Are You Ready for a New Depression?

Am I the only one that is seriously concerned about recent events in our economy? It was already going steadily downhill, largely due to gas prices. If you've been tracking food prices, they are rising rapidly. Processed foods have not gone up as much (less trucking involved, when you're just creating chemical ingredients, virtually out of thin air) but staples have risen dramatically.

A year or two ago, I could get a pound of organic whole wheat flour or wheatberries from the bulk section of any health food store for around 69 cents per pound. I bought the same things last week, and paid $1.09. Even worse, I saw the same product in other health food stores going for as high as $2.39 per pound!! Milk had gone up quite a bit, although for some reason the prices have dropped a bit. But I saw large increases in price for bulk oats, spelt, nuts, eggs, and vegetables.

Oh, and did I mention the foreclosure rates and swan-diving property values?

Now comes this whole bailout situation. Wait a minute--you mean I can start a business, grow it really big, make a lot of bonehead, risky decisions in order to line my own pocket, then go crying to the government to bail me out? Where do I sign up?!

And where is this trillion dollars supposed to come from to bail out these corporations? They keep saying that it's necessary to save the stock market and people's retirement accounts, etc. Guess what? Our stock market is still heading into the toilet, with other country's economies not far behind. As to people's retirement accounts and other savings...do we really think this will save them? And even if it does, won't it be counterbalanced by the amount of taxes, fees and any other penalties the government can come up with to cover the trillion dollars they promised to use in the bailout?

Make no mistake, regardless of the outcome of this November's election, we are going to be in deep dog doo-doo, my friends. McCain is certain to kowtow to liberals in an attempt to appease them and become "non-partisan". Hmmm. Reminds me of the "New Ecumenism" that has been rapidly eroding the faith of Catholics everywhere in a politically-correct attempt to "find common ground" with other religions. But I digress...Our only hope of McCain is elected is that Sarah Palin can find a way to temper his liberal-loving enthusiasm.

And if Obama is elected?...oh, please, don't get me started. Remember a little thing called Nazism? Hitler took over Germany at a time when it was weak. He was divisive and controlling. First went their rights...then their guns...then went the Jews...and the Catholic religious...and the gypsies. Obama cries for change...but his manipulative speeches and repetitive mantras aren't so new. You know the phrase..."everything old is new again."

Left: A 1930 Nazi propaganda poster promoting the slogan "Freedom and Bread"

Am I exaggerating? Well, I guess we'll see, if he ends up winning. But I can tell you, that man is dangerous. Any man that wants to take away all our guns, or who advocates the killing of babies who have been born alive after a botched abortion, or the myriad of other disturbing ideas this man has planned for our poor country...that is a dangerous man. And for anyone who thinks I'm racist...get a life. I would vote for Alan Keyes TODAY if he were running. And there was a lady, I'm forgetting her name now, but I met her a few years back at a lecture. She had been a teacher in Watts, and was extremely bright and was right on the money as far as what she thought this country needed. I'd vote for that woman in a heartbeat, too. No, my dread of an Obama-run United States is solely based on his completely divisive, amoral, dangerous views on how this country should be run. A vote for Obama is a vote for oppression.

A vote for McCain is...well, it's the best we can do, for now. Is there any way to elect just Sarah Palin?

My point (after my long political diatribe, lol) is, again, that we are in deep doo-doo, my friends. Where will this country be in a year? In four years? What will food prices be? Gas prices? Unemployment rate?

If your husband lost his job right now, or he hurt himself off the job (no worker's comp) and you had no income for three months, how would you fare? Would you lose your house? Your car? Could you feed your kids? What if this were to happen a year from now, when the economy is worse, and jobs were more scarce, and prices higher? How many months would it be until you were homeless?

I'm not making this argument to scare anyone. But I do want to get your attention. Because it has come to my attention quite often lately. If my husband lost his job and didn't find one instantly, we'd be up a creek. Virtually no pantry, no emergency supplies. Not a good thing. If it should happen in the future, in a worse economy? I dread even thinking about it.

How would you survive a depression? Our generation has grown up so pampered, that the idea of a depression happening to us, in this day and age, seems preposterous. But it's not. It could happen to anyone, anytime. We are no better than those who have gone before us.

It might be wise for us to behave as our ancestors did for generations upon generations, and prepare for hard times. Prepare for hard times, while you enjoy the good times. It's not about paranoia, extremism, or an end-of-the-world religious belief. It's about good old common sense. The kind our grandparents had...and passed on to our parents...who didn't think, in their era of comfort and plenty, that it was important enough to pass on to us.

Even if you never need a pantry full of food all at once...you will need food. Buy a bunch of what you normally use whenever you see it on sale. Rotate it (use oldest first) and use it as needed. If you never have an emergency, you'll still be using it up, and you'll have saved a ton of money by buying it in bulk, when prices are low.

