over the years is
getting to a point where we create almost no waste.

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The Roy\'s compost food
waste using a worm bin.

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[sil.]

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They carefully reuse paper and discourage junk mail
by sending it back. So that\'s gonna go back too

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along with this. Yeah, make sure you get
everything in it that they sent to us.

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Okay. And Mel pay the postage.
Amazingly, the Roy\'s fill

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only a single garbage can
with trash in an entire year.

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In their efforts to live sustainably, Dick and Jean
Roy may represent the extreme, but they insist

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they aren\'t sacrificing anything.
If you ask people,

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what kinds of activities bring them
pleasure? It\'s usually contact with nature,

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uh… things that are creative,
and relationships with people.

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And so, you know, the things that we did to
live simply bring us all those satisfactions.

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I\'ve met people like the Roy\'s
throughout the United States.

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But in one city more than most, the frugal
lifestyle is winning widespread respect.

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[music]

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Talk about the economy in this booming city and
you are bound to come around to Microsoft,

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the local software giant. In the past 15
years, hundreds of Microsoft employees

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have become millionaires. Ron
Simons might have become one too,

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but his life took a different turn. I\'m trying to watch
my weight, and I\'m watching in getting… to go up.

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I\'m trying to gain weight. I know. And this… this is why you need
to eat these. Put your month around some of these right here.

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Ron is a regular volunteer at Seattle\'s Bailey
- Boushay House, a home for people with AIDS.

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Are you liking the fast lane? Not long ago,
Ron had no time to volunteer for anything.

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He was a manager at Microsoft, a company where
long working hours are almost a religion.

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Well, I come sometimes on Wednesdays as
well as my Tuesdays just to say hello.

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It was not uncommon to work for 11 or 12 hours,
5 days a week, and then come in 5 or 6 hours,

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you know, on a weekend for date, so
my life pretty much was Microsoft.

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Financially it was a very good like for
young man from inner city Detroit,

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who was the first in his family to earn a college degree. I
went to Columbia and to get to Columbia from the airport,

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you have to drive through Harlem, and you realize,
you know, my God, the people are… the drama

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that they\'re going through and the pain and the suffering
that\'s going on, and then you arrive at this Ivy League campus,

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the Ivy growing up the sides of the walls and you can get a lot
on thinking, \"Oh this is what, you know, life is all about.\"

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It\'s like being at this really prestigious institution and
learning all these great things about business and… But it\'s not.

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As he climbed the corporate ladder, Simons grew
tired of endless conversations about making money.

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For a long time I was thinking, there
is something missing in my life.

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He often thought about his grandparents in Detroit. My grandmother
in particular was one of the most philanthropic woman

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that I had known in my life. I mean, not only
did she, you know, give money to her church,

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but she volunteered and helped people through
organizations that she got involved in

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but also individually. My grandfather was all that in a
bag of chips. He would give you the sure office back

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and so that whole model was what I was
used to. And Ron had another dream,

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he\'d always wanted to be an actor, but it took
courage to leave the security of his career.

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It was hard. I mean, I had
sleepless nights and all.

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Finally offered yet another promotion,
Simons resigned from the company instead.

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The first reaction he faced was fury. My mother
thought I was crazy when I told her that

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I was leaving Microsoft to become an actor.
She said, \"You\'re doing what?

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Lord have mercy Jesus.\" Ron
Simons has become an actor.

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It isn\'t easy. He\'s just beginning to do
meaningful roles instead of commercials.

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I like baseball. But he is patient, he lives
frugally and he finds enormous satisfaction

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in the volunteer work he now has time for.
I really had that opportunity

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to fill that dream to really get back and then I went… I
went out there. I mean, I just got involved in stuff.

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All right, nice save. Besides
volunteering at the home

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for aged patients, he reads to the blind, uses his
business skills to help non-profit organizations

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and serves on several local boards.
But he especially cherishes the time

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he spends as a big brother
for boy named Andrew.

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We spend four to five hours a week together. He lives with his mom
and he is a big sports fanatic. And spending a couple of hours

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throwing the ball around, it\'s good exercise for me.
My getting involved in the volunteer side of things,

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it\'s been very, very fulfilling. We need to get out
of this rat race and, you know, get a real life.

