“What I want has nothing to do with what I need.” Anonymous
A woman at the other end of the grocery aisle picked up items, considered briefly, and then put them back. Noticed because that’s how I shop these days. We aren’t extravagant eaters and there are only two of us, but our grocery bill has doubled in the last year. Things that used to appear regularly on our table have become occasional treats. Eating out mostly happens when I’ve clipped a fast-food coupon from the paper. No more stops for a coffee that costs five bucks. If we happen to be in town at noon, we debate about lunch, and generally come home to the leftovers. None of this is a hardship. We make those choices because they are the right thing to do, but many people make them because they are the only thing to do.
A friend who helps at the food pantry says the traffic has doubled in six months. I suspect that will increase further as winter approaches. Now that heating up the house isn’t much of an issue I’ll be back to baking most of our bread. We’ll eat a lot of soup; it’s pretty cheap to make and a big pot lasts several meals. Soup and bread are comfort food.
I didn’t live through the Depression but my folks did; they never forgot it and they never let me forget it. We had all we needed, but if we could get by without something we did, so later on, when the wolf arrived at my door I was well prepared. For a time, when our kids were small, their dad had only a part time job. Our bank closed suddenly that fall; the banker embezzled a bunch of money and ran off with a customer’s wife. People had just sold their cattle and couldn’t recover their deposits. We had a note at that bank and, suddenly, it was due.
There weren’t food pantries in those days. I was a stay home mom and, of necessity, became a dumpster diver. My husband’s uncle was the guy who picked up outdated food at the grocery stores in town, supposedly to take to the dump. He brought non-perishables to us. Illegal, but who was going to check? We ate a lot of perfectly good food that would have been thrown away. The kids got powdered milk. I had a recipe for an egg-less, milk-less, butter-less spice cake, and baked it weekly. Uncle Barney found a battered bicycle at the dump and some other fairly good toys. Daddy was a fixer guy, and those items were like Christmas to the kids. One day, when I was about at my wits end, someone sent five dollars in the mail. Five dollars was like fifty today, and we made it through another week.
No matter what the politicians say, the economy is not good and may well get worse. Believe what your checkbook tells you, not the election hype. But, if you’re struggling you’ll make it, just as we did. You’ll learn some things that will serve you even after things improve. You will learn to prioritize needs and put aside wants. Hopefully you’ll teach your kids to do the same, as my parents did. But turn off the television. Everybody on there is trying to sell you a bill of goods, and a lot of it is the idea that you NEED something. No, you don’t, at least not what they’re peddling.
Meet me here next week and meanwhile, do your best. Somebody might like it.