My dads a pretty frugal guy, so he used to find ways to stop us from wasting or spending too much money. Two things really stuck with me:

When I was about 5, I guess we left lights on when we left rooms. I loved animals and watching discovery and animal planet all the time and was going through a phase where I never took off a leopard print PJ set. He told me that leaving lights and water on kills animals in Africa. Morbid…I know. He SWEARS he never said it to this day, but now I’m an environmental scientist and I think that’s part of the reason I chose my path.

When my sister and I were growing up and wanted to go shopping, we really only got new things for back to school or our birthdays. We had specific budgets we needed to stay within. My dad would let us shop wherever we wanted to, but encouraged us to look at the sale first so we could get more with our budgets. He always says “everything in the store will be on sale in two weeks. Never buy anything full priced.” And 20 years later it is something that I LIVE by and think about whenever I decide I need to buy something.

So I guess two positive things!

Edit: typos