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Not everyone chooses to down shift like Ron did. In a
past decade, thousands of Americans were downsized,

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.999
laid-off when the companies they worked
for cut labor cost to increase profits.

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Fred Brown was one of them. I think
if someone in were to look at

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how I was living, they would say,
he\'s really got everything going,

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beautiful family, beautiful home, beautiful
job. But the beauty was superficial.

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Though Fred was earning six figures a
year as a corporate personal manager,

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his life wasn\'t as wonderful as it appeared. The
so called \"good life\" was coming at… for me

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
at a significant prize. He worked
long hours and found little time

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
for his wife and two daughters and his job
was stressful. It was his responsibility

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
to tell other employs they\'d been laid-off.
Eventually, his marriage broke up,

00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
then his own job was downsized.
When I found out I was laid-off,

00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
it was a shock to me. It\'s
a different experience

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
on a receiving end than on the giving end. The
most difficult wasn\'t the financial letting go,

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
it\'s the letting go of what I thought was…
what I was supposed to do with myself.

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
So at first he looked unsuccessfully
for new opportunities in his field.

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
He could have found them in another part of the
country but he realized he hadn\'t been happy

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
in his career. There came a point
where I… I knew I simply had to take

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
the step off the cliff into the unknown.

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
Fred went back to school and studied
massage therapy, his new line of work was

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
far less lucrative than what he\'d been
used to. I was phase with going from

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
$100,000 down to $20,000 in income
and the question obviously is

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
how… how are you gonna support a
lifestyle… a $100,000 lifestyle

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
and $20,000 and the answer is you don\'t.

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
So Fred moved to an apartment, sold most of his
possessions and was forced to live on a whole lot less.

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
Ironically, he\'s still paying off debts he ran
up when he was earning five times as much.

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
But I\'m not generating that, I\'m
not spending more than I\'m making.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
I\'m finding I can make the ends meet.

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
I have more opportunity to be
present with my family now.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
And it turns out that for me living simply
seems to be leading to more happiness.

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
You know, wow, what a concept.
I\'m thankful now that

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
I was laid-off because I\'m doing something that I love.
It\'s like what the Buddhist like to call right livelihood,

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:15.000
it feels to me like I\'ve
found my right livelihood.

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
[music]

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
Thoe\'s(ph) home only a few blocks from the Seattle
neighborhood that calls itself the \"Center of the Universe.\"

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
Ming Chan and his family live humbly.
\"The Lord is good to us. Amen.\"

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
Their simple lifestyle is a result
of decision they made years ago

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
when the company Ming worked for
transferred him to a job designing weapons

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
he was morally opposed to. And… and I said
well, I\'m not going to accept the transfer,

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
so you can do with me what you will.
Like Fred Brown,

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
Ming returned to school and change careers, now he works
at a treatment center for alcohol and drug abusers.

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
He puts in three ten hours days each
week, and is on call for emergencies.

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
Ming\'s wife, Karen Schneider
Chan, doesn\'t work for pay,

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
but she keeps a busy schedule. Karen
volunteers at a shelter for battered women

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
and several other community organizations
including a Food Bank and a Baby Boutique,

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
a thrift store providing clothes for children
for low-income families. It is important that

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
we have time to be involved in the
community and time for neighbors

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
and helping out older people in our neighborhood, I
feel very energized by, it is about everything I do.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
Daddy, the light in the living room is out.
Which light?

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
With three children and only one paycheck,
Ming and Karen have to be frugal.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
We live in an old house and there\'s always
work to be done to fix it up and preserve it.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
This piano came from my grandparents
house, cause my mama played it

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
when she was a girl, now I play it

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
and then this chair over here, we had to
reupholster it, it was a really ugly,

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
yellowish, brownish color. And I think
it came from my mama\'s grandma.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
And then the couch, I think that
came from my grandparents house.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
Ready? On one of his days off, Ming
and daughter Stephanie, run errands.

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
They buy used books and then
return them to a local book store

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
for credit toward other purchases.
When Ming\'s toaster stops working,

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
he didn\'t discard it. I actually was on the verge
of going out and buying a new toaster oven.

