How are you coping these days? Share your story.

reply to post by schrodingers dog

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I use food coupons and ride my bicycle everywear. For Entertainment I watch Hell's Kitchen on TV.
Don't Worry Be Happy: lol:

All I can do is talk to people and tell them to wake up.
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They won't till it knocks on there door.
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My husband is a staunch Bush supporter .......... do not want to see the what is going on.
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OMG, Poor guy better wake up or he's in for a real shock. Mr. Bush IS the worst President this country has ever had.........period.
He has not helped America or it's people. He and Congress has turned there collective back on this nation. Your seeing it as it really is. He DOES NOT CARE what happens to the American people......end of story.
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I do not think he is so much ignorant, ....ah, ok...


I wish there was something I could do.
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VOTE the bums out of office.



[edit on 2-7-2008 by merky]

2And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

3Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

6Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

8Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

10Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

-Jesus

Matthew 5: The sermon on the mount.

The only hope we have in this piece of crap we currently call life, and all I need. Things will be better, so much better the human mind cannot comprehend it in it's current state, but not before getting worse.

Keep your'e faith, don't loose sight on what's to come, and be prepared.

I live in arkansas usa, and ya the same situation is going on here jobs are scarce and ur lucky to find one,Bills are just crazy,i think freedom is not haveing to pay for electricity, or food.But thats not come to the world yet.I belive there are free energy device already used in many goverment instalition,as well as dear i say it food replicators???
But for the common man there is no such thing,blam the oil and energy lobbyist,if we had the things that are realy needed the big wig money people would stop it at all cost,there plan is to hold any free energy or means of food till they have bleed us all dry and theres nothing left to get.hell Tesla was working on free energy almost 100 years ago.And he pretty well had it figured out.So im sure the "elite" have it worked out.How u think they power all those underground places lol
So my advice to anyone is to learn a few realy important thing.
1# learn how to grow food, if your in a city learn how to make contianer gardens,they food u will be eatting will be better then what u buy at a store i promise.
2# Learn what u REALY dont need, i dont have cable,but i do have teh digital converter so i get 5 free channles to wathc the news and mabey House,cuse i like doctor shows lol.
3#I done away with central air and heating,have 3 small window units and only use wichever room im in at a time, never have all them going whats the poing of cooling a room im not in.
4# if u dont HAVE to go anywhere and use gas then dont.And if u do have to drive alot buy a itsy bitsy mazda or some 4 cylinder that gett good gas milage.Haveing some cash in your pocket is way more important then looking cool in a gas guzzling hotrod.
5# learn from the people that where here long ago, indains...
we are here cuse people knew how to survive without any of the stuff we have today.So its tried and true,Live off teh land if u can.Help people if u can.and dont buy into the consumer ideal that so heavly pushed at this age of humans.

I'm a single person living alone. I make more than minimum wage, but still not alot. I see people all over who work similar jobs for similar pay and I wonder as well how they manage to live "normal" lives. I make approx. $1000 a month. I'm not paying rent for a year but assuming I was, and when I have to: The rent would be $540 a month, about average for this area I believe. That leaves $460 a month. Car payments are about $220 a month. That leaves $240 per month/$60 per week. Take away money for cigarettes, food, gas, and the electric bill... It would leave me with barely anything at all. I don't really understand how everyone else does it.

I live in Knoxville, TN with my wife and six children, ages 11 to 3. I work days and my wife works the night shift. We hardly see each other during the week but we do what we have to do. We are living basically from paycheck to paycheck and barely make ends meet. We are lucky not to have any credit cards, but between paying a mortgage, truck payment, utilities, phone, food, fuel etc... It's hitting hard with the rising prices. We keep a good attitude with our life and make sure our children are rich in family and love. If either one of us was to lose our job then I don't know what we would do? We don't want hand outs from the government and we pride ourselve with knowing we are not on welfare of any kind. We don't go to the mountains anymore because of the fuel prices and we barely leave our home at all unless we need food or fuel. I feel for all of you who are struggling right now and I hope things will change for the good. I'm positive right now but I know things can change just like that and we could end up homeless and hungry. I wish you all the best and goodluck.

