Are you Ready for A Deep Recession or a near Second Depression ?

Filled up my car with gasoline yesterday, $45. The news is full of stories regarding entire new neighborhoods in foreclosure. Every time I go to the market for food, people in line complain about the prices. Everything is going up, except wages.

You would had have to stranded on a deserted island not to see this coming. In the U.S. people kept buying bigger vehicles, bigger houses, using more resources. Oil companies get greedier. After all they too want bigger mansions, more cars etc. Farmers find it more lucrative to grow corn for alternative fuel than to grow wheat and corn for people to eat, after all the farmers around here all drive gas guzzling trucks and big SUV's and they want bigger homes too.

It hurts to fill up the car, but we don't drive a whole lot and that is about to be much less since we made that personal commitment to do so. Emery fills up his 1991 Tempo about once a month. We fill up the family car once a week.

Credit card debt non repayment is at an all time record, house foreclosures the same. People want and can't be bothered to read the fine print. Adjustable rate mortgages are good for the lenders, but not good for the buyer. The buyers eyes are bigger than their purse, so often times you just borrow with lousy terms just so you can have what you want. Same as shopping with a credit card when you really don't have the money. We want, and we want....it puts you in grave danger when things like deep recessions and depressions come into play and all the while we are consuming more than the earth can give without drawing blood somewhere.

Young married couples seem to be hit hard right now, in the place where they are just trying to get going and the world keeps telling them, go ahead, make a bad choice, we will profit from it.

Many years ago, Emery and I decided to just get off the hamster wheel, just live with less and in actuality have more. We opted for a old house, needing work, nothing fancy, certainly not the kind of house we had lived in in California, but that house was not a home to us, just an albatross around the neck for so many reasons. Our house is paid for, has been for years. We paid $17,000 for it 16 years ago. Was it our dream home, NO ! Is it our dream home now ? Yeah, I can actually say yes to that, its cozy, and its home. A place of family and it has NO mortgage.

We have even been able to purchase a couple homes for investment through time. It meant we didn't go out to eat, we didn't shop foolishly, the children did not have their own computer or TV. We did not do the extra curricular activities, except Irish Step dance. We did not buy new furniture. We did not have elegant china. We did not go on vacations. We ate healthy but simple foods, we did not shop with "wants" in mind and we worked very hard at keeping an eye on the prize, the prize being, NO DEBT. We grew a garden, we milked goats, raised chickens, all within the city limits and on less than one acre of land. All the time arming ourselves financially against the worry of a deep recession or a depression. We figure with milk and eggs you have a lot of meals right there and with vegetables growing much of the year, you seem pretty well set. Texas allows you to garden almost the entire year. I have cabbage and collards through the winter most years. Texas is great, but I would much rather live in York, Maine and be by the ocean all year long ! But no gardening in winter there.

Emery could walk to work or at least ride a bike there so even the gas prices will not cripple us.

Food is more expensive but I realized that I spend more on hobbies than I need to, or should.

Think about the way you are living, maybe you need to shed the McMansion and think smaller more affordable to maintain, less utilities to run and less of a mortgage payment. Maybe the bloated SUV is not what you need, but just what you want, maybe you could trade it in for something more affordable to run, something that won't guzzle up the earths innards so fast.

You could be killing two birds with one stone, helping yourself endure higher prices and at the same time, being more gentle on the earth.

Just about any home with a yard the size of a sofa can have a garden. Maybe your soil is bad, have some brought in ! Compost ! Dirt is still cheap. I am sure you could give up something in order to have some dirt brought in. Seed is cheap still too. Gardening is the poor mans fitness center. Its the best diet program too. Hard work, good food. Great for the children to see about where food comes from and understanding that how well we work equates with how well you eat is a lesson of profound value. Working a garden is therapy, its strengthening, its certainly the best cure for insomnia.

In all this, you might even find you have some money to save for that rainy day.

A recession or even another depression can be softened by a simple lifestyle.