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
I had just assumed that anything electrical

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
was going to cost more to repair
than it would to buy a new one.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
But at a local repair shop he got the toaster
fixed for a fraction of the price of a new one.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
That was a choice that resulted
in a conservation of resources

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
and supported us small business in our
community. For Ming and his family

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
saving resources and supporting the community
are more important than simply saving money.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
A lot of the products that we
buy actually don\'t save many.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
For example, they buy organic food,
recycle paper, and union made goods.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
It\'s a process of trying to figure out how to live
your life in a way that\'s consistent with your values.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
Whenever we face making a
decision about how to use

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
our money or our time, then we have
to take those values into account.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
Still they do find ways
to keep expenses down.

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
They buy food in bulk at a local co-operative
reducing both cost and packaging.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
They cook from scratch instead of
using more expensive processed foods.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
[sil.]

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
For much of the year, their
garden provides fresh produce.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
Dinner time. They raise
chickens in their backyard,

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
feeding them kitchen scraps. It
reduces the bulk of our garbage

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
and \'cause our garbage bill in size,
so we can get away with micro can.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
Then it generates fertilizer to
enrich the soil for our garden

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
without having to rely on chemical
fertilizers. We enjoy chickens

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
\'cause it kind of humanized the city. And
people in the neighborhood really enjoy them.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
They kind of link us more to the community.
And we get eggs,

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
you know, beautiful eggs,
all different colors.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
They also save money by driving as
little as possible. I realized that

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
every gallon of gasoline emits five
and half pounds of carbon dioxide,

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
which is responsible for global warning.
And I think it\'s really important for us

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
to think of alternatives to the car.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
Most evenings, family members gather in the living room
to spend time together. For Karen and daughter Suzanna,

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
it\'s often the time to make or repair
clothes. It just feels very important

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
to come together after dinner and have
kid of a smooth transition into bedtime.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
We\'ve done that for so many years, it\'s
part of our rhythm of our family life.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
But like all families,

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
this one has it\'s conflicts. Daughter
Emily who is 15, is uncomfortable

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
with her parents passion for simple living.
I watch more TV, that\'s for sure

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
and I avoid the house a lot because
it\'s boring and I eat more junk food.

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
It\'s been difficult but some of
what\'s going on right now is,

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
it\'s tough that any child in
her age has to go through.

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
All I can do is demonstrate my
values and I can only hope that

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
that will have an effect on her
and the choices she makes.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
We found like, you know, it\'s really is
important that we respect her wishes too.

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
As he commutes to work by bicycle, Ming
Chan often rides through heavy traffic.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
That\'s something David Galvin
doesn\'t have to worry about.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
Galvin found freedom in more ways than
one when he, his wife, and two children

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
moved from a 2,000 square foot home
to an 800 square foot house boat.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
We\'re trying to live with four of us now in a
800 square feet and it makes it nice and cozy.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
We had to get rid of lot of clutter and we just ended up with the things
that really important to us down here and that makes a big difference.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
On most days, David has a commute
that would make anyone envious.

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
He can get to work almost
as fast as kayak as by car

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
without consuming energy or creating pollution.
And it\'s such a great way to get to work

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
because I don\'t have to deal with traffic of course, it changes the
whole day for me. It gets me more in touch with the environment

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
which is what I do for my living too. I work on water quality and
hazardous ways and like that. So it\'s really important to me

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
to feel that connection. The exercise
helps too. It\'s a pretty good workout.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
What are you learning through the practice
of keeping track of your expenses,

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
just by writing them down. It\'s the little
things. And I think always knew that

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
but the extent to which that was true was kind of
shocking. A little latte or something every other day

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
and before you know it, you look at it for a whole year
and that\'s a couple hundred dollars worth of caffeine

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
just gone down the drain. At the
office, Galvin finds Kindred Spirits

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
who share his interest in scaling down.
Several of them meet regularly at lunchtime

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
for a study group based on a popular God to
frugality called \"Your Money or Your Life.\"

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
I\'ve been struggling with my van. I\'m
spending $600 a month on that stupid thing

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
to get to and from work. Can\'t you use a car
that gets great gas mileage, that doesn\'t cost?

