Look, I’m sure it’s not your fault: the financial situation you’re in. And we’re all tired of that feeling, that sense that somehow somewhere people are blaming us.
Sometimes it’s like they expect you to pay with mystery for bad choices you made years ago, deccenia ago. Start your education too soon? Well, then you and your family deserve to live in misery today, 20 years later… that kind of reasoning. Sure you recognize it.
The dataset, you and I know that we cannot count on others we can only count on ourselves. That means that we have to accept our responsibility. Might be misery, might be hard, but it is our responsibility.
And that’s hard because sometimes taking responsibility means not applying the very frugal tips you read about on sites like recession hacks. For example, below we talking about not buying things just because they are a good deal. But how many times do you read that we suggest you buy more of something at the low price then they do same thing later on at a high price?
Takes common sense, no more, no less. Sometimes when all you have 10 bucks for the rest of the week it simply makes no sense to buy 10 jars of mayonnaise on special…
Spending every last dime you earn in one week — and you’re paid every two weeks.
Buying things because they are a “good deal.” “Wow, look how much money I saved,” you might say. But you couldn’t afford the amount of money you did spend, because you’re broke.
Ignoring bills. Every day, bills would come in the mail and I would toss them on a heap and ignore them. I couldn’t afford to pay them, so what was the point? The point was, if I had contacted the bill collectors and worked out a payment plan, the mail would have stopped coming, or at least they wouldn’t have been as threatening. Plus, I was damaging my credit and racking up extra fees. Stupid.
The article has two more suggestions; one good but not always applicable, and one so-so. I left them out here.
The first suggestion is to simply spend less than you earn. At the very least this is the principle of getting by, of making things work. To alter suggestion that it will increase your money is simply not always true. Some of us are living at the point where we can’t live lower than our means: we are at the maximum of the minimum.
Then again, if at any point, at any time you see the option to save any stretch of money, to cut out any kind of expense even if it’s just for a week; do it! It will help!
The other suggestion was along the lines of if you don’t have an education get one, if your job doesn’t pay enough get another job…
This tends to be advised the tends to come from a certain type of person. It’s very practical, very applicable for a good bunch of people out there. But if you’re reading Recession Hacks you likely already have more than one job and don’t have time to take on the third one nor do you have time to get in education in between.
Do I discourage either of those? No way! Do whatever you can to get an education in whatever. Start your own business, however small. Appreciate every grade you can get, every dime you can make.
But when I’m collecting the best, most practical, most applicable tips and tricks for making the most out of your low economy life, I want to keep it realistic. That’s also why you don’t read any 401(k) tips here…
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