The truth is practically most of us have been forced to face frugality. With fewer jobs, less income, homelessness and food insecurity on the rise, most of us have no choice but to be frugal now. So, how can anyone pat themselves on their back and claim they are the King and Queen of frugality? Your old, tried and true Tightwad Gazette tactics aren’t going to work anymore. How can anyone make their own pizzas when they don’t have their own kitchens anymore?
Evictions and foreclosures started today. There’s no more government help anymore. Maybe not for months till the election is over. How is that going to help anyone newly living In tent city? NYC just announced almost 90% of their businesses are going to close. How is touting watering down your milk or using Dawn liquid cleaner for your countertops going to sustain anyone facing this new hardship?
It’s a whole new ballgame out there. We’re going to need new cost saving ideas and figure out how we are going to keep a roof over our head and food on the table. Got any new ideas? Didn’t think so.
First off, you have to move out of the cities and find affordable housing in outlying areas or suburbia. Thanks to the internet you can live and work anywhere. Second you have to find work available in our new society. Waiting tables or flipping hamburgers is going to be done by robots very soon. Kiosks will take the place of humans. You’re also going to have to settle with part time work or gig work. Uber, Lyft or AirBnB is a thing of the past. You also need to start searching out food banks and pantries (and hurry up doing so and stock up) They’re finding it difficult to stay solvent also.
There isn’t much new information yet written about our brave new world yet. I only found one ebook on Amazon written by a newly unemployed fellow who seems to have successfully worked his way around the new Covid realities. It isn’t pretty but he is surviving. And that’s the new keyword: survive.
His name is Peter LeGrove and he just wrote a book entitled: How To Live Cheap In An Uncheap World. (Click here to buy his book on Amazon) Yes, everything is expensive now, so how do you survive it without a suitable income coming in? LeGrove moved his family out of the city and freelanced. He discovered how to own and maintain a car in these brutal times, how to find work, how to master the new technology and how to sell whatever stuff you owned in the before life to help you survive this Brave New World. Amy Dacyczyn can’t help you anymore. She may have been the Queen of Tightwads back in the 1990s but her tactics ain’t gonna work anymore.
And to those who tout they’re frugalistas, your days are over. Me included. 30 to 40 million people who are claiming Unemployment Insurance will have that income end right before December 26th. 6.1 million people are going to lose their homes and apartments starting today. Food prices are soaring and free pantries are running out of supply. Millions of Americans have been displaced and lost their past livelihoods. Homelessness is on the rise. Food insecurity is a common reality for far too many people. Eventually the government will run out of money and everything we have known and loved should collapse.
As more and more people find their path through this new reality, hopefully they’ll be writing books and newsletters and will share their success stories with us. I have absolutely no advice to give out to anyone. I learned the hard way through the Stock Market Crash of 1987, the 1990s recession, the Dot Com disaster of 2001 that we get more hard times than good earning years. When the housing market collapsed in 2008, it dragged along The Great Recession. I already knew that owning a home without a mortgage was our “Get Out Of Hell” card. Ditto for no debt. My husband was out of work for two and a half years. If we didn’t have a substantial savings account, we would have lost everything just like everybody else. But we didn’t. We learned how to survive.
The same holds true for today. Neither my husband nor I are suffering financially during this pandemic. Hard lessons learned years ago taught how to have a roof over our heads, food on the table and keep money in FDIC bank accounts. People laughed and nudged us on to ‘live a little’. We held firm to our beliefs. Now? Well, we’re not living a little. We’re living a lot. Others aren’t.
We all are facing the most brutal, hardest living conditions of all our lifetimes right now. A simple trek into a crowded situation could kill us and our families. Can you imagine? I can’t. No frugal tip is going to save us. Times are hard. Probably the hardest we have ever seen. Having a vegetable and fruit garden, raising chickens, stockpiling and being self sufficient wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Now? It’s most peoples’ central focus.
I have nothing much to say anymore. I used to think I was a financial expert. A know-it-all.
I don’t think that anymore.
We are in unprecedented times and I will be writing unprecedented blog posts.
I have been praying…….. a lot.
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Praying helps. A lot.
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Amen!
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Hi Cindi,
When I took early retirement five years ago due to health reasons, I was narrowly prepared for life on a small, fixed pension. I bought a little house that had been ignored for a while but was located in a lovely, affordable, quiet community. I started working part-time (from home) and used the extra income to fix my house and cushion my savings. I prefer my own healthy cooking to eating out and am usually active the better part of the day doing household chores, yard work, walking the dog, preparing meals, monitoring my finances and staying in touch with family and friends. My life has been simple for the better part for the last five years and I hope for it to stay that way. All of this has unwittingly prepared me in some way for this horrendous pandemic. Stay home, stay active, stay informed and stay in touch.
I agree with what you say. To survive, people will need to reset their priorities which includes where they live, the jobs they will be doing (and any retraining that could be necessary), and the food they eat, turning away from cheap foods that are highly-processed and laden with salts, sugars and saturated fats and moving towards simpler, healthier options which include grains and in-season fruits and vegetables. Health has to be a priority.
I don’t have many answers. I still make adjustments every day. My heart is heavy that I won’t be spending the upcoming holidays with my family but, if it means all of us stay protected then we can celebrate at some later point.
I hope you and your family stay well.
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Thanks Lisa. We all need to just take it one day at a time. Prepare for the worst. Expect the best. For the past few years we haven’t spent the holidays with any family so this year will be no better. Oh well.
Thank you for your comment.
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Hi Cindi. I still think you have a lot to say and I have been following your journey for many years now. I think the posts you have made since Covid hit were some of the most raw, truthful, and enterprising things I have read. You are a survivor. I have taken much of what you write to heart. Between you and American Dreamer sharing your experiences and encouraging me, we were able to pay our house off the first of last year and it is such a blessing to not have to worry about a mortgage anymore. I followed along with your gardening posts and my hubby planted a garden this year also for the first time in a long time. It was fun to see your beautiful zinnias, we have them this year too and I love them. They were a little bit of beauty in our world this year. I love how you find beauty in the everyday things of life and those thoughts are a good reminder to me to keep practicing gratitude like you do.
We are in some uncertain times now, and at times it is hard to keep the faith. I feel it sometimes too. You are not alone in your feelings. Thanks for sharing them.
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Thanks Chris. I have things to say but no idea what I’ll be saying. This is all unprecedented territory we’re all walking on now. One day at a time. I’m so happy you and your husband follow along. Thanks for your support.
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Yes, it is very sad that there will be so many evicted and are food insecure. There are three things you can do with money:
Spend it, save it, or share it. I will keep doing all three but still use my frugal ways to increase the share it portion by donating more To Food Pantries and Homeless shelters. Lots of my clothes are also being donated. Sincerely, Lara
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Hi Lara. We’re going to start a neighbors program. We’re buying all our neighbors holiday presents. We’re also going to give decent tips to our UPS, FedEx and postal carrier. We’re also going to give gift cards to our fave Aldi employee. These people have put their lives on the line. Many of our neighbors are silently suffering. They need to feel some care. Hope we can help out somewhat. Our Goodwill store had shut down. We may bring some children stuff to the churches now. Also when I online shop with Walmart, if you round up your total, that money is donated to local charities. People need kindness now. I hope we can help.
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Hi Cindi, Those are all great ideas! I am going to incorporate some of them. Sincerely, Lara
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