- Thread starter
- #311
Thanks for the info Henspa
Could your family weather a depression?
- Thread starter werblessd1s
- Start date
Absolutely, werblessed! Anytime.
Quote:
I'd add to your grouping anyone, and I mean anyone, who doesn't plan for the future. Unfortunately, the attitudes and focus of our generation hasn't been toward that goal. We buy cheap, not realizing what it "costs" to get that item to the market. We charge because we want it now and don't want to wait to save for things. We buy bigger houses than we need, then cannot afford to heat them and furnish them.
Living differently than that isn't a value that should happen because of a downturn in our economy. Living that way is how we should ALL live, regardless of the economy. I would also argue that having more than we need is unnecessary. Greed gets us into trouble and we pay the price for that.
And, that goes for our government not living within its means and charging debt to foreign nations to finance things that make some of Americans wealthy. There's a cost to the choices we make, whether we be a lowly American or our great government. Have any of you read any of the works by Strauss and Howe? I haven't yet done so, but what I have read about those works sound quite interesting. I imagine there are lessons to be learned from the issues we faced in the past.
But, I'd say one good thing about this economy is that it has been a wake-up call for a lot of people. We should be paying off our bills, saving for the future. etc., but we should also lend a hand to others where we can. My church has been fighting poverty for a long while and has instituted programs to help others (someone mentioned Angel Food Ministries, of which our church is a distribution site) and we grow a garden to feed the poor. I'll be teaching classes on yogurt making and raising chickens in the suburbs. I'm learning to make soap. I'm learning to can from some of the elder women in the church. Hoarding to ourselves isn't the answer. Helping others, is.
Coffeemama - I'm glad to hear that your husband's job is safe for now. You're doing an amazing thing by realizing the mistakes you've made in the past and making efforts to right those ways. Your attitude is great. I'm certain it'll pay off handsomely for you.
I'd add to your grouping anyone, and I mean anyone, who doesn't plan for the future. Unfortunately, the attitudes and focus of our generation hasn't been toward that goal. We buy cheap, not realizing what it "costs" to get that item to the market. We charge because we want it now and don't want to wait to save for things. We buy bigger houses than we need, then cannot afford to heat them and furnish them.
Living differently than that isn't a value that should happen because of a downturn in our economy. Living that way is how we should ALL live, regardless of the economy. I would also argue that having more than we need is unnecessary. Greed gets us into trouble and we pay the price for that.
And, that goes for our government not living within its means and charging debt to foreign nations to finance things that make some of Americans wealthy. There's a cost to the choices we make, whether we be a lowly American or our great government. Have any of you read any of the works by Strauss and Howe? I haven't yet done so, but what I have read about those works sound quite interesting. I imagine there are lessons to be learned from the issues we faced in the past.
But, I'd say one good thing about this economy is that it has been a wake-up call for a lot of people. We should be paying off our bills, saving for the future. etc., but we should also lend a hand to others where we can. My church has been fighting poverty for a long while and has instituted programs to help others (someone mentioned Angel Food Ministries, of which our church is a distribution site) and we grow a garden to feed the poor. I'll be teaching classes on yogurt making and raising chickens in the suburbs. I'm learning to make soap. I'm learning to can from some of the elder women in the church. Hoarding to ourselves isn't the answer. Helping others, is.
Coffeemama - I'm glad to hear that your husband's job is safe for now. You're doing an amazing thing by realizing the mistakes you've made in the past and making efforts to right those ways. Your attitude is great. I'm certain it'll pay off handsomely for you.
Quote:
Absolutely.
Pat
Absolutely.
Pat
Well Suzy Orman said it all on Oprah show today! Ouch, truth HURTS those people!
HenSpa & co, thank you for ending the religious discussion and bringing this back to the topic at hand. That said, it isn't only christians who are getting this urging. Or this message. The Hopi, the Navajo, the Lakota, and many others I'm sure have this same message of things changing rapidly and dramatically.
I am the 'tin foil hat' wearer in our family -- when I was younger, I breastfed all of my children even though ladies in church were scandalized that I would nurse, in the back row of the pews, with a bath blanket over my shoulder. I made my own baby food, we were lacto-ovo vegetarians with the occasional fish meal thrown in, we bought organic when it wasn't even commonly known. I sewed my kids' clothes when they were little (until they went to school and being cool was more important). I learned to knit, crochet, sew, and embroider as a child, and learned to spin as an adult. I always felt that the 'old ways' were in a lot of ways better than what I have now -- working 48 hours a week in a job that saps every ounce of my soul, an hour away from home, isn't exactly my idea of paradise. I eventually bowed to the pressure from society at large and tried to fit in, was a firefighter/paramedic for 10 years before I went into nursing. Racked up the CC bills, paid them off, racked up some more from school.