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
I bought it because I wanted to haul a lot of kids around
and we go camping. But I don\'t haul kids around that much

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
and we go camping two or three times a year.
I think I can figure something else out.

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
To follow the program they must
write down every expenditure.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
I try not to spend as much money, I always
think… \"Oh, I\'m gonna have to write this down

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
and so do I really want to spend it
and I find that really has helped.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
Evy McDonald wrote the workbook that David
Galvin and his colleagues have been using

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
to simplify their lives, but the work she
does today is a far cry from the career

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
she once had in mind. My goal in life was to
become the youngest female hospice administrator

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
in the country. In 1980, Evy was
well on the way to her goal,

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
promotions and pay raises were coming her
way often and so was a lavish lifestyle.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
With each promotion, I was getting
a new house, a larger car.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
I talked about wanting to help people
who were less fortunate than myself,

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
but I had 70 pairs of
shoes and 100 blouses.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
I had so much more than I needed.
Then one day, she lost it all.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
In the morning a doctor informed
her she had a fatal disease

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
and only months to live. The day that
I was diagnosed with my illness,

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
my home was also robbed, and
practically everything was stolen.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
Suddenly both sick and possession was Avy
McDonald was confronted with questions about

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
the essence of her life. Who
did I want to be when I die?

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
What did I want my life to have been about,
to have accomplished? What I discovered was,

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
I didn\'t want to have the most things.
What I wanted my life to be about

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
was understanding love, understanding
service, and feeling whole and complete.

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
Despite her grim prognosis, Evy recovered.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
And on my road to health, I saw
that I needed to integrate my life,

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
I needed to become a whole person.
And part of that

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
was bringing my financial life, how I
spent my money? What I did with it?

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
And to alignment with my
values and my life purpose.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
Shortly afterwards, she met a couple
whose ideas moved her deeply.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
Joe Dominguez was a former stock
broker, Vicki Robin, a former actress.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
Believers in frugality and simple living, they taught others how
to get out of debt, save money, and spend their life energy

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
on improving the world.
What I felt was that

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
their work was so important that I
wanted to join forces with them.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
For over 15 years, Evy has been working
with Vicki and Joe who died in 1997

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
to promote more frugal and sustainable
lifestyles. When I think of

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
voluntary simplicity is that, it looks so
benign, we look so harmless, you know.

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
Somebody said we\'re the
Trojan horse of change.

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
We\'ll just sneak right in and they won\'t
notice it. To think all those sweet people

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
gathering to talk about simplifying their
lives and then suddenly we\'ll burst out

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
and transform everything. Ask anyone in Seattle
about simple living and they\'re likely to send you

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
to this woman. Yes, you\'re
a big help, Maggie.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
Cecile Andrews is the author of
\"Circle of Simplicity,\" the story of

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
the voluntary simplicity study circle movement she started.
I was a community college administrator for a long time

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
and I was always looking for some sort of class
that will lure people out of their homes.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
And I had tried then umm… a class
on voluntary simplicity in 1989

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
and four people signed up, so we had
to cancel. And then we did it again

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
three years later for a variety of
reasons and that time we got 175.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
Who\'s got the eight timer? You want to
start? Cecile organized small groups

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
called Study Circles instead of lectures.
Participants begin with a simple reading list,

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
but much of the discussion is about their own
personal experiences. Dave and I have been making

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
a concerted effort to get more connected in our
neighborhood. There is a sense in Study Circles

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
that you are there to really change your
life, the experience in itself changes you.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
And the reason that changes people is because
people talk about their own stories.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
Why they are here? They have no time,
they\'re working too much, they\'ve no fun,

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
they\'re not laughing anymore. I\'m counting on you to
bring your baby to our voluntary simplicity meeting.

