Ever catch yourself wondering if all that recycling and thriftiness with resources is really making a difference?
People seem readier to part with tomorrow's cash than today's; and as long as they hike their saving rate by less than their pay raise, their extra thriftiness will not feel like a cut in their disposable income.
Then, adopting the age-old thriftiness common to farmers worldwide, they gleaned every inch of the paddy for the last grains.It could all have been done much more quickly by combine harvester.
One explanation is that environmentalism and thriftiness have made growing vegetables trendy, an idea that is supported by the growing shortage of allotments.But there is more to it than pleasant weather and belt-tightening.
But thriftiness with capital has its limits: the cost of mining is going up, as the easiest coal seams are worked out.Some companies have tried to switch efforts to "met" (metallurgical) coal, which fuels smelters.
"Scots have a great brand in Germany" for their thriftiness, says Mr McAllister.
Mr French has been invited to dinners celebrating a couple's last repayment.He has another, more novel theory to explain young people's thriftiness.
When, earlier this year, Michael Naumann, the federal culture minister, insisted on at least being informed where his ministry's money was going, he was told curtly not to "encroach on the city's sovereignty .Mr Stölzl, a former museums director not hitherto known particularly for his thriftiness, was brought in last April to sort things out.
"Only his care," he wrote during the Seven Years' War, "his untiring work, his scrupulously just policies, his great and admirable thriftiness and the strict discipline he introduced into the army which he himself had created, made possible the achievements I have so far accomplished".
In breeding ornamentals, attention is paid to such factors as longer blooming periods, improved keeping qualities of flowers, general thriftiness, and other features that contribute to usefulness and aesthetic appeal.
With those in Westminster decrying our spending and our reliance on debt, there is a general movement toward Lutheran thriftiness of the sort that involves a hair shirt and sleeping on a stone floor.