Over her in the UK they keep bemoaning the terrible situation on the news, in fact the litany of sorrow on the morning radio is becoming rather tedious. Petrol's always been expensive, and it seems to be going up weekly. People are up in arms because they aren't going to make as much profit on their homes as they were 6 months ago.

I don't earn a large salary, and I have to drive to work since no trains or buses will venture out into the boonies, I suppose I could cycle but that would add another 2 hours commuting each way.... so an unlikely option. Luckily I don't have a child to support and my other half earns about the same as me.

The only real effect all this has on my life is that I have to tighten my belt a bit for buying essentials. Do some extra work outside of the day job here and there to get some extra cash, gardening, decorating, painting custom skateboards..... whatever. If you haven't got a family to support you should have no trouble weathering the storm.

Most of us in the west have forgotten the value of saving money, and we shouldn't be to lazy to do extra work.... who cares if it's picking up cigarette butts in an industrial estate for 4 hours, work's work.... and you get paid for it!

reply to post by amatrine

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Amatrine, I feel your pain.

I am still employed at 40 hours a week thank God, but I work for
the cable tv industry and am just waiting for the days
when cable is considered a luxury that people can do without.

For the hard times, My wife was just involved in a serious
auto accident that totaled the one car we did have.
The other driver had a brand new suv, and got out saying
"I thought that light was green", with a blackberry headset
implanted in her ear like the Borg from Star Trek.
She is ok for the most part except for a 2nd degree chemical burn
across her left leg and her left foot keeps swelling for some
mysterious unknown reason.
Medical claim is taking care of the doctors visits, I'm hopeful
that we will catch a break and there will be some amount left
for us when it is all over.
Insurance settlement was for $2700, and with that we
bought a 91 camry with 150,000 on it.
Great little car so far, but between buying the car for $1500 and
catching bills up, buying a few weeks of food and stocking up
on some prep supplies (she let me buy a taurus pt92 and ammo)
there is nothing left now.
With the amount of miles on the car i am fearful of the day the
transmission drops out and we have to beg rides from family for 2 or 3 months while we save for a new transmission or whatever else happens.
We could not have bought a car that would have had a payment attached to it, with my pay I could not afford it.
She does not work.

We have been trying over the last year to build up some preps but it
is a difficult goal to work towards with daily life getting more expensive than the week before.

The firearms that I do own seem more like they are a tool for pawn instead of defense, they are in pawn at least half of every month when we may be short for picking up medicine or a little short on a bill.

On a positive note I have been learning the best places to buy prep supplies very cheaply, for example we go to local auctions to look, and scored not to long ago 2 igloo 9 gallon worksite coolers and a propane camp stove for $16.
Another good place to go is yard sales.

i am a free agent. no kids. no debt. i work from home so i hardly drive. i live in a town where you can ride/walk everywhere. i'm not feeling the heat so much. i must admit that i resent the way the average american family is portrayed in the media. as this portrayal is partially true, the american family deserves the punishment.

thought it is not all your fault. you were convinced by snake-oil men. very, very convincing were they. the best salesmen there have ever been. asymmetrical, multidimensional selling 24/7/365.

---yet even through you are getting what you paid for, and sort of deserve it, i feel for you people with kids and commutes and debt, i can't imagine the pressure..... you who bought into the fraudulent thought meme called 'The American Dream.' but somehow i never bought into it. as i said, a convincing fuking sell. but i've always known about the flim-flam nature of this 'dream.' (for the record, the term 'American Dream' kinda gives it all away up front, don't ya think?)

the truth?

the economic expansion that started in 1946 is ending. hardly any of us know a life without expansion and economic hope.

solution?

tribal living, not just communal. we need to have an 'Archaic Revival'. the Old Gods must rise in us once again to help us destroy the 'fake plastic tree' world. fires must burn. chaos must rule. B/C the Kosmik Jihad has come to earth and Babylon is comin' down......

but----

living through the transition into this new world is gonna be crazy. we should plan a forward escape into the future. just forget about the past and present. full speed ahead!!

remember, it's all a dream.......

