Recycled toilet paper, hybrid cars, organic food—these things aren’t cheap. In fact, a lot of sustainable actions are kinda pricey. In good economic times, it’s the kind of pricey people can feel good about. But “feeling good” doesn’t pay the gas bill right now. There was a time when green was the cheapest of all the colors. During the Great Depression, our great-grandparents lived more sustainably without even realizing that’s what they were doing. So how did they make do?

They grew their food.
They kept a garden, even if it was only a little patch. If they had a fruit tree, none of it went to waste. They made compost.

They made their own stuff.
They didn’t run down to Trader Joe’s every time they needed hummus. They cooked from scratch, they baked bread, they made soup stock. They sewed.

They borrowed things.
They knocked on a neighbor’s door for a cup of sugar. They read books from the library. They wore hand-me-downs.

They fixed things.
Our great-grandmothers kept a maraca-shaped thing around the house for the sole purpose of mending holes in the toes of socks. Think about that the next time you mindlessly slap down the credit card at the Gap.

They saved everything.
Every part of the chicken or pig was cooked and eaten. They turned the months of August and September into a fully-stocked pantry that would last the year. They saved the bags from cereal boxes “just in case.” They would not scoff if they saw you rinsing out a sour cream container.

They helped each other out.
They bought eggs from the farm up the road. A daughter’s wedding was “catered” by the neighbors. There were no warehouse stores stocked with goods that spent a month crossing the Pacific in a container ship. There was a guy who whittled toys for the neighborhood kids out on his front porch.

Maybe it’s time for a little nostalgia. We’re starting into a different section of the path to sustainability, one that looks more like a dirt road than a four-lane highway. It’s a section that our great-grandparents started down 80 years ago. So perhaps we need to go backwards to go forward.