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Thanks, High Plains Retired - it'll take all DAY to get that song outta my head now.
Seriously, yes its true - rural living is more practical and cheaper - as long as you have a skill or two. Sorry to hear about your freezer - but if it is truly dead you can always remove the electronic guts and - voila! a smokehouse!
Smoked bunny is particularly good... Two birds with one stone...
Good grief, granny! I don't smoke my bunnies. I feed them!
However, a smokehouse is great for fish and meats like beef and pork.
Thanks, High Plains Retired - it'll take all DAY to get that song outta my head now.
Seriously, yes its true - rural living is more practical and cheaper - as long as you have a skill or two. Sorry to hear about your freezer - but if it is truly dead you can always remove the electronic guts and - voila! a smokehouse!
Smoked bunny is particularly good... Two birds with one stone...
Hi Granny. I've done most of own auto mechanic work for years and have been recently learning more about plumbing and electrical work since we bought this old place. I've always been more of a jack of all trades and less of a master of none. I probably should have been living rural many years ago but a small retirement made while working in several major American cities makes it a bit easier.
I actually found out what was wrong with my freezer today when I removed the plate covering the condenser coils. It has a broken defrost heater. Being an older Wards freezer, the part had to be special-ordered and will take up to two weeks to get here. Right now I've got everything jammed into a side-by-side refrig.
It's been many years since I tried cottontail but I recall that we did prepare one one evening while I was doing field work in the southeastern desert of New Mexico. As I recall, it was quite good.
I still have plenty rabbits around this place and I even shook an immature one out of some landscaping rocks in my front yard today while weed-whacking. The population is definitely less than it was but while my young grandchildren were here a week ago, I had to quit shooting the critters and use live traps. The kids helped me remove several live ones to an abandoned farm house several miles down the road.
Are you prepared for a lower standard of living than you have lived in the past?
I won't have a lower standard of living because my DH and I prepared. We spend well below our means and have no debt. We bought some land in TN and built our own off grid house. This year I planted my first garden and I am learning to can. We never lived on borrowed credit and life is good that way. We are in an area that when the Great Depression hit America our locals way of life didn't change at all. They were already bartering, helping neighbors out, growing their own food and basically taking care of their community. I want to be a part of that.
I don't want to be a a part of the society that believes the more garbage you own(and probably debt) the better your life is. Life is about experience and doing things for yourself. Not the things you buy. It's so sad that people think buying things makes them happy.
Do you think America/Americans will be able (in the shorter term) to handle their standard of living at a lower level?
I think the ones that fell on hard times and have struggled before will make it. I think the spoiled Americans that believed it was their right to have everything before they put the work and effort in to get those things will crash and burn.
Are you prepared for a lower standard of living than you have lived in the past?
I won't have a lower standard of living because my DH and I prepared. We spend well below our means and have no debt. We bought some land in TN and built our own off grid house. This year I planted my first garden and I am learning to can. We never lived on borrowed credit and life is good that way. We are in an area that when the Great Depression hit America our locals way of life didn't change at all. They were already bartering, helping neighbors out, growing their own food and basically taking care of their community. I want to be a part of that.
I don't want to be a a part of the society that believes the more garbage you own(and probably debt) the better your life is. Life is about experience and doing things for yourself. Not the things you buy. It's so sad that people think buying things makes them happy.
Do you think America/Americans will be able (in the shorter term) to handle their standard of living at a lower level?
I think the ones that fell on hard times and have struggled before will make it. I think the spoiled Americans that believed it was their right to have everything before they put the work and effort in to get those things will crash and burn.
According to many out there you already lowered your standard of living. You learned how to do things yourself. When things get bad those who haven't are the ones who will have to learn to live with "less" but this less is probably much less than those who are wiser.
And knowing that "stuff" isn't what its about is somethng that so few people know in this culture. It doesn't bode well for them. But for those *unlucky* enough to have been homeless, or on the verge, or have seen all the "stuff" go away, its not so hard to remember.
There is one overiding fact regarding credit, it was set up as a supplemental wage fattener. Most people in the fifties were living on their wages, by the sixties, they were beginning to see how their indebted neighbor's were able to have things by signing on the line. Next came the cards, gas, dept stores, direct cash advance, etc. Added to that strung out payment plan was the fact of more Women entering the workforce.
I don't blame those who were out living it up, they were simply responding to our huge growing economy, they were contributing through their purchasing, after all, wasn't that really the dream? We now see the fingers pointing at those who bit off more than they could chew, but I think it was just the way we were, blinging was the foundation of this huge economy we were all buying into, it doesn't matter that some bought big homes while others joined in on the huge explosion of investment wealth.
