How are you dealing with the economic crisis?

[GoldenRivet]

NAME 10 THINGS YOU ARE DOING TO DEAL WITH THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IF ANY:

My wife and I have recently paid off all of our credit card debt (thankfully)

However, within the past few months we have adopted several changes to help deal with money crunches should they hit us (hard or harder than they already have).

1. Any glass container from the refrigerator which once contained salsa, mayo, pickles etc etc is now being thoroughly washed out and placed in the cupboard to be used as a drinking glass.

2. We have recently disconnected our Dish Network

3. we have recently discontinued our bottled water delivery service.

4. We have completely discontinued our basic phone service with AT&T (we use our cell phones almost exclusively anymore)

5. We have hidden away all but one of our credit cards, and we have hidden away both of our bank cards for a six month period.

6. I have closed off AC/Heating vents to the two least used rooms in our home.

7. We have started using the air conditioning or heating only between about 6pm and 8am

8. We have started cooking large dinners on Monday night, and then we eat left overs almost exclusively until the following weekend.

9. We have begun to purchase bargain brand items only in most cases.

10. Community Dinners... Once a week we will get the whole family together to eat one massive dinner into which everyone contributes a food item... then when the night is over we each take a little bit of each home to the freezer/fridge (this can cut the grocery bill nearly in half)

[breadcatcher101]

Don't eat out, cook your own food.

Heat with wood, I cut all I want for nothing.

Timer on hot water heater.

Coupons, use them!

Watch the gas, no long trips.

Fish and hunt for meat.

No junk food.

Quit smoking and drinking if at all possible.

Get a hobby that costs you nothing like taking walks in the woods or in a mall.

[August]

Originally Posted by breadcatcher101

Get a hobby that costs you nothing like taking walks in the woods or in a mall.

Better yet one that produces something useful like furniture making.

[baggygreen]

Number 8 is rough mate.... talk about a way to get sick of a dish nice and quickly!

However, i completely understand the logic. I myself do it for a day or 2.

Heres another - buy home-brand / no-name / whatever you've got where you are. with the food, for example, you don't notice any difference in 'quality'. saves a fortune

[Happy Times]

I save only the same amount ive been saving before, otherwise i try to spend normally to keep the money moving.

[Thomen]

One of the things we do: We shop at Giant Eagle ( no plug intended ) because of their "Fuel Perks". For every $50 you spend you get 20 cent of per gallon of gas, for max 30 gallons at a time.

We just bought Barnes and Noble Gift cards the other week for $750 (for school books).. that translated to $4.00 (we still had some left from before) off per gallon.

Add to that regular grocery shopping in the same store/chain.. that adds up nicely

http://www.gianteagle.com/Article.aspx?cntid=177048

[kiwi_2005]

Walk into town - haven't use the car for like 5 yrs i hate driving ever since i had a nasty car accident 7 yrs ago i rarely drive unless i need to go to the city and even that is once in a blue moon. Town is a 7min walk from home not a problem summer time is better with some shops open 24hrs walking into town at 11pm on a cloudless night with not a sound to be heard is a great feeling. Plus crime rate in our town is zero apart from petty crimes which every town on earth has.

[Zachstar]

Get rid of cable TV.

If things get bad you will have to cut it anyway. Why wait?

DTV is good if you have the right antenna. In many areas you can get 4 station of PBS content alone!

Need a cheap antenna? Try this! It is one of the best out there and is perfect for putting behind the TV or even putting it outside. Its cheap and it will work if you build it right.

I can't recomend AM radio anymore. Except for emergencies. It gets taken over by political nutjobs on both sides and you will only get a bunch of junk to rille you up instead of good news. FM music is good for general music. Keep on the lookout for any local public stations.

Learn to read! Of course you can read but I mean REALLY read. I mean that you can visualize battles you read in Red Storm Rising or sweat from suspence from reading a spy novel. Books are REALLY cheap in certain areas and the library will carry many others you can check out.

Turn off the news.. Local is important but as of late all the national ones want to talk about it how bad the economy is. It helped create this panic instead of it being a slow downturn which could have given people a chance to prepare. Last I checked EAS was still working so if somthing REALLY important happens (Like a zombie outbreak) you will know really quick.

I wont recomend hobbies because they get expensive quick. But any activity you can do that can take your mind off the situation will help.

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

I save only the same amount ive been saving before, otherwise i try to spend normally to keep the money moving.

Moving to china that is...

You have to remember that it is hard to purchase US made goods. So if you try to cut back and spend on better things (Like books published in the US) You will be doing better than spending 500 bucks on a HDTV made with non-union labor outside the US.

[clive bradbury]

I really feel for anyone who has lost their job and is struggling at this time. I happen to be one of the lucky ones in that I work in one area that tends to grow in bad times - university education. Ironically this means I benefit from the recession, in that I am earning more money than I have eve done, with the cost of goods and fuel falling. As I said to my wife last week, I actually feel rather gulity as I am effectively a vulture picking the flesh from the bones of the corpse of the British economy!

