I grew up on stories of the Great Depression, tales of struggle and survival when times were hard. From those experiences, I learned to be frugal, to save money, and to live lean and for the most part, I’ve followed the advice learned from that era. Now, with prices rising on everything, those lessons seem to have been excellent preparation for the times ahead.

There is a great debate as to whether or not the nation is in a recession. I have seen it debated on online forums and message boards across the World Wide Web. Some say we are, others say we are not. President Bush says that the nation is not in recession and yet he approves of the economic stimulus checks that will begin going out this week in an effort to buck up the economy.   

Over the weekend, my husband and I spent a combined total of $87.50 to fill up our cars with gasoline, a huge hit that hurts the pocketbook. On each trip to the supermarket, I see prices raised and when I compare prices a year ago to the present, I am shocked at the increase. Even prices from a few months ago seem cheap now.

The focus on “going green” seems to be a way to combine saving money with saving the Earth. I have recently begun hanging our laundry out to dry, something I haven’t done in decades but that my mother and both grandmothers once did. I’m surprised how much I enjoy it and the family enjoys how fresh the clean clothes smell. It is too soon to tell how much electricity I am saving but writing about it netted me some cash when my article, “When It Comes To Doing Laundry, Let It All Hang Out” appeared in The Christian Science Monitor last week. That paid enough to pay the electric bill that came in a few days later so that is a savings of some sort.

Iced tea is a favorite drink around our home and I’ve been making “sun tea” which requires little effort and no energy save that of the sun. In addition to planting flowers this year, I’ve also planted a few tomatoes, vegetables, and herbs, things that may help stretch the food budget a little further when I begin to harvest the results.

I have always combined errands into one trip whenever possible but now more than ever, I find myself doing a laundry list of errands at one time. Some days, if I have nothing to buy and no place to go, I stay home. Our summer vacation and weekend trips won’t be taking us much farther than Branson this year, one more place where prices on everything possible are raising almost daily.

Everywhere I go, from the aisles of a local supermarket to the streets of Silver Dollar City, I hear the same refrain repeated. “We can’t afford it; we’re not buying it; we have to be careful with our money.” I talk to people who are worried about their jobs, how they can pay increasing bills, and how they worry about the overall economic picture.
Everyone is looking for bargains and most people I know, like me, have decided not to roam so far from home this summer. People are thinking simple and being thrifty.

If those are not signs of a recession, then I don’t know what could be.
What I do know is that we are all in this together, whatever happens with the economy.
Like folks did back in the 1930s, families and communities will draw closer together to weather the hard times and wait for that prosperity that I hope is just around the corner.