Maybe there won't be a depression, or even a recession. Maybe everything will be fine for our country. But what about you? Will your family experience unemployment, serious illness, a blizzard, a two-week power outage? People experience such things in this country every day. Why couldn't you? How would you feed your family, keep them warm, provide lighting, take care of toilet needs, feed or diaper an infant, get to work, buy what you need, get needed medication? All I'm talking about here is common sense--basic preparedness, so you'll be ready for whatever comes your way.

Think about it.

The First Step: The Pantry

Once I decided I needed to prepare my family for potential emergencies, I knew what my first step would be. The pantry. We needed a lot more food. I have been going to the store every few days lately, which is not only poor planning, but a recipe for financial disaster. The more often you go, the more likely you are to spend extra money on unnecessary items. Not to mention the waste of gas and time.

I knew we had a good amount of meat in the freezer from recent sales I've seen. But canned food was scarce. My first goal is to amass a month's worth of food. So I sat down and made a one-week menu, a list of needed ingredients, and doubled it. That gave me two weeks worth of food. My plan was to go to the store, and attempt to double it again, if we had the money, or just get the amount on the list. Now, you wouldn't want to buy a huge amount of food based on a one-week menu plan...boredom would set in very quickly. But this is my plan for the short term. I was able to get almost a whole month's worth of the basics. I still need more sucanat and whole wheat from the health food store, but we're short on money this week, so I'll wait til next time.

When our next paycheck comes, I'll make a new one-week menu, and repeat the process. We get paid every two weeks. So every two weeks, I'll buy one month worth of food. Within three months, I should have an extra three months worth of food on hand at all times.

You may wonder how I can afford this. We're not rich, or well-off, or even "comfortable", although our financial situation is improving. Once all our debts are current, I would consider us doing "okay". Right now, we are "struggling less". LOL.

Basically, we spent about the same as we normally would on food for two weeks, including fast food. So we've given up fast food, and have made a commitment to eat at home from now on, unless it is necessary because one of us is on the road. (The day I shopped, I was gone for over seven hours, which I didn't expect to be, so I ate out.) Although I'm trying to get healthier food for my family, and try to buy some organic food when I can, I decided this week would be almost all regular food, because having SOME food in the pantry was more important. After the pantry is a little fuller, I will try to incorporate more organic food. All food bought in bulk, like flour, etc. will still be organic, as it is reasonably cheap to buy it that way. Whole wheat organic flour is usually .69 a pound.

I shopped at Aldi's, because some of their food is very inexpensive. You have to know your prices, though. Some foods I can get cheaper at Sam's Club or Walmart. I bought a case each of corn, green beans, diced tomatoes with chiles, large cans of pears. I bought ten pounds of boneless chicken tenderloins. Chicken breasts are usually cheaper, but I found tenderloins much more tender, quicker and easier to cook without overcooking the edges, and easier to calculate portions, especially when you have a lot of little ones. I also bought enough soap, and shampoo to last a month. It will be nice to have that stuff on hand, as it never fails that once the shampoo runs out, so does our soap, dish liquid, razor blades, toothpaste, etc. , and usually all during a week when we're broke, lol.

At Sam's Club I bought a gallon jug of salad dressing, some produce, and eight small jugs of organic juice (probably should have gone with regular, but it was a good price). I bought three cases of bottled water (soon I want my own high-end water filter to save money), a large container of deli meat (the only inexpensive way to buy it), and a ton of toilet paper and paper towels. (My husband still likes using them, and my mini hand towels are still packed up somewhere.)

At Walmart we bought a gallon of mayo (cheaper than Sam's club, surprisingly), razor blades, some canned soups, and some miscellaneous things, including Easter candy. I haven't added it up yet, but I think I spent around $300 not including the Easter candy. I did spend some extra money on a few unnecessary items such as new Easter baskets, etc. that isn't included in that amount.

As an aside, the "Easter bunny" does NOT visit our house. Easter here is about the Glorious Resurrection of Our Lord, not a fictitious bunny who gives them candy. We do have baskets and an Easter egg hunt, but our children know that these are given by us, as a celebration of a religious occasion.

Back to the pantry issue...I couldn't believe it, but I actually fit almost all this food into our little pantry cabinet. It's not quite full. I'm glad it all fit, because cabinet space is at a premium in this newer house. The amount we spent would have been more if we hadn't already had some items, especially meat. But most of the menu calls for chicken breasts for dinner, which will come out of the ten pounds I bought. I know that once my pantry is stocked well, my costs will be even lower, because I can shop by what's on sale, and buy in bulk. I know I probably didn't get every thing I needed for this month, and of course things like milk will need to be bought again before my next shopping trip, but it's a start.

Preparedness

When I was single, I did tons of research and reading about preparedness. This was over a decade ago, when Y2K was barely a blip on most people's radars. It started with reading Countryside magazine, which is a wonderful magazine about homesteading and country living, with articles written by people who are actually doing it. I also started reading Back Home Magazine, Backwoods Home Magazine, and American Survival Guide a (now defunct) magazine that focused more on preparation and survival of many types of situations.

