What's your plan to survive a deep recession?

[texxie]

Originally Posted by lisa d This is a great thread. I agree with most everyone else's ideas like getting out of debt, only buying what you can pay cash for, etc. One thing I am going to do this year is grow a garden. Last year I did tomatoe plants in pots on the back porch and herbs like basil that I used to cook with and make pesto that I froze. We also planted one cucumber vine and got so many cukes that I was standing on the front porch handing them out to neighbors because we could not use them fast enough. The cost of those few plants more than paid for themselves and boy did the food taste better. It inspired me to do a 4' x 4' area in the yard so I can grow more and other things. This will help our grocery bill be lower. I am a city girl, so we will see how it goes, but I am optimistic!

I would absolutely LOVE to do this, even if i just started small like you did. That being said, I would'nt know where to start. I am soooooo clueless when it comes to gardening.:shrug7:

[jjrogers]

stockpiling,stockpiling, stockpiling. We are out of debt except for our house. We do need to work on the emergency fund. I am a bit scared. Both of us come from large families and my husband's family is flat stupid with money. One of his siblings is more than 200 dollars in the hole every month. yet they keep buying stuff they don't need.

[frugalstafar]

-We will continue to live below our means-hopefully.
-I am planning a square foot garden-a great thing for those of us who are garden impaired
-I hope to continue in the vehicles we are in but mine is getting up there and something breaks everyday ( nothing major yet, just annoying)
-stockpile everything I can so the months I have more bills I'll spend less on food and hba
-no big or expensive vacations maybe a long weekend in our camper twice over the summer and once in fall (paid for by my pocket change jar-plus fall trip already paid for)
-bartering? would like to trade for things like fresh fruit for my chickens surplus eggs-or in my dreams my lovely gardens surplus!
-trimming spending on everything possible-cutting electric by adjusting thermostat and hanging clothes to dry/fewer driving trips to cut gas consumption/bulk cooking to save time,energy and those nasty nights you just don't want to cook and end up with $30 pizza

I do hope people change their spending ways, I have very few friends that do anything to save and almost make it look like they go out of their way to over spend. One friend was whining the other day that she was 3k over in bills this month from her husbands take home pay which has to be around 5k, I asked her why and she said "well the money for our yearly cruise is due and we are going skiing this month and we have another vacation we have to finish paying for" basically I said stay home or stop whining. I'm so glad I found hcw so I have people to communicate with that have a basis in reality and share my frugal ways.

[Mom2girls1979]

I have so much in my stockpile that I already filled my 2 kitchen pantries and have moved on to the cabinets. I told DH we are going to have use the our bedroom closet eventually.

But we will continue to stockpile and save money. We were already a frugal bunch even when times were good and I have been serious with coupons for about 2 years now.

Thankfully we live here in the DFW area of Texas where the cost of living is cheaper and we are doing better then some other parts of the countries when it comes to jobs. So DH job as a high school teacher is pretty secure, but we still save money because you just never know. I feel so sorry for individuals who live in parts of the country where unless you are wealthy you need 2 incomes to survive, what happens if one person loses their job.

We are a bunch of tightwads (what our relatives call us) so we are thankful just being able to provide a roof over their head and our family is able to eat. We never were the big screen TV, fancy new car types so not being able to buy that stuff doesn't bother us one bit.

[thickbluebug]

have done

• planted 1/2 of our fruit trees last yr
• ordered my organic heirloom seeds...so I will have seeds for next yr too
• trading my stockpile to help keep it rotated and fresh
• started a blog to keep me more accountable on my spending and tracking incoming money from rebates
• trading more coupons for coupons..less pphf
• set a goal of oop spending this year

working on

• have my compost cooking
• ordering our 2nd half of trees
• trading for rebates
• not spending unnecessary money
• researching more on companion gardening

next thing to do:

• start my seedlings for the spring/summer garden
• have my raised beds built
• take pictures of my stockpile
• ready the left over stockpile for donations and yardsale

[mama22qts]

Originally Posted by frugalstafar One friend was whining the other day that she was 3k over in bills this month from her husbands take home pay which has to be around 5k, I asked her why and she said "well the money for our yearly cruise is due and we are going skiing this month and we have another vacation we have to finish paying for" basically I said stay home or stop whining.