I have felt the stirrings of a change coming for several years, but didn't listen until about a year ago; I literally woke up one day and realized that frivolous spending on things like belly dance costumes and private lessons -- even though that was my second 'job' were completely out of the question from now on. I miss dancing with a live band, and the energy of the audience but not nearly enough to chance losing my house due to spending my money on the wrong things. And believe me, in Arizona now matter how much you make in tips it doesn't cover the costs involved in getting/being good enough to perform.
I have dragged DH, kicking and screaming, into a more sustainable lifestyle; we turned the AC up this year to 83 -- at first all he did was b!tch but when he got the first summertime power bill, he came and thanked me...it was literally $300 cheaper than the same month last year (and it was at 79 last year). I prepurchased propane which set us back quite a bit but also will last us well over a year if we are careful this winter and keep the heater set to 65 or less. That he is definitely OK with, he likes the temperature to be at a cave setting anyway
We have chickens and the garden is due to be expanded; I am doing permaculture prep work on our yard, and we plan to have 6 - 8 fruit and/or nut trees put in this Feb; I am in the process of putting in a stone patio with a pergola so that in the summer we get the shade, in the winter we get the passive solar heat. I have made a solar oven, and will be starting on a solar space heater soon. I found a site with directions on a simple, portable rocket stove and will be making one of them just to see if it's clean enough/efficient enough to heat our family room area.
We cleaned our pantry today -- which was an all day job!!! And tomorrow I will be going back through it to inventory what we have. I'm the compulsive list maker in the family, and it will drive me crazy if I don't have an inventory after all this organization work!
We are canning both our own produce and the stuff I get from the local farm; I am getting ready to make my first batch of olive oil soap, and when the laundry detergent runs out I'm trying the recipe someone posted here on the forum. DH is amazed at what ends up in our canned stash -- he's never had home made dill pickles before, and that's the new snack item in our house...I will definitely run out before next year, that's for sure! The holidays are taken care of completely though. Home made everything.
The one thing DH is NOT on board with, and probably never will be, is the clothesline. Never have I seen someone go SO out of their way to screw up hanging clothes just so he doesn't have to do it.
That's Ok though, I like to do it, and I LOVE the smell of them when they come in!
The bad news is we both worked part time for an ambulance company just for extra money...they let us both go last Friday -- the contract got cancelled with literally no notice, just a fax to our business office manager/owner Friday morning. So now we are dependent on mostly my job, and his other job which is flight company dependent. My boss said there will be staffing cuts, which means that if I keep my job I will probably have to take a pay cut or work graveyards (yuck). But that's not until next July so in the meantime I am going to work all the overtime they will give me, and pay off as many bills as I can.
Everywhere I turn I am hearing of people being laid off -- my middle son worked for a car dealership and was let go last month. All of my children have already been told that the door is always open, and that we are prepared for the need should they have to come back home. And that it is NO SHAME to have to do so.
As things turn out eerily similar to what I have been telling friends and family for years, I don't seem like such a 'tin hat wearer' any longer. I hope they get to keep their fantasies intact, but we are as prepared as we can be anyway.
I am the 'tin foil hat' wearer in our family -- when I was younger, I breastfed all of my children even though ladies in church were scandalized that I would nurse, in the back row of the pews, with a bath blanket over my shoulder. I made my own baby food, we were lacto-ovo vegetarians with the occasional fish meal thrown in, we bought organic when it wasn't even commonly known. I sewed my kids' clothes when they were little (until they went to school and being cool was more important). I learned to knit, crochet, sew, and embroider as a child, and learned to spin as an adult. I always felt that the 'old ways' were in a lot of ways better than what I have now -- working 48 hours a week in a job that saps every ounce of my soul, an hour away from home, isn't exactly my idea of paradise. I eventually bowed to the pressure from society at large and tried to fit in, was a firefighter/paramedic for 10 years before I went into nursing. Racked up the CC bills, paid them off, racked up some more from school.
