A Scout is Thrifty

It is easy to be thrifty when there is nothing to spend your money on. While I sit in Iraq, I know that I will have a big bank account when I get home. So that part of thrifty is an easy one, but is that the only meaning of the term thrifty? No. When we are initiated in the troop we read the Scout Law, being thrifty though is not just saving money, it is the protection of natural resources. We are going to look at a couple of ways that are very important to the way of life that we enjoy.

As Scouts, we pride ourselves on the activities that we enjoy. We ski, we climb, we backpack, we day hike, we powerboat, snowshoe, sail, canoe, play computer games, read, go to movies, swim, cook, clean, if you can think of an activity that a person does, we as Scouts do that, too. All of the activities that we enjoy as Scouts require resources. These resources come in many different forms. They start with money for the activity. And end with the soap required for cleaning the last pot that was used to cook Fred's chili and hot dogs from the last night. All these things require resources.

While the bulk of this discussion is not planned to be about money I am going to talk about it. We have to make choices that will support the resources that we have. This is a big sentence that means that we must budget, and if you don't like that term, then how about spending plan. All of us have to decide what we are going to spend our money on. My big weakness is spending money on gear. Some of you share my passion. I know that Stephen Bosworth would break the bank for the latest Black Diamond widget. Right now, I am looking at a cool solar thing that will make my life easier. I am weighing the pros of spending the money for the gear, against saving it, or buying something else, or paying a debt. That is a spending plan. Here is the secret, the better that you plan the more that you can have. How does this work you ask. It works by being disciplined. There are several things that you want and by planning you decide what you want most. Make a list of the things that are important, prioritize that list, and then work towards the things that are at the top of the list.

I have always felt that one of the jobs that we as Scoutmasters are charged with is to prepare the young men to be self-supporting. Some of the ways that we try to do that are with the merit badges like personal finance, cooking, personal fitness, and the rest. For the most part, while most of the merit badges teach fun stuff they also teach life skills. When I moved out to live on my own, the only pans that I had where the pans that I had for camping. I used them for a year. This was not because I didn't have the money to buy any new pans. When I finally did get pans, they were my grandmother's cast iron pans that she had given my mother. I still use these pans. Some day I might buy "new" pans but right now these work. Is this an example of thrift? For me it is. On one level there is the money issue, but that was not the main reason, the use of my grandmother's pans is a connection to her, and all the memories that the pans bring. Everyone will have debt. Eventually everyone will pay for that debt. Whether that means they will pay the debt back, or we all will pay it back with higher interest rates, is up to you. When we put our spending plans together, paying debt and saving need to be a part of them.

I am lucky that Fred Davis and Kevin Anderson have given me this forum to talk to you guys. So I am going to take advantage of it by talking to you about the process of learning. I know that I am talking about being thrifty but if you bear with me you will see the connection. When I was young most of the classes that I took in high school came easy. The classes that where hard I did not take. I knew what would challenge me. When I went to college, I took the classes that where required for the degree that I wanted. I could not choose what classes I wanted to take. So now, there I was, a senior trying to understand math that the average high school student who paid attention would breeze through. How does this relate to thrift? I was paying for my degree; I wound up spending two more semesters in class just because I could not pass a basic math course. So the point is the decisions that you make now will affect you later.

Thrifty includes the environment. The clothing you wear, the gear that you buy, the sports that you do, and the car that you drive, all of these things have environmental impacts. All of the things that we participate in require that some industry create them. One of the good things required by the government is that industry cannot leave a big mess after they build something. Most of our parents remember Love Canal, this was a place in New York that had been an industrial dump, years later houses where built over the dump. The families that lived in the houses became sick, some of them died. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) investigated the reasons that the people who lived there where sick and found that the stuff in the dump was killing them. Julia Roberts made the movie "Erin Brockovitch" about a similar thing. Because of situations like these, companies have to make sure that they don't pollute the land. We have to demand that industry is thrifty with our land.

Most of you know that I have traveled quite a bit as a young man. Between traveling as a civilian and the Army, I have been to three continents. There are several more that I would like to see. I have been fortunate enough to travel in developed nations as well as the developing nations. What is a developed nation? There are many differences between what are considered the developed nations like the United States and Germany, and the developing nations. We used to hear about the Third World and the First World. Now those terms have changed to be more descriptive. Developing nations refers to countries that don't have the same standard of living that we as Americans enjoy. They may also not have the same access to medicine that we have. The people do not work at factories, or if they do, the factories that they work at are not like the ones that are in the United States. Developing nations may not have the same access to technology that we have. These are just a few examples of the differences between these two types of countries If you travel, one thing that you will notice is that America is one of the cleanest countries in the world. As I drive in Kuwait and in Iraq, I see garbage all over the place, on the side of the road, in the alleys, it just seems cluttered. I notice this because I drive a lot. When I am in the United States, as I drive across the United States, garbage on the road stands out. It looks out of place. In this part of the world [Kuwait and Iraq] there is no one taking care of things like garbage.

One thing that I know about us as Scouts in the troop, is that we practice Leave No Trace. We clean up after ourselves, more than that, we try to always leave a place cleaner than we find it. One of the reasons that we are able to use the boxcar is that we take care of it. It is always cleaner than when we get it. As Scouts, being good husbands of the environment is not a choice. It is a requirement. Stephen Bosworth coordinated a clean-up along the Portneuf River by Lava Hot Springs. This is one of many examples of the troop's commitment to the environment. We probably don't spend enough time doing service projects in the woods. I know that there are several projects that need to be done. The South Fork of Mink Creek has many campsites that need to be cleaned; Justice Park could use work, and City Creek is also heavily used. These projects are in our back yard and could fill the service hours of every Scout in the troop for the year, if the time was put in. As you can see, there are many ways to be thrifty. One of the most important things that we can do for our selves is to be good managers of our resources. I know that some of you might think that I am "preaching" about the different aspects of thrifty, and I am. I think that if we all thought about it and practiced being thrifty we would all be richer.