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
We\'re already here. Yes. Group members
pledge to make changes in their lives,

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
receiving reinforcement and practical
advice from the other participants.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
I think that the thing I would venture
the… to commit to would be the

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
uh… \"get to know new neighbors.\" At least go say
hello and let them know that if they need anything

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
like tools or somebody to watch their house or
something that… that they can certainly call on us.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
I think I can, I can stick
my neck out that far.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
Cecile Andrews believes support groups like this will make
it easier for people to change their spending habits.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
It\'s putting positive things in
place of the negative things.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
It\'s saying the way I kind
of fill up this emptiness is

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
not by denying myself something, it\'s by figuring
out what I really need and I need community,

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
I need creativity, I need some sort of passion
in my life, I need connection with nature,

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
and so people help each other to figure
that out as well. Oh, wow, look at this.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
Here\'s one of the really
rare plants of the wet land.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
Here is the small water (inaudible), very alive.
It\'s things like this that really excite me

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
because it instills in you some sense of awe
and wonder. And I think that awe and wonder

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
is really the thing that we\'re missing today.
When Calder Witt looks for a little excitement,

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
he goes to the marsh instead
of a movie or a mall.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
This kind of awe and wonder, you carry with
you. He can identify more than 80 birds

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
that live in this wet land
by their calls alone.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
He marvels at the flight of Sandhill
cranes, the texture of grass

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
and the work of beavers. From the break of dawn
to noon, and on through to the setting sun

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
and then on it to the night, they are absolutely
dramatic changes. As you stand for a while,

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
things begin to unfold if you\'re
quite enough to watch and listen.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
And after a full day, you\'re not tired
either, you tend to me exhilarated

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
from the experience. But perhaps
most curiously of all, you come home

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
with your wallet just as full as when
you left and you\'ve gotten all this

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
pleasure, education, understanding,
peace for not a single penny.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
One also begins to understand
something about how the world works.

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
Perhaps the most dramatic thing we
learn is how much human society

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
or current human society works at
cross purposes with a very principles

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
that we learn here in the wet land. We
tend to see the world is a one-way flow,

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
from producer to consumer, to trash bin

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
to land fill and here
everything is recycled.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
When a stock of the cattails
drops down from the marsh,

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
it\'s just converted again into soil.
For 11,000 years,

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
since the end of the last Ice Age,
(inaudible) has been working like that.

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
All things in the marsh are a
part of his cycle of life,

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
nothing is wasted. Calder Witt walks through these
wet land with a certain sense of satisfaction.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
Twenty five years ago, this marsh
was threatened by development.

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
At the time, Cal was chairman of the
tiny township of Dunn Wisconsin.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
We declared a moratorium on all land
division in our town for two years

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
and we came up with a storage-ship plan.
They stopped unplanned urban growth

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
at the edge of (inaudible) marsh and worked
together to restore the already damaged wet land

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
to its natural state. Calder
Witt is something of an anomaly,

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
a scientist and professor of environmental
studies at the University of Wisconsin.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
He is also a theologian and
a deeply religious man.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
The scriptural teachings really
are kind of turned on their head

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
by our modern consumption philosophy.
Consume more then you will be happy.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
The scriptural view is, honor
God, take care of creation,

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
deal your bread to the hungry and then
joy comes as a by-product of service.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
We tried to short circuit
that in our modern society

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:35.000
by pursuing first joy and
of course we miss it.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
Our consumer culture teaches us that newer
is better, that car, that computer,

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
that outfit you bought, that one you\'ve had for
two months, it\'s out of date, you need a new one.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
One problem with being pre occupied with the new is it
keeps us from learning from and appreciating our past.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
Here at the orchard, where my
husband\'s roots go back generations.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
I\'ve been inspired to think about our cultures
roots. Many of the first American colonists

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
were seeking to build a society based on
the plain living and spiritual devotion

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
they found lacking in their homelands. It wasn\'t
long though before traitors began to report

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
brisk sales of luxury
goods to the colonies.

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
The Puritans passed a series of laws to
require simple living. These failed largely

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
because they were applied unfairly. You could
wear whatever you wanted if you were rich.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
The Quakers were somewhat more
successful in fending off materialism.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
They excommunicated slave
owners and denounced

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
unfair treatment of Indians and
other by-products of greed.

