September 4, 2025
Day 1,434 of the Adventure
I ran across a list of budget friendly suggestions for helping make ends meet as we all try to navigate a difficult economy. As I read down the list, most of the ideas were things I've been doing for years. A few of them, like limiting eating out for example, are concepts I'll probably never conquer. I suppose the list is helpful for many who are trying to find their way through the swamp of financial uncertainty for the first time. What surprised me most about it was reading the dozens upon dozens of comments to the list. A huge portion of them were statements similar to "What good is it when there's nothing left to cut?" In a way, I understand that and have even felt that way at times. This time it feels different though. There does truly seem to be a hopelessness about keeping your head above water economically. Obviously, hard times come and go but it's been probably around 50 years since we've experienced something like we're going through today. A lot of cultural changes have happened since then. We've gotten used to nicer and newer things in our lives. We expect greater convenience. We have grown accustomed to carrying more debt without being very concerned about why we enter into debt and how comfortable we are there. We perhaps have softened up on resiliency and have become complacent regarding planning for difficulty. Maybe all the above. What it seemed like I was noticing in the comments was an underlying attitude of it being caused by someone else and was someone else's responsibility to fix. I do tend to agree the cause being out of our control, but expecting the fix to be beyond our personal control I can't really buy into. Maybe my age has something to do with it, but "reading the signs" is an important skill when it comes to planning for contingencies. Economic conditions are certainly part of that arena. Personally, when we go into debt and spend money like its water, we can expect to find ourselves on a very slippery slope towards financial disaster. When business do this, it has the same result. When governments do it, it has the same result only on a much more massive scale. The bad part is that when a government does it, it affects all of us in negative ways. We can be personally responsible financially and the irresponsibility of a government can have all of us circling the financial drain in short time. All the more important to know and recognize the signs when you see them happening. More tomorrow on "Recognizing the Signs".
Adventure Quote: “Everything costs something. ― Zara Hairston
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