Dear James:
Your commentary on the mainstreaming of survivalism reminds me of something I would like to share. One statement, particularly, rang true: “… surely you witnessed (your grandparents) carrying on with the rest of their lives being very thrifty, avoiding debt, and wasting nothing.”
A few years ago, it became apparent that the economy was heading south and that family finances would be impacted. My wife and I sat down with our three teenage children for a brainstorming session on how to cut unnecessary expenses. We live in a community with all of the modern conveniences of prosperous upper middle income suburbia, and it was easy to come up with ideas for cutting back:
Dismiss the yard and housekeeping services and do it ourselves. Cut coupons and shop sales for groceries. Minimize dining out and cook meals from scratch at home. Drive an older used car. Cancel the cable television contract. Keep a vegetable garden. Buy clothes at the thrift store. Buy household items used at garage sales and on craigslist. Cancel the fitness center membership and costly extracurricular activities for the children. Go camping locally, or stay with relatives, instead of traveling for expensive resort vacations. Get a set of clippers and do home haircuts. Use the library, rather than buy books. Sell or donate items no longer used. Combine driving trips, ride bikes and take the school bus to minimize driving. Cancel the children’s cell phones. Stay home for entertainment, play games and read books. Check videos from the library, rather than go out to movies.
As we went through this process, we started laughing and were practically in tears by the time we finished. Making the list was an exercise in family comedy because every idea was something that we had always done. Such sacrifices would probably shock many families in our neighborhood, but it was business as usual for us. It was something my wife and I got from our parents; and, they are so frugal that they make us look like spendthrifts. In reality, we do not feel terribly vulnerable to a severe economic downturn because we have always avoided debt and built tangible wealth by working hard, being thrifty and wasting very little.
As it turns out, thrift becomes a game, a challenge, fun. At a family gathering, my mother might mention that she found new tennis shoes at a garage sale for $1. Then my mother-in-law, or my wife, might one-up her by noting that she got a similar pair for 50 cents. The competition is fierce! The best part is that my children have embraced these values and it should serve them well in the future.
All the best, – John in Florida