Many people laugh at the idea of "preparing" the equate it with Y2K "survivalist nuts" who spent thousands of dollars on giant cans of "survival food", only to find that the year 2000 brought no catastrophe, and gave away their stash of goods. What has happened to our country? Only a few generations ago, preparing for bad times was the norm! Only a fool would keep enough food on hand for just a few days or a week, in those days. Even city dwellers kept pantries, though probably not as big as the ones country folks had.

If your family's breadwinner lost his or her job and had an extremely difficult time finding another, how would your family do? How long could you pay your mortgage, all your insurance, the utility bills, the vehicle payments, not to mention put food on the table? What if you had to fight in court for unemployment benefits, and you still didn't have another job after six months? What if the breadwinner had a major injury that took place outside the workplace, and was still an invalid six or even twelve months later?

What would happen if a disaster hit your area? Can't happen? Ask the Katrina victims what they think of that foolish notion. You could very easily become the victim of a record-breaking blizzard, tornado, earthquake, flood, hurricane, or other major disaster that knocks out power, destroys homes, disrupts the transportation of food, gas and other necessities, and traps you in your home. Could your family survive two weeks without electricity, plumbing, or a way to buy food or other necessities?

Do you live near a nuclear facility? A plant that produces chemicals? A military installation? Anywhere near a major highway or train line where loads of chemicals or nuclear waste could be transported? If so, you could be vulnerable to a disaster, and may have to evacuate your home.

What about terrorism? After 9-11, and several plots since then that have been foiled by homeland security, can we ever be sure of our safety here at home? We have had the luxury, as a country, of having no wars fought on this land since the civil war. Because of this we have become complacent, assuming this will always be the case. It will not. Human nature unfortunately dictates that sooner or later, we will endure war on American soil.

This may sound like gloom and doom to you, but it is not. It is a fact of life that bad things happen. You don't need to dwell on it all the time, but you should make yourself aware of it, and prepare for the worst. Even on a small income, you can make some preparations. If you even had supplies to keep your family safe, clean, fed, warm, and healthy for two weeks, you would be ahead of most Americans. Personally, I think a month should be the absolute minimum, and three months would be a smarter choice. There are some Americans who actually keep a year or more in supplies. Believe it or not, it can be done. It may take time to figure out how to do it and amass your supplies if you are short on space or money, but it can be done.

This came to my mind recently, after seeing the show "Jericho" on CBS (go to their website to view the show online) and reading "Lights Out", a free book online, which I found to be very realistic and had helpful ideas for those who want to be prepared. I realized that my day to day duties as a wife and mother have drawn me further into worldly desires and concerns. I find myself wanting to have everything fast and easy. Convenient, pre-packaged and unhealthy foods, the best of everything, it is very seductive. We had no more than a week's worth of food on hand, and many needed items not on hand at all. We have no water stored.

Ironically, before I met my husband, he, like I, was living off-grid. He didn't have a pantry, but he had non-electric alternatives. We both know what it is like to heat a home with wood or a kerosene heater, and to cook with it. We have hauled water in large containers, by hand. When Y2K happened, I didn't have a whole lot stored, but I had enough to survive about a month. We still have some of these supplies...kerosene lamps, water containers, etc. But no fuel, water, or food stored. I have become, like most Americans, complacent. Sure that tomorrow will never bring sickness, tragedy, or disaster.

Many Americans think "oh, the goverment will take care of us." How foolish...anyone remember how long it was before Katrina victims got any decent amount of food or water from FEMA? And that was one small area of the country! As for shelter, would you want to live in the Superdome with all the crime, assault, rape, etc. that was going on there? Not to mention the unsanitary living conditions that quickly arose.

If you want to live like an ostrich with your head in the sand, that's fine, as long as you don't go crawling to your prepared neighbors in an emergency, demanding that they help you and accusing them of "hoarding" and "stealing" from everyone else, simply because they were smart enough to prepare. Even animals in nature are intelligent enough to prepare for hard times. But if you have helpless dependents...children, babies, the sick, the elderly, and even animals to care for, you don't have the right to leave them unprotected and vulnerable to the slightest emergency. It is your responsibility, not the government's, to care for and prepare for the needs of your dependents.

I'm ashamed to say I'm no better than anyone else. I've been lulled into the false sense of security that relatively easy times can bring. But life has its ups and downs. Don't be caught unawares during a "down" time. Your well-being and that of your loved ones may depend on you.

I plan to keep reading and researching, and sharing my finds with you. I will post links to sites and list any good books or other helpful resources. I highly suggest reading "Lights Out". It is free to read online or download. It is long, but an easy read. After a few days, I did have some nightmares about it (but then I'm pregnant and highly prone to nightmares lately, lol). I just stopped reading for a few days, then picked it up again. Even if you just read the first half, it will give you some idea of what to really expect in a major nationwide disaster, and what you might need to survive something like it. If you even just stored a few weeks of food, water, and necessities, you would be helping your family a lot. I did it when I was single and poor, and working only part time earning a little over minimum wage. If you do it the smart way, it's not as hard as you might think.