I have felt the stirrings of a change coming for several years, but didn't listen until about a year ago; I literally woke up one day and realized that frivolous spending on things like belly dance costumes and private lessons -- even though that was my second 'job' were completely out of the question from now on. I miss dancing with a live band, and the energy of the audience but not nearly enough to chance losing my house due to spending my money on the wrong things. And believe me, in Arizona now matter how much you make in tips it doesn't cover the costs involved in getting/being good enough to perform.
I have dragged DH, kicking and screaming, into a more sustainable lifestyle; we turned the AC up this year to 83 -- at first all he did was b!tch but when he got the first summertime power bill, he came and thanked me...it was literally $300 cheaper than the same month last year (and it was at 79 last year). I prepurchased propane which set us back quite a bit but also will last us well over a year if we are careful this winter and keep the heater set to 65 or less. That he is definitely OK with, he likes the temperature to be at a cave setting anyway
We have chickens and the garden is due to be expanded; I am doing permaculture prep work on our yard, and we plan to have 6 - 8 fruit and/or nut trees put in this Feb; I am in the process of putting in a stone patio with a pergola so that in the summer we get the shade, in the winter we get the passive solar heat. I have made a solar oven, and will be starting on a solar space heater soon. I found a site with directions on a simple, portable rocket stove and will be making one of them just to see if it's clean enough/efficient enough to heat our family room area.
We cleaned our pantry today -- which was an all day job!!! And tomorrow I will be going back through it to inventory what we have. I'm the compulsive list maker in the family, and it will drive me crazy if I don't have an inventory after all this organization work!
We are canning both our own produce and the stuff I get from the local farm; I am getting ready to make my first batch of olive oil soap, and when the laundry detergent runs out I'm trying the recipe someone posted here on the forum. DH is amazed at what ends up in our canned stash -- he's never had home made dill pickles before, and that's the new snack item in our house...I will definitely run out before next year, that's for sure! The holidays are taken care of completely though. Home made everything.
The one thing DH is NOT on board with, and probably never will be, is the clothesline. Never have I seen someone go SO out of their way to screw up hanging clothes just so he doesn't have to do it.
The bad news is we both worked part time for an ambulance company just for extra money...they let us both go last Friday -- the contract got cancelled with literally no notice, just a fax to our business office manager/owner Friday morning. So now we are dependent on mostly my job, and his other job which is flight company dependent. My boss said there will be staffing cuts, which means that if I keep my job I will probably have to take a pay cut or work graveyards (yuck). But that's not until next July so in the meantime I am going to work all the overtime they will give me, and pay off as many bills as I can.
Everywhere I turn I am hearing of people being laid off -- my middle son worked for a car dealership and was let go last month. All of my children have already been told that the door is always open, and that we are prepared for the need should they have to come back home. And that it is NO SHAME to have to do so.
As things turn out eerily similar to what I have been telling friends and family for years, I don't seem like such a 'tin hat wearer' any longer. I hope they get to keep their fantasies intact, but we are as prepared as we can be anyway.
Hmmm...you're welcome, I guess, Susan. I don't doubt that everyone's getting this message, urge. But I think some of us see it as coming from different origins. I see it as a head's up from God. Others may see it as a reaction to the times. I respectfully hear that and listen to all of your comments with interest...even ones I don't agree with.
Susan, I would love to have a clothesline only IF I can get those crappy birds off my clothesline! Why do they have to poop on nice CLEAN smelling clothes?????????????? Anyway it would not do us any good because when the winds shifts from the east, we get the coal burning smell from a power plant. If southeast, it would be the ADM and south, we would get the Staley (yep they do PEPSI ingredients there and smelled BAAAAAAAAD!). As for the west, we sometimes would get smoky odors. North would be smelling like burnt electric wires...not sure where the company is yet.
We used to live out in the country and Mom always hang out her laundry out on th eline. Missed the smell. One thing she does NOT do is to hang up wet sheets while the farmers out on the field plowing or spraying.
We used to live out in the country and Mom always hang out her laundry out on th eline. Missed the smell. One thing she does NOT do is to hang up wet sheets while the farmers out on the field plowing or spraying.
Quote:
That's me too. I have been married for almost 13 years and DH now says that he has a very healthy respect for my "feelings". We agree that it's more of a hyperawareness thing combined with a desperate need to avoid crisis but I love that I have this skill.
