Americans these days are concerned, or downright fearful, of what the future may hold. With the current economic situation and all of the unrest around the world, we have a reason to be concerned. This is not 1950 any more. We do not have a lot of confidence in our leaders, our economy, or even that we will have a job tomorrow. The era of "buy what you want, when you want it" is over.

Most people aren't buying big ticket items any more. Existing home sales are way down. Car sales are down. People are not eating out as much. Everyone is trying to find ways to save money.

For businesses, that means not hiring any new employees or in some cases, laying off. For the working class, that means eating more Mac and Cheese instead of grilling steaks every weekend. We try to find less expensive ways to entertain ourselves. The big problem with this is that it is a vicious cycle that just feeds into itself. Say you own a moderately priced, sit down restaurant and you have 12 employees, 3 cooks/chefs, 6 servers, 2 busboys and a hostess. You have owned this business for several years and have always managed a reasonable profit. Suddenly, the banks are not issuing small business loans and you need a new grill. You have the choice of doing without the equipment, buying it from your own salary, or getting it fixed as best you can. You decided to get it fixed and hope you have enough profit in the next couple of months to be able to buy a new one. Then one or two of the major employers in your community begin to lay off portions of their work force. Those people will have a hard time finding new jobs in the current economy so they will stop eating out. Your business drops off. You change your server scheduling because you don't need all of the wait-staff standing around getting paid with nothing to do. They all get fewer hours and fewer tips. So their personal spending is affected which affects other businesses. Your business slows to the point where you have no choice but to lay off 2 of the servers and 1 of the cooks. So now you have 9 employees. During the busiest prime time rush, your service is slower because you have less help. This causes customers to not come to your restaurant as often. Less business means you either have to raise prices or lose money. Raising prices causes fewer customers, who are also trying to save money, but losing money means that you cannot afford to upkeep equipment, buy quality ingredients, or pay a decent wage. You have no choice but to close your doors. Now there are 9 more people out of work.

All of these things are inter-dependent with every other business in the community. If even 1 business goes under, it effects everyone. And this is happening all over the country. And small communities are being hit the hardest. They are the ones who can least afford for a business to close it's doors.

People are scared that if the economy doesn't get better, all of the jobs in the US with the exception of teachers, public safety(police and firemen) and union jobs (which are protected by the big wigs in Washington) will simply go away. The jobless numbers that we hear about on the news are ONLY the new unemployment claims, not those who have been unable to find a job for the last 18 months.

But even so, you think 10% isn't a bad unemployment number. But think of it this way. That is 1 out of every 10 people you know has just gotten laid off. You know 30 people? 3 of them got laid off this month. And the next month, 3 more get pink slips, and so on. Eventually, most of the people you know will be without a job. Some, maybe half, will be able to find a job of some sort, but it will probably not be for the same pay they were getting before and it probably will not be in their chosen career. It is just a job to keep the bills paid. And it will take them longer to get that job because employers do not want to hire over-qualified people for entry level positions. And there is a lot of competition for every job opening.

Is it any wonder people are nervous? According to the US Department of Labor, 14.6 Million people in the US, and 6.6 Million of those have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks. Don't believe me? Here is the press release from the DoL dated Aug 6, 2010. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm .

Does anyone honestly think that 14.6 million jobs will miraculously appear in the US so these people can go to work? Not very likely.

Saving money is fun!

There are times when I wonder just exactly why people will spend so much money on things that they don't really need or even want. We will spent $20 a plate on a steak dinner when you can grill your own for less than half of that. We will spent $30,000+ on a vehicle that uses $80 worth of gas a week when you can spend $8,000 on a very good used car that gets much better gas mileage. We feel the need to have our climate controlled homes set at the perfect temperature at all times regardless of the fact that the outside air is near the same temperature. All of our appliances have to have a digital clock on them so we know how much time we don't have before the minor event in our lives.

When my husband was concerned about getting laid off in January, we went thru everything in the house looking for ways to save money. My daughter only have 1 more year of high school before she goes off to college and we didn't want to have to move her away for her senior year. We looked at every expense we have, from house payments and utilities to where we spend our money.

It became a game with me to see where I can save money in the house.

We have a clothesline so we do not have to run the clothes dryer so much. That does a couple of things. 1) you are not using the electricity to run the dryer, and 2)you are not heating up the house with the dryer and making the AC have to work harder to cool off the house. Granted there are some things I still use the dryer for, like towels. They just get too stiff out on the line. But I can dry them on the line, then run them for about 15 minutes in the dryer with a damp hand towel to soften them up. Much better than the hour-hour and a half it takes to actually dry them completely in the dryer.