Good grief!!!

Do these people live to go on vacation or what? Skiing is unbelievably expensive! Our "yearly" cruise??? Gimme a break. Yeah, some folks are going to be in for a rude awakening....

[mama22qts]

Well, I have about 50 collard plants right now that I have to cut down and freeze for collard greens the rest of the year. Next we will plant blueberry bushes, and this spring we'll put in tomatoes and peppers, and we'll go from there. We're already very sensible in our spending and financial planning so there won't be a whole lot of changes. There are certainly things we have that we can let go -- cell phones, memberships to organizations, etc.

Our stockpile is large. I need to work on paper goods a little more, though. Oh, and canned stuff. I can always add more of that. I have a roomy pantry under the stairs, plus tons of cabinet space and cabinets in my laundry that I use for stockpile. I'm trying to stock up on pet food right now, but no one has any frees to trade me! :)

[cundiff2001]

dh lost his job two weeks ago and I can breath b/c of the HUGE stockpile we have. I could go 6 months buying nothing but milk and some fresh fruit. We have hba, paper products, diapers, drinks, juices, pantry, and perishables in the freezer for at least that long.

We are moving out of this horribly expensive area and back to our hometown asap. We are lucky that we do have quite a bit of savings and bought our house $100k under apraisal in May so that we won't take a huge hit when we sell. It has been on the market for about a week and have had lots of interest.

Anyway....

we are buying a house that is 1/3 what we paid for our current home. We are downsizing quite a bit, but will still have 1800 square feet and plenty of room. There will also be lots of family nearby, utilities and taxes are less than 1/2 of what we pay here.

dh is buying into an established business a lifelong friend has where we are moving to
I am happy that his hours won't be so insane anymore, even with less pay I think our quality of life will be so much better.

the new hometown has kroger that doubles to .50, riteaid and cvs!!!! we will be fine. I will just have to learn all the tricks for that area.

I am also going back to school to finish my degree and then off to law school!! I am so happy about that. It will be good for our family and is something I gave up when we transferred here for dh's job.

we are also investing more in the stock market while the market is down so much. this is the time to make those moves

we are going to save, save, and save some more untill it hurts. I don't care if I see the inside of a mall again.

We will get through this and I am so thankful that I learned to coupon a few years ago and have been able to stockpile and save the money we were using for groceries, hba, etc....

[TheWoman]

Originally Posted by couponsmakecents what happens is this: Let's say my bill for January is $40.00 I pay $50 on the bill so I have a credit of $10. The next month my bill is $50.00 but they say I owe $40 b/c of the credit of $10. So I pay $60 and now I have $20 credit. For me by paying $10 extra each month I will have a cushion in case there is one month I am short or the bill is high.

It is better to keep the money in a savings account for several reasons.
1. The bank account is federally insured. The utility company is not. If the utility goes bankrupt (which we have discovered CAN happen no matter how large the company) your money is gone.
2. The bank pays interest.
3. If times get tough you can take money from the bank and spend it anywhere you decide is most urgent right then. If the utility company has the extra money you can only spend it with them. Imagine at the end of a particularly tight month you have no cash left but a $50 credit with the gas company and your child needs a prescription filled. What are you going to do?

[couponsmakecents]

Did not say this was for everyone to do and that I do it b/c it works for me. Everyone has to decide what they want to do and how they want to work toward paying expenses. If the power company goes bust, a $50 credit with them is the least of my worries.

These are only suggestions and not for everyone.

Originally Posted by TheWoman It is better to keep the money in a savings account for several reasons. 1. The bank account is federally insured. The utility company is not. If the utility goes bankrupt (which we have discovered CAN happen no matter how large the company) your money is gone. 2. The bank pays interest. 3. If times get tough you can take money from the bank and spend it anywhere you decide is most urgent right then. If the utility company has the extra money you can only spend it with them. Imagine at the end of a particularly tight month you have no cash left but a $50 credit with the gas company and your child needs a prescription filled. What are you going to do?