Yes, we can weather a depression. We started amassing assets a year and a half ago. I suspect that we will lose the majority of our 401k's with the way things are going but that will be fine. We have enough food for two years, practice preventative maintenance on our car and truck meticulously (with bicycles as backup) and we have all kinds of equipment (tools, both power and not, a major rototiller, wood chipper etc). I taught myself to bake all kinds of things from scratch. We fixed all of the essential systems on our home and didn't bother with the cosmetic stuff because we can't afford it yet. There's enough standing lumber out back to keep us for years. We have also been cleaning up our pond using an organic product for the last year and have a water filtration kit plus lots of purification tablets.
By contrast, our next door neighbors fixed up the interior of their home so that it was pretty and hired someone last year to rip out and haul off all of their trees, saplings etc so that they had an uninterrupted view. Last week she came to me and told me that they have found all kinds of problems with their electrical, plumbing, chimney, wood rot and no one will touch their furnace which they wanted to replace with a wood stove because it's covered in asbestos - all problems that we dealt with over the years. They can't even use their fireplace because it needs repairs. I sent her a long list of people we like who can help if they're still in business. She's completely stressed that they will have to borrow to make the repairs but their mortgage is now greater than the value of their home and I know that most of these guys don't take credit cards. I turned to DH and said, "They're looking at $100K in repairs. What are they going to do?" Then I started recounting our experiences, "Remember when we found out that our chimney had a huge crack in it and was about to fall off the house? Remember when no one would touch our furnace until we had all of the asbestos removed?" And on and on. He just looked at me and said, "Please stop. You're stressing me out." But you know what, it's done and we won't have to do it again.
I'm wondering if we're going to be the ones to help everyone else out through this. Another neighbor is a source of constant screaming fights between the older kids and their parents so I'm thinking that they're cutting back and the kids aren't real happy about it (I'm not eavesdropping, it's just really loud). And another one was supposed to retire from his job at a school in two years but this year he's leaving at strange hours and wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He hasn't said anything but I can't imagine that he has an admin job at this school anymore.
That's me too. I have been married for almost 13 years and DH now says that he has a very healthy respect for my "feelings". We agree that it's more of a hyperawareness thing combined with a desperate need to avoid crisis but I love that I have this skill.
Yes, we can weather a depression. We started amassing assets a year and a half ago. I suspect that we will lose the majority of our 401k's with the way things are going but that will be fine. We have enough food for two years, practice preventative maintenance on our car and truck meticulously (with bicycles as backup) and we have all kinds of equipment (tools, both power and not, a major rototiller, wood chipper etc). I taught myself to bake all kinds of things from scratch. We fixed all of the essential systems on our home and didn't bother with the cosmetic stuff because we can't afford it yet. There's enough standing lumber out back to keep us for years. We have also been cleaning up our pond using an organic product for the last year and have a water filtration kit plus lots of purification tablets.
By contrast, our next door neighbors fixed up the interior of their home so that it was pretty and hired someone last year to rip out and haul off all of their trees, saplings etc so that they had an uninterrupted view. Last week she came to me and told me that they have found all kinds of problems with their electrical, plumbing, chimney, wood rot and no one will touch their furnace which they wanted to replace with a wood stove because it's covered in asbestos - all problems that we dealt with over the years. They can't even use their fireplace because it needs repairs. I sent her a long list of people we like who can help if they're still in business. She's completely stressed that they will have to borrow to make the repairs but their mortgage is now greater than the value of their home and I know that most of these guys don't take credit cards. I turned to DH and said, "They're looking at $100K in repairs. What are they going to do?" Then I started recounting our experiences, "Remember when we found out that our chimney had a huge crack in it and was about to fall off the house? Remember when no one would touch our furnace until we had all of the asbestos removed?" And on and on. He just looked at me and said, "Please stop. You're stressing me out." But you know what, it's done and we won't have to do it again.
I'm wondering if we're going to be the ones to help everyone else out through this. Another neighbor is a source of constant screaming fights between the older kids and their parents so I'm thinking that they're cutting back and the kids aren't real happy about it (I'm not eavesdropping, it's just really loud). And another one was supposed to retire from his job at a school in two years but this year he's leaving at strange hours and wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He hasn't said anything but I can't imagine that he has an admin job at this school anymore.
"The preacher man says it's the end of times and the Mississippi river, she's a goin dry.
Interest is up and the stock markets down and your
only gettin mugged if you go downtown..."
someone started it a while back, Im just adding
This is all eerily familiar to the 70's which inspired this Hank Williams Jr. song isn't it???
Interest is up and the stock markets down and your
only gettin mugged if you go downtown..."
someone started it a while back, Im just adding
This is all eerily familiar to the 70's which inspired this Hank Williams Jr. song isn't it???
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