Well due to the recent surge in prices of petrol I have bought a road bicycle. It’s a very exciting experience to commute to and from school and other errands. I think I’ll be okay I mean I’m a college student am I not suppose to be poor lol….



Best Regards,

Richie

I live near Chicago & have 3 children. We own a business with over 50 employees & things are bad. I have managed to trade in the suv for a minivan, would love a smaller car but it just won't do. Our business is struggling. Customers can hardly pay us so as a result we can't pay our bills. We basically are struggling to meet payroll. Everyday I go to the bank & juggle money to try to keep things from bouncing. We don't want to lay off anyone-our employees are like family to us. We cut corners everywhere we can. My family has not received a paycheck since Feb. We have drained all of our savings, maxed all of our cards & basically ruined our credit. We are basically in survival mode. We are currently looking into a partner buying into our business. Everyone tells us we are crazy to give up sole ownership but we never did this to be rich. We just wanted to be honest business owners who could offer a great job to people who were hard working & honest like us. Now we just want to be able to cash a check & get a night's sleep without worrying about our employees & everyone's future.
I miss the days off just worrying about us....

I live in the Chicago area and see gas prices at $4.50 (diesel at over $5.00) a gallon. I am on a fixed income (disability) of $900 a month. I do not have a car because I can not afford it. I live near community stores (more expensive than the big boxes, but at least they are family owned). My rent is $475 a month and utilities are $35 for gas and $100 for electricity (my air conditioner, which I use infrequently to get out the humidity, and I've been told my bills are SMALL!). The food prices are very high and the food stamp program pays only $30 a month. (It is such a pain to get food stamps that applying was almost not worth it.) I do not have any pets and my kids are grown up, so it is just me. I go downtown to the VA to see a lung doctor and end up seeing someone different who tells me I have asthma (I don't). It costs $20 every time I go downtown, which is every other month. I am still making it and enjoy my time on the internet (phone, internet, cable bundle package $120). Once the bill reverts to normal, I will downgrade to basic channels to keep the bill at $120. I do not look forward to winter when the heat has to be on. The prices are going to keep rising (dollar falling) and I just have to cope.

gee, for maybe the first time in my life i dont feel like a weirdo, or an eccentric:

i have pinched pennies since i was a kid. still do.

my 6-month supplies of disposable contact lenses are stretched out to almost two years.

i have a small, american made car (money kept in this country), the quality of which is as good as any (2001 saturn). i live 2 miles from work. gas expenses, even at $4, is a minute concern. i would bike to work a couple of days a week, but my office building has no locker facilities (sucks to come to the office all sweaty).

i use old clothes for workouts or any physical exercise where i will get sweaty. yes, im the guy w/ the ugly Miller Lite '95 shirt on the tennis court.

i still rent-- a priv bathroom and a bedroom in someones townhome. i have a small amount of storage in his garage. there is no need for me to buy a house (and pay for maintenance, property taxes, and repairs), since i can make do with this living arrangement.

i put approximately $900 a month into a savings account (which is close to $19,000). in a few months, i will reduce that and start beefing up my Roth and other investments.

currently, im preparing for an engineering licensing exam that would promise better income.

i will never have children, because i dont think id be a good father, and i feel if there is a "purpose" for everyone and everything, mine is not to have kids.

i will probably be hated here, but im just offering a different perspective. the "crises" are not affecting me. i learned when i was a teenager to live not within my means, but below my means, and in doing so i created a safety buffer of savings. ive never borrowed anything from my parents or friends.

as for home prices-- excellent! when i want to buy a modest, reasonably sized home in a couple of years, prices may be more realistic, and not over-inflated thanks to people's greed. let them continue to fall.

People here have brought up communal living several times.

