I do not want this to be a political debate nor an opportunity to post recent headlines. However, in my opinion, this administration seems to be taking actions which history suggests may lead towards a near or total economic collapse. Whether you agree with this or not is irrelevant.
This post’s question is: If one were to have a concern that they’d no longer be able to afford common household goods or that mainstream (S&P, Nasdaq) financial investments were no longer sound, what can one do to prepare for “the worst”? What actions could someone take today to minimize economic hardship in the future?
I would also like thoughtful insight from older adults to offer younger adults about how they should be better preparing themselves for an uncertain future, outside of current events or place of residence.
As a teen we went through the collapse in the 80s when (in Canada) mortgage rates hit 21%. So Get your mortgage rate locked in now and don’t have a renewel pending in the next 2 years.
For my family in the 80s it meant most income was going to the mortgage and we had to be very frugal. We ate a lot of potatoes and beans, no restaurants ever, and no extras. My dad also hunted, left over meats went into soups.
We are currently living frugally for reasons. We buy bulk dried chick peas, kidney beans, lentils (various kinds), frozen peas, rice. We stock up on potatoes , carrots, onions and canned tomatoes. With a large selection of spices and occasionally other ingredient we can make a wide variety of dishes. Weekly grocery shop is around $35-50.
I expect for those in the USA the luxury of lavish meals will need to become more like my frugal diet.
Drop extra services…do you really need more than one streaming service, could you go without and scour the thrift store for BlueRay / DVDs , the libraries have free rentals of new releases.
Carpool. Barter between neighbours to exchange services.
Facebook groups and market place is great for this.
Always go there for first. And remember in order to make this work, got to buy AND sell.
Each second hand transaction denies the parasites profit!
Don’t go to Facebook first! We need to start normalizing ways to organize outside of those giant corpo-fascist sites.
I agree but that’s where the market is at :/
Craigslist also has a free section, we have given and received on there.
Yeah thats old school. That’s where I started try to get back into the trading original but it seems now Facebook is the place tho as much as I hate Faceberg :/
Network effects strike again
Yeah my wife uses Market Place, but for me their privacy policies and data gleaning steered me away. Craigslist is still big and busy where we are in the Vancouver area. Either way it good to connect locally.
We bought 6 Eggnog oat/ soy milk on sale from grocery store. Odd taste compared to other brands, rather than return my wife put it for free on Market Place, and some family came and got it. They were so happy since it was their favourite kind.
We found a 7 foot tree for free, a retired dude was having to leave his apartment to go into longterm care. We offered him cash for it, but he wouldn’t take it. My wife took a cutting and propegated it for a while, then we dropped it off at his care home with a watering can so he can continue growing his tree. They keep in touch once in a while.
I think these moments got lost for a while with the technology boom, and people staying home being constantly entertained.
Yeah I am old enough to remember that world. Back in the day people in normal course of life were able to make social connections, now there is three fucking corpos in ever interaction and people don’t have skills to socialize.
Also check out https://buynothingproject.org/