We have also been changing out lightbulbs to CFLs as they burn out. I think we have gotten about 90% of them changed now. Another thing is to turn off the lights is you don't need them. Every morning I go thru the house and turn off all of the lights except the lamp that I use behind the couch. Even though the lights all have CFLs in them, I have enough sun light coming thru the windows during the day to see. I don't need any extra lights.

I don't use the furnace or the AC unless the weather outside is extreme. We have had the windows open for about 2 months now here in Arkansas and it has been just fine. The pollen had us all sneezing for a couple of weeks but the worst of that is past now. We have been having 70+ degree days and low 60s at night so it has been just great. A couple of ceiling fans and open windows on opposite sides of the house keeps a very nice airflow going. I will probably be running the air this summer because it just gets so stinking hot here, but I will have it set on 78 or so.

On the grocery side of things, I have just been getting creative.

$2 a day for the kids to eat school lunches every day was just too much, so they have been taking their lunch every day since January. Lunch meat is expensive so I have been making ham out of pork loin, salami ( see previous posting on the how) and roast beef out of , duh, a beef roast for their sandwiches. Every now and then, they will get a PB & J just to change things up. I have been buying big bags of chips from the Dollar Store and putting it in baggies for them. I can get about 6 lunches out of a $1 bag of chips for them. I will make a pan of brownies and individually wrap them in plastic wrap then freeze them. That way I can take them out one at a time for lunch or snacks. A reused plastic bottle will hold juice or water or tea, add a piece of fruit and they are good to go.

I also looked at the grocery items that we used the most. Liquid coffee creamer was way up toward the top of the list. My husband and I would go thru about 2 quarts a week. And at $3.00 a bottle, that was just too much. So I did a web search and found that it is very quick and easy to make at home. Healthier too since I can actually pronounce all of the ingredients. Powdered milk, brown sugar, and either vanilla or cocoa powder.Wow! What a difference it makes. And I already had all of that stuff in the kitchen anyway.

I have already starting canning food for the summer. Strawberries are coming in season here so I have been making jam. Yesterday, I went to the local National Chain grocery store to get marked down produce. I got 22 ears of corn for $3.75 and 4 bags of apples for half price. 3 cantaloupes for $.99 each and 6 lemons for 89 cents. I also got 4 heads of lettuce for 59 cents each. Your local grocery store can tell you when their produce trucks run. You can usually get a really good deal on the produce they mark down or pull to rotate stock. Buy in bulk and can or freeze it. You can eat healthier for a lot less.

It is really fun to find creative ways to save money. Just go thru your house and look at the way you live. Are there options to the way you do things? Living well on less money is not really that hard. It just takes a little effort to find the right way for you.

Resolutions? Or lifestyle?

I sometimes think about the futility of New Years Resolutions. We all take the time to think about things we want to change in our life. Lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier, stop smoking, take more time with the family, etc.

I think I will just not make resolutions. If I decide something needs to change in my life, I just need to change it. Why should I wait until New Years to start? This is especially true for health issues. Every day you put it off is one more day that you are unhealthy.

I have started a different type of change. I am on a quest to spend as little money as possible. I have a goal to buy a small farm in the hills. To be able to do that, we will have to save every penny we can.

So far this goal is going fairly well. I have cut our grocery bill by about one fourth, cut our electric bill by almost a fourth, I have made soap and laundry detergent ( way cheaper), I have only bought bread once in almost 3 months ( making my own bread), and making the meat we have been eating go alot farther. I even have a tiny little garden for a few select high yield veggies like beans and tomatoes. My daughter bought me a canner for Christmas so I can put up my produce. Yet another savings.

My kids have sort of gotten into the spirit of the change. My daughter is really into the saving money thing. My son just likes the home made bread. Neither of them wants to move to a farm. Oh well, we can't have everything.

My husband is all for not spending the money. And he also wants to move to the hills. It took me a really long time to convince him that you just can't feed a family of 4 on $200 a month. He started going to the store with me when my Arthritis got so bad I had trouble lifting some of the packages. Now he knows just how expensive it is to buy groceries. On the plus side, he does like garden fresh veggies and he doesn't mind eating a lot of beans and pasta. Fresh bread is a plus. He loves me so he humors me in my sometimes crazed search for the almighty bargain.

I really want that farm. And there is a lot of work going into getting it. If it takes a lifestyle change to get it, then that is what will happen.