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
In some ways, the American Revolution
itself was a simple living movement.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
Affluenza was coming to a head in England,

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
the rich spent half the day dressing, and
gorged on dinners that took seven hours to eat.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
The British bled their colonies

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
to pay for this life of luxury with taxes
and laws, the colonies found exploitive.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
The rebellion began with a
rejection of English good.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
For many American revolutionaries,
frugality became synonymous

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
with patriotism. Future President
John Adams and his wife Abigail

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
were leaders of the frugality movement.
Frugality, my dear,

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
must be our refuge. I hope the ladies are
everyday diminishing their ornaments

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
and the gentlemen too. Let us drink water and eat
potatoes rather then submit to unrighteous domination.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
I have neither poverty nor riches

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
but a heart to be thankful that in such powerless
time, so larger share of the comforts of life

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
are allotted me. After years of sacrifice,

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
Independence finally came but with
it a new fondness for materialism.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
The voices of frugality were drowned
out by the sound of money being made.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
But by the 1840s, those
voices were raised again.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the
transcendentalist, as they called themselves,

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
believed that a simple life
close to nature was the ideal.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
Utopian communities were formed on this principle,
over a century before the hippies started theirs.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
Nathaniel Hawthorne lived at
Brook Farm, a Utopian community

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
near Harvard, his novel \"The
Blithedale Romance\" is set there.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
Fruitlands, another transcendental
community was home to a little girl

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
named Louisa May Alcott, perhaps the
best known transcendental experiment was

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
Henry David Thoreau, solitary retreat to
a pond outside Concord, Massachusetts.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
His book \"Walden\" still
inspires readers today.

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity, most of the
luxuries and many of the so called comforts of life

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
are not only not indispensable but positive
hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
One of our most beloved leaders,
a man with Quaker roots

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
try to promote simple living from the white
house, but he found his toughest opponent

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
within its walls. Well, her
sister, women sold bandages

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
and gave their all to country and to death.
The wife of the president seem to have

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
nothing to do but shop. But in the decades that
followed, it was Mary Lincoln and not her husband

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
who\'s taste set the tone. Mark Twain
summed up the credo of what he dubbed

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
\"The Gilded Age.\" What
is the chief end of man?

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
To get rich. What is God,
the one and only true,

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
money is God.

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
Money ruled until it fell from its
throne when the stock market collapsed.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
Over night the richest country in
the world had spanned red lines.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
Soup kitchens, and apple sellers.
Depression in war rationing

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
bought American frugality to the
surface once more for a while.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
Then with victory the lid was off. Fill her
up, how do we get rid of the ration book.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
American was back on wheels and
rationing was only a memory.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
Americans were spending again but they had
to be trained to conspicuously consume.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
Industry tackled the job with films
devoted to getting us to buy

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
more and more. Just pick up the plates, the
button is pressed. And the dish washing unit

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
does all the rest. The glassware, silverware clean
themselves. Washed and dried, they\'re back on the shelves.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
[music]

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
Hello, I\'m Mr. Money…

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
Not everyone wanted us to catch Affluenza.
Films like this one

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
tried to teach sensible spending habits. Gee, Mr. Money,
do girls have to learn all this about credit too?

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
But the frugality films just
weren\'t quite as exciting.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
You\'re guilty of throwing your money down
the rat hole. You forget that it takes

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
100 pennies to make a dollar. Henry found
out about impose buying the hard way.

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
Maybe it\'s not surprising which
genre ended up calling the tune.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
[music]

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
The dance was on.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:38.000
[music]

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
But the goods life left some people cold.

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
Little boxes on the hillside.
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky…

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
By the late 1960s, the
tune was changing again.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
The hippies led yet another rebellion against
materialism, starting simple living communes

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
across the country. But when the hippie
look became just one more product

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
in the market place, the counter
culture lost its punch.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
So hippies don\'t drop out,
dress up and turn on.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
Shirts with European styling.
In the 25 years

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
since the hippies did drop out beside materialism
has definitely been the prevailing fashion.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
But now the voices of frugality
are being raised again

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
amid the den of consumerism and their message seems to
be reaching a far broader cross section of Americans.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
Perhaps this time, the impact
will be more enduring.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
But what would happen to our economy if
many Americans began to consume less?