I have had friends and coworkers from other countries tell me how odd they find our lifestyle, because we insist on isolating ourselves so much.

We insist everyone lives in their own home, and your a failure if you don't.
If your over 25 and living with a parent, your a reject.

They feel we make things 100 X harder on ourselves for this. They live with their families. Everyone works and lives together. All the mothers raise children together.

And I see what they are saying.

I do believe that it has been unhealthy for us. Very unhealthy. now wonder we all spend like crazy and are medicated, we are all very very lonely.

We even take newborn babies, who don't even know for another year and half that they are a seperate being from us, and stick them in a room by themselves for 12 hours.

And these folks don't just do it for economic reasons. One coworker was wealthy. Her husband is a peace diplomat and even got a full time nanny and her children's education for free.

Instead she had her sisters move here and they watch her children. She couldn't see anyone but family raising her kids.

My ILs own a duplex of sorts. My husband and I rent the other apt. My ILs even catch heat for that.Their friends insist we should be in a seperate place. My ILs are like why? We see our children every day. I get to watch my grandchild grow up.

My MIL and my son adore each other. Every morning he has breakfast with her before daycare.They sorely miss each other if they don't do it.

Because he is surrounded by so much family, he is the happiest, most empathtic, social child you have ever met. his speech levels are incredible because he always has several adults interacting with him.

I see so many kids who are lucky if they see more then one caring adult at a time. And they look like lumps to me, even sad.

My job takes me to interact with a lot of people. I just spoke to one mother who left a co-operative. I asked her how it was, and she said it was wonderful. It was effecient, it is like one big family. (they had to leave for job reasons)

I would love to live in a co-operative.

I think the time is coming where we need to change our social structure. Live together as communities again and help each other out. Till recently, my MIL helped take care of my son, and I helped her with her aging and now deceased mother.

Now, if we insisted on being seperate, my son and her mother would have been in daycare, an institutional setting, that we would of had to shell out big bucks for.
Instead they both reap the benefits of having family there. My GMIL got to die with the ones she loved, instead of a hospital bed somewhere.

We have become so isolated we don't even know how to talk to another human being. We don't know how to chat with our neighbor.

My part time job at a local health department receives nuisance complaints. So many people just call on their neighbors over stupid stuff. To get them to think,I always start off the with the same question:

"Have you talked to your neighbor about it?"

I usually get a mumbled no.

But this has given some the initiative to talk to their neighbors about it, and it is usually met with no problems, and the nuisance neighbor is usually like"sorry, will take care of it!"and they do.


My favorite is when someone complains about the 5x5 patch of grass that is overgrown next door. Would it kill you to swing your mower over and cut it.
The best is when they complain about tall grass on the yard of a 90 y.o. widow on social security.

Get your neighbors together,help the old lady out and take turns cutting it. You get exercise, it solves the problem.

Granted there are some whackos, but they are rare, and you can tell who they are.



Now the big question here is:

How do we change American pride, isolationist mentality and get people to become community members again?

reply to post by Z.S.P.V.G.

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I've got to confess to feeling some resentment reading your comments here.

In a certain light, I can see how having kids is my fault.
However, they are a treasure I wouldn't trade for the world; I mean that literally. How on earth does a family deserve to see financial ruin?! You're not feeling the pains the rest of us are, you said it yourself. There's a growing number of people working from home and businesses are investing a lot of money to make that possible for more and more of us. But for a much larger number of us, the daily commute still exists.

Now don't think I defend everything I see people doing. In my personal opinion, the average American citizen is overweight, overfed and under enthused about the good things they've got. We have generations of people who want things handed to them, and now that they've got to take action they're screaming about it. That doesn't mean they deserve to lose the things they worked for, it means they have to wake up and take charge of their lives.

The American Dream is an unattainable ideal, something to shoot for. If you want this, work for it and you can have anything if you're willing enough. I'm not talking two cars in every garage, I mean a kid whose family has never seen a college grad in their history. Should his poverty prevent him from doing what he wants? Absolutely not. This is a place where if you commit yourself you can leave the dangerous neighborhood from yesteryear behind and raise your own family in a safer place. Where you can literally accomplish whatever you want, given you just don't quit.

