5 frugal lessons from the Depression

Then: Ads from the era appeal to customers' sense of frugality. Newfangled electric ranges, refrigerators and oil furnaces became popular and were seen as a modern-day advance over wood- or coal-burning equipment. Devices also were depicted as labor-saving and time-saving, says Kreshel.

Fireproof, weather-resistant asbestos siding and roofing materials promised to cut costs and repel cold winds. Such ads dovetailed with the 1930s-era Rural Electrification Administration's program, which put almost everyone in the U.S. on the power grid.

"A lot of the New Deal programs helped Americans and expanded the market for private business to sell things to more people," McElvaine says. For instance, many new electricity customers had a need for electric appliances.

Now: Appliances rated with the EnergyStar seal -- a government standard for energy efficient appliances -- and modern-day insulation without asbestos can save money by siphoning less from the power grid.