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
Will the reduction in spending create
an economic crisis? I don\'t think that

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
consuming less and saving more would be a bad thing for the economy
at all and in fact, I think, we would have a beneficial effect

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
on the American economy because
the savings will be invested,

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
the investment will add to productivity and the
next generation of people would be better off

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
than they would otherwise be. We can think about
some of the smaller Northern European economies

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
which have large numbers of what, posters
have called post materialist citizens.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
People who are interested in the environment, they\'re
interested in equality of life and having time.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
Those are countries which are doing well and have
provided a very high quality of life for their citizens.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
Take this country for example. The Netherlands
has the highest level of post materialists

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
in the population of any country and I adventure
say that they have a much higher quality of life

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
on a whole range of things that in the
polls at least Americans will say

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
are more important to them, such as spending
time with their family and friends,

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:05.000
having economic security, having
meaningful work and a meaningful life.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
Dutch interest in quality
instead of quantity

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
has bought this couple celebrity status. In
Holland, Rob van Eeden and Hanneke van Veen

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
are known affectionately as
tight ward couple, now that is.

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
We spend a lot, we bought everything
we wanted and after some years

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
I started to feel empty. I did not like

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
to live like that anymore, so
I tried to convince Rob that

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
another lifestyle, more
simple would be better.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
In one way I was already convinced because I was
working in a environmental engineering firm

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
and we were making all kinds of scenarios
for a clean future of Holland.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
In the end, each scenario led
to a sobering conclusion.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
The Dutch environment could only be improved if the
wasteful over consumption was sharply reduced.

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
So I thought well, you know,
I\'d do it for a few months

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
just to see how low can you go.
They found many ways

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
to reduce their consumption without going low
at all. Little changes brought big savings.

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
When you use tea bags and
you switch to a tea egg,

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
from a tea bag to a tea egg, it
saves you about $600 in a lifetime.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
In time they cut their spending
by two third while finding that

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
the quality of their lives had actually
improved. With encouragement from friends,

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
they began publishing a newsletter filled with
frugality tips. They were amazed at the response.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
One day we couldn\'t even open our door
anymore, there was just a big pile of letters

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
behind it and all this people saying,
yes, yes, finally your paper,

00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:00.000
not about buying but less instead of more.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
Soon they were been asked to
speak all around the country.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
We talk about full closets of people, they clutter
their hair and everybody can connect to that.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
One of their most popular tips is

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
what they call \"The Having Principle,\" it works
for many products, take shampoo for example.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
The next time you wash your hair try using
only half as much as you normally use.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
And then when it\'s still works, your hair
is still clean and you feel confident about

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
you use about half of half.
And then you go on

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
until it doesn\'t work anymore and you
think well, they\'re just not enough

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
and then you put a little bit extra to it and
you have the exact amount of shampoo you need.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
And you… This is a very
good principle I think.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
Recently Ron and Hanneke translated \"Your
Money or Your Life\" the American book

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
about frugality into Dutch, adapting it to
fit their own reality. The funny thing is

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
we read stories about United States, about tight
voids and they say, \"Sell your second car\",

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
you know, and then say, \"is it tight
voids (inaudible)? Sell your first car,

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
or give it away, but you don\'t need
a car at all. That\'s easier done

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
in a country like Holland with its separate paths for
bicycles and its efficient public transportation.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
We\'re always talking in the Netherlands

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
about the American way of living, but people
don\'t have time to raise their children

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
because they have such a hurry lifestyle.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
Peter Van Luttervelt is the Dutch Director of an International
Organization called the Global Action Plan or GAP for short.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
GAP was actually started in the United
States but now finds active participants

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
in many other countries, especially
in Holland. Global Action Plan

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:00.000
works through people, it\'s a
real grass rooted organization.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
The basic idea is simple.
Friends, neighbors or co-workers

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
form small groups called Eco teams.
And we are helping them

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
uh… to change their lifestyle towards
a more sustainable way of living.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
The Eco teams meet monthly and follow a workbook
to reduce their household energy and water use,

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
solid waste and overall consumption
of resources. The Eco team program

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
uh… shows you how to ask the question,

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
do I really need it? Karina
Van Doren belongs to

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
an eco team in the Hague. I first heard about
eco teams when a friend of mine came to work

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
with GAP and immediately I thought,
\"Hey, that\'s something for me.\"

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
As a result of her participation, she is
far more careful about what she buys.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
I do this because I want to like a small change
because I hope people will follow my example.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
In Holland we have saying consuminderen,

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
it means consume less. And that\'s
what I\'m trying to do as well.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
I only want to buy things I really need.
In just six years

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
the number of Eco teams in
Holland rose from 40 to 650.