No one feeling the worst effects of this problem deserves this... those that do are too rich for the effects to truly strike them.

Hey everyone

From the UK here, it looks like I'm in the same boat as alot of people here, I was made redundant three months ago because the company I worked for decided to outsource to Taiwan, this was a big blow I'm in year three of my electrical engineering apprenticeship and cant find a place to finish it now...I've even told companies I'd work for free just to get it finished.

Now I've only got a small income and its a real struggle to get by, I dont drive, wear cheap clothes and eat cheap healthy food, after speaking to advisors about finding work they told there were large number of people in the UK looking for work but not enough jobs for eveyone, I dont know what my next move will be...this is the longest period I've been unemployed for since the age of 13, its worrying to see so many people struggling to get by.

Be optimisitc...there's gotta be light at the end of the tunnel, well thats what I'm hoping for

Let's see, our account keeps going negative. Our cable got shut off, our cell phones, and our internet/phone might be next. We are dipping into an account set aside by my fiancee's parents for the house just to buy food. The car is always on empty, I can't even afford to pay my Dad back $15 he loaned me last month. The bank is loving us because our paychecks go to them to cover the stupid $34.00 a day for being negative. You finally get all the money you thought you owe the bank, get it there as fast as you can, only to be hit with another fee. The same thing goes on and on. We are spending less on materialistic things and the things we need, yet we still have little money. My fiancee and I have been fighting more over money. He wants me to go get a job... I am looking, pounding the pavement, etc. Doors open then they seem to slam shut in my face. I don't care what job it is, I could shovel dung as long as I'm getting paid. I'm starting to have more panic attacks, getting depressed, etc. Other than that were fine. We work out the fight right away, and as long as we have a roof over our head and food in the house at least for our son it's fine. Not great, but fine. We also have family that has been banding together more and sharing food, clothes, etc. That and I'm 26 years old and a friend who hasn't seen me in about a month told me I look like I aged a few years. Oh well.

reply to post by nixie_nox

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What a wonderful statement! I had a friend in the military who said as soon as her child turned 18, he would have to leave home. I made a comment about children in Europe living with their parents until they got married and she looked at me like I was crazy. I do have family near me, and my mother and I go out shopping and to lunch once a month. I treasure that time and am thankful I still can manage to live on my own. I would of preferred it if I had not gotten sick and was able to work and buy my own house, but it doesn't always work that way. Good luck and God speed to those who need it.

I know ATS members absolutely despise anyone who doesn't have a sob story and talk about how horrible they have it - and I realize I'm going to get ripped to shreds for not being a doom and gloomer (as usual) but here goes:

I'm doing just fine. I am a PhD student and I work two part time government consulting jobs as a independent contractor, and go to class in the evening. The money is great, since its part time I don't have benefits but contracting rates are so high I can pay for them out of pocket.

Gas prices went up, and I cut off my cable and went from high speed to dial up internet. Problem solved. Food prices went up, and I started clipping coupons and substituting foods for less expensive ones. Problem solved. Rent prices went up, and I took on my second 20 hour a week job (50 hours a week total working - not that much, but I do got school as well - its about 80 hours a week in the summer). Problem solved. Investments went down, I diversified my portfolio internationally and got out of sectors where I was heavily concentrated. Problem solved. I do not live luxuriously, but I live in a safe, small, and clean apartment that fits all my needs. But then again, I always have - even during times of economic excess.

All around me, people are doing fine and doing what they have always done - adjusted to the economy. If they can't afford a $50,000 car, they buy a $20,000 car, etc. When I do some charity work on the weekends, there has been no unusual surge in people looking for help. The food bank has had to switch from name brands to generic brands, that is about it.

I know, I know, not depressing doom and gloom - which is what ATS wants to hear. Oh well.

[edit on 2-7-2008 by ALightinDarkness]