However, to the point - how about some perspective here. The 'ten things to do' are very sensible, but several of them show how spoilt we have all become. I lived through the recession of the 1970s - and that was a real one compared to the current episode - just compare the inflation rates if you don't believe me.

So, back to the ten points. My experience of the 1970s does not lead me to be all that sympathetic - cutting back on bottled water, satellite TV, credit card(s). Oh please...what would the men on the bread line in 1930s say to all that...

[GoldenRivet]

Clive,

I know where you are coming from, im not complaining about "cutting back" by any means.

"Scaling back" has been something i have needed, and wanted to do for a very long time.

Let me give you the following examples:

1. reusing glass containers and Jars - more of an environmental thing than an economics thing

2. Disconnecting our dish network... well, of course having such a thing is a luxury... however for a long time it has been a luxury item i could afford, and it still is a luxury item i can afford. however, my wife and i have a large shelf in our living room right by the TV. upon this shelf rests hundreds of movies DVDs, some box sets of our favorite TV shows, and at least a dozen board games nad puzzles.

and nothing on the shelf i just mentioned hardly ever gets used... at all.

dish network was a leach on my monthly finances, and i felt that getting rid of it was the responsible thing to do.

3. Discontinuance of the bottled water service delivery. some months ago my wife - in her infinite wisdom - realized that we were going through an awful lot of gallon jugs of water per month from the grocery store. (our city water is often quite terrible and tastes like chemicals) she pointed out that her dad had an old water cooler that he was not using and we could actually save about $10 per month by setting up and getting large 5 gallon tower jugs delivered to the house. - seemed like a good idea at the time, but what you have to consider is that installing a "pur water filter" on the tap - costs about $60 and you pretty much have it as long as you have a tap... thus it was decided that the time had come to discontinue the bottled water delivery.

4. basic phone service issue... we had only used our phone service because a land line was required by dish network for some sort of verification of our services monthly. so... we were paying about $20 per month for a service that was NEVER being used by us personally. In fact for over 3 years now i have not had a phone plugged into any land line in the entire house. This has worked out to 20/month for a service we were never using.

5. Credit cards and bank cards are trouble... they enable you to have what you want right now by causing you to pay more for it over time. when you sit and think about it that is the most rediculous thing! 4 years ago we developed a 5 year plan to pay off all debts - we have succeded in that plan one year ahead of schedule. The bank cards on the other hand... big difference. I have determiend that far too much money was being spent on the little things we could do without. for example, my wife will not hesitate to buy fast food with her bank card when she does not have $5 on hand (something i despise doing) because of this... we were averaging $50 a month on fast food purchases alone on the bank card!!!

not only did this cause me to become quite angry, but there were several times just before pay day and after our account had been nearly cleaned out by bills that she would buy $7 worth of crap from McDonalds on the bank card... and as a result cause an overdraft fee of $28 to be posted against the account!!!! i said

"Honey... my God!!! you have just paid $35 for a cheeseburger at McDonalds because of this nonsense!!"

i could think of a half dozen similar examples

thus - bank cards have been eliminated from our budget.

6. through 10. well this is just sensible any time of the year regardless of the economy.

[Aramike]

I'm doing the same things I always do. If people ever want this economy to get better, they should start doing that too.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Aramike

I'm doing the same things I always do. If people ever want this economy to get better, they should start doing that too.

I take for granted that you can afford that. - Many can't.

Especially true if the person in question used to live beyond his/her means - and that as a living style of a whole society is one of the causes for the crisis.

[clive bradbury]

Hi Goldenrivet,

as I hope I made clear, I was not criticising you - merely trying to point out how our lives and perspectives have radically changed over the years!

I'm as guilty as everyone else - I love my 'toys'. I just think that our expectations have grown out of all proportion to our parents, let alone our grandparents. But, as with you, I am of a generation who could get rid of them if need be. How did we get to this situation when our quality of life is based entirely on how much stuff we own? When I went to college in the 70s maybe 1 in 10 students owned a car (certainly not me - I could not afford one) - now they pretty much all do. We have raised a generation or two of kids who think they can have exactly what they want - well, maybe this recession is a good thing if it makes a few basic facts of life clear to the spoiled brats...

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I take for granted that you can afford that. Many can't.

Agreed, its not that i can no longer afford to live the way i have been.

But i recently sat down and had a talk with my grandfather who passed away last week.

He spoke about how everyone would get together and eat dinner on a monday night or tuesday night and you would basically eat that food all week.

He told me about how he saved money for years, a little here and a little there so he could buy his own house. "We didnt mess with a mortgage" he said "I found this place, liked it, and paide $8,500 cash for it years and years ago." its the only place i have ever known him to live.

I got him on the subject of credit cards "well buddy..." he said "you might as well just pay someone to rob you. personally i think they ought to be outlawed."

what he had to say on the subject really struck home with me.

Americans... in fact most people in todays world simply throw away money when we should be living more Spartanly and saving up our money.

@ chad... i completely understand where you were coming from