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
A Dutch university study found that members of eco
teams use far fewer resources than their neighbors do

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
and save about $450 a year besides,

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
clearly we can learn to consume
less wastefully. That\'s a lesson

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
that\'s part of a curriculum in one American city. How
much do you guys figure we spend on our clothing?

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
This is a very fine Italian tie here. Well,
how much are we gonna spend on this tie?

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
$2 for my tie. Two, that\'s
how much I paid for it.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
$12 for the pants, $19 for the shoes.
How much is that? $48.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
$48. And this is just to show you that you
don\'t necessarily have to spend a lot of money

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
to look professional. Harada Favela(ph)
frequently shops in thrift stores.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
He and Nate McKay aren\'t teachers, they work
for the consumer credit counseling service

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
bringing on a kind program to thousands
of students in San Diego area schools.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
Our Volunteer Board of Trustees saw
a dramatic rise in bankruptcies,

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
a dramatic rise in debt. And
they said, when does it stop?

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
She hopes that the bucks will stop
here at Castle Park high school,

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
where students are taught to stretch a
dollar until it screams. They don\'t graduate

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
until they\'ve learned to manage money wisely,
it\'s called the Money Masters Program.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
As we ask students how many of
you own your own credit card,

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
the number of students hand that go up
in the air is rising every semester.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
Yes, despite record levels of credit card debt and
a recent study which found that 80% of Americans

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
don\'t understand basic
financial principles.

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
Tania Orozco is glad that her daughter, Anita,
went through the money masters program.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
She seems to be more aware
of how money is managed.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
She\'s a lot more understanding about, when I don\'t have
money to buy out things or when we can\'t afford something

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
than she was before. It really helps me
understand a lot more about my mom\'s finances.

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
Tania can\'t wait until younger
sister Naomi takes it too.

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
Every commercial she sees she wants me to buy
that item. She will call me into the living room

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
to look at the TV to show this item that wants us
being advertised and it can be really frustrating.

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
Mommy, can you buy me this movie? I don\'t know,
honey, let\'s see, okay? It\'s a dollar off.

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
Okay, we got make less trips to the store. As
a single parent, Tania knows what it\'s like

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
to struggle financially, not long ago she sought out
the advice of consumer credit counselors herself.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
A lot of the debt came for me, wanting
to buy things for my children.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
I\'ve started learning to
say no to certain things.

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
Each month Tania and her daughters go over the
family bills together. I don\'t want them to grow up

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
and end up with lot of debt like, I\'m
trying to get out right now. What is it?

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
A money. A dollar. It\'s a dollar. Okay.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
[non-English narration]

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
Consumer credit counselors says even pre schools
aren\'t too young to learn to say instead of spend.

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
Parents come back and ask
us what are you teaching

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
my little boy or little girl because now my little boy or little
girl is now telling me that I\'ve got to have to save my money.

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
And they\'ll ask me like, is that
really something that we need?

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
Yeah, what you do is you get your money
and you put it inside the piggy bank.

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
How many of you have more
things than you need

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
in your house? Sometimes, I\'m invited
to speak in classrooms as Gerardo does.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
When I do, it gives me a
new sense of optimism.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
I have clothes that I don\'t need, I have
everything in my closet. I can\'t get rid of it.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
School children often admit to
having more than they need.

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
Consuming less, sharing more with those, less
fortunate throughout the world, protecting the earth,

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
those things just makes sense to
them, after all it\'s their future.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
There are many ways to simplify and
none of the stories in this program

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
are meant to be a model for everyone. But
whether you want to save the environment

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
or simply save money, and whether you
take small steps or giant strides,

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
I think you\'ll find escaping from Affluenza
will leave you feeling more fulfilled.

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
It might also leave the world in
better shape for generations to come.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:50.000
Thanks for watching. I am Wanda Urbanksa.