What does matter is that we can now see that it was a setup, yes, the excess was truly astounding, but the American dream was to get more than the previous generation, more what? More of everything, because that is how we defined success, I know that most of us can remember the smiles on the faces of those who were proudly quoting the rise in their homes equity, as though it was some kind of personal achievment. This newfound wealth was reeling in the money for investment houses and other purveyors of the American dream.
As you drive in the suburban world of strip mall shopping, you can see the problem, a nation of folk's who couldn't or wouldn't get to far without running into another copy of the same rows of the same stores every five miles. These people didn't build this construct, they didn't want their neighborhoods filled with cars and stores, but, they did like the "convenience" of it all. This paradox is played out across America like those drum loops from the disco days, we no longer can support the stretched dollar that credit gave us, in the future we'll have to make some big changes, but what about all those jobs at these redundant outlets of consumer heaven? Are we to think that a scenario of less buying won't crack the hull of the general economy? It isn't that simple, is it? Yes, we will go down with the rest of the world, grasping at solutions while failing to see the real horror, and that is, that we built an entire economy on the premise that we could sustain everyone on the sale of trinkets and beads........
My husband and I live on about $1200 a month, plus expenses for college for the two of us. I'm glad I don't have that exorbitant standard of living that my parents have, and his parents strived for before they ultimately lost it.
We drive one paid off, ten year old car. We splurge on our pets and going out to eat (cheaply). We actually talk and go to the park instead of sitting in front of the TV. If we want to watch something, we rent a movie or hook up the laptop to our cheap movie projector and watch a documentary online.
Tomorrow I have a shopping date with a friend...Goodwill, and maybe a coffee afterwards. I think it'd be great if everyone else's standard of living came down to mine, because even though I'm technically at poverty level, I'm very comfortable. Two credit cards, that we carry a bit of a balance on, but regularly pay off.
No latest, greatest I-phone, gaming systems. No more getting/leasing a new car every couple of years, No more betting your life saving into the speculative stock market looking to become the next millionaire. No more asking ridiculous sums of money for a box where you hang your hat at the end of the day (otherwise known as a house.) etc., etc.
Yes I think irrational exuberance is out the window at this point. And yes I do see our standard of living lower overall. This actually if you really look at was pretty damned high.
So at this point let me get to the questions I want to ask all the Good people of the CD community.
If it comes down to it.
Are you prepared for a lower standard of living than you have lived in the past?
Do you think America/Americans will be able (in the shorter term) to handle their standard of living at a lower level?
I'm ready for the rest of America to come "down" to my level. I have a job I love that doesn't allow much in the way of luxuries. Don't get me wrong, my standard of living is still far, far above most people in the world. But I've never owned a thousand dollar name-brand handbag and never will. Frankly I'm a little sick of my television telling me that such silliness is necessary for a happy life. I hope in the years to come we'll all rediscover the joys of a simpler life.
Since the big crashes started last year, I've actually begun to change the way I look at spending and debt. For decades I've been the type of person who constantly took on more debt and bought more things. Yes, I had a very pleasing lifestyle for many, many years. But now in my fifties, I'm looking at things a little differently.
I'm now into paying all my debt off. I've got a couple of larger bills that only have a little more than a year to go. All my credit card debt has been paid off - thought it would never happen. I'll be moving to a much lower cost of living state in a couple of years.
I still have my high paying corporate job and am taking advantage of the nice take-home to get my fiscal house in order. I got a good amount of money in 401ks and a nice corporate pension plan. Assuming a total economic collapse doesn't occur, I should do OK when ready to retire. In the meantime, I'm putting nearly 25% of my before tax income into my 401k.
Ya, there's many material things I would still like to purchase, but the serious economic problems this country is experiencing is scaring the !*^&$# out of me. I just want to hold onto all the 'things' I bought over the years. I'm not looking to add to my list of toys at this time. In a couple of more years, I'll be able to make due even with a 70% cut in pay. That's a nice situation to be in and I'm working like crazy to get there.
Perhaps we need to rethink what it means to live, not just the "standards" that are imitation and mimicry.
If one spends time doing "work" and enjoying it, and meeting one's needs, what more can you ask for?
The lifestyle of the idle rich is a poor goal to aim for.
Prosperity is based on the creation and exchange of surplus usable goods and services, and the time to enjoy same. Making more, with less, for more to enjoy, is admirable. Making "money" by financial manipulation is not admirable nor desirable - and is ultimately destructive to civilization. Rewarding consumption and penalizing production is counter to reason, too.
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I don't smoke my bunnies. I feed them! 
