TIGHTENING THE BELT

About a year ago, my employer and I parted ways.  The General Manager aptly described the root cause as a "Poor match."  It appeared to me to be financially motivated too, but basically there wasn't a place in the company for a hard-working, professional and ethical engineer. Though my employer tried to add injury to insult by denying me not only the promised severance package, but even the small consolation of unemployment benefits. Thankfully, the Texas Workforce Commission's arbitrator heard me out and decided they had no cause for terminating me and allowed the benefits that forestalled homelessnes and allowed the simple dignity of regular meals and functioning utilities. 

Suddenly cut off from income and with very little savings, I had to deal with the harsh fact that the bills, especially rent, were still coming in as fast as ever.  Stanching the flow required some immediate lifestyle changes, not all of which were pleasant.

Rent was the main drain on the budget.  Thankfully I have an understanding landlord and live in a rather old rent house that needs regular maintenance.  I worked out an arrangement where I would make necessary repairs to the property and deduct that from the rent.  It was good for both of us because I charge less than the customary rate for contractors and have a vested interest in doing the work well.

Then there were the utilities.  Weather is fairly mild here in East Texas, so we were able to cut about 25% off the electric bill by turning off the A/C-heat when away or at night when sleeping, and turning down the thermostat the rest of the time.  We could have done more if the building were better insulated, or installing a wood stove or a ground coupled heat exchanger, but the landlord wasn't that accommodating.  I also stopped using our electric dryer and set up a clothes line (details to be posted).

I mulched the garden to minimize watering and took showers to cut back on the water used by baths. That only dropped about $7 of the monthly water bill, but everything helped.

We had the option to use or not use garbage pickup at about $33 per month.  I opted to recycle and found we could recycle all of our waste locally except glass.  However, in the past year, that amounted to less than 3 cubic feet, and I was able to take that to Austin on a recent trip and recycle it too.  I set up several trash cans in the back and separated metal and plastic.  The metal I took periodically to the local scrap yard, and with the additions from friends and neighbors, covered the fuel for transport and gained about $20/week as well.  The nearby city of Longview, TX recycles plastic, so that left the burnable and compostable trash.  We live in west Harrison County, so burning was an option, and I even saved the ashes for future soap making and garden fertilizer.  The remaining organic matter either became feed for the dogs and poultry (see next post), or was dug into the half-acre garden behind our home (also another future post).

That left three major expenses to be dealt with: food, insurance and fuel (for the cars).

Insurance was relatively, easy; I just dropped one of our two cars from the policy and reduced the coverage to liability only.  They were ten-year-old cars anyway, so collision insurance was more a convenience than a necessity.  I thought about dropping our renters insurance, $38 per month at the time and desperately needed cash flow, but thought that unwise and was later proven right (the tornado story to be added soon).  Finally, I took an online defensive driving class, $30 up front, but it dropped $20 off the monthly rate so a very good annual ROI.  The total savings were about $270 per month.

Food was a major budget item, but with plenty of fat in it (pun intended).  First to go was eating out, mostly.  Anyway, it was demoted from convenience to rare treat.  Processed food, junk food and the like were also pretty much removed from the shopping list.  Meat, milk, and other staples were all that remained.  I have since learned to raise veggies, grain, eggs and such and make my own bread and cheese, etc.  I will write more about that later.  We even make our own laundry soap from scratch! Comfort food like chocolate and wine remain at reduced levels for morale's sake, but I'm learning to vint and brew. Can chocolate be grown in agricultural zone 7B?

Fuel was both difficult and easy to deal with.  The easy part was when I cut back on the miles driven by both planning my travels better and walking more, as well as cutting out unnecessary trips.  Combining trips, taking shorter or more efficient routes was helpful.  Carpooling when feasible also helped.  None of this is new of course - but just practiced much more rigorously.  Meanwhile, I have been taking the more challenging tack of studying up on biofuels and gathering materials for making it.  This looks quite interesting and should provide material for a post later.

All told, I was able to cut household expenses in half.  The downside of this was that my input of personal time about quadrupled and I had to work much harder physically.  The up side is that I have lost weight, improved my fitness and been learning many new and useful skills and reviving others.  The timing is good too, since both unemployment benefits and the wages I have been able to get at temporary labor have been about half my professional salary - before the benefits are considered! 

In future installments, I will go into more detail and practical explanations about all of these efforts and some of the intangible benefits that resulted.

FROM THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO THE GREAT RECESSION

My parents were both born in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression.  Their parents were middle-class, white collar professionals: my maternal grandfather a mechanical engineer for Bailey Meter and my paternal grandfather a supervisor for the Bell Telephone switch boards.  Even with such advantages, times were challenging and both my grandmothers had to work hard to stretch their household incomes and make home life comfortable and secure.

I remember my maternal grandmother, Mildred Green well.  She ran a tight, orderly home that was well supplied with home-canned fruits and vegetables from my grandfather's vegatable garden.  She was still frugal even in the 70's and 80's when I visited her at their spacious home in Willoughby, OH.  My mother told me of stories of how she sewed their own clothing, made soap, and even rinsed the last bit of ketchup from the near-empty ketchup bottles with a little vinegar. What I liked best were the delicious pickles she put up in the "cold cellar" in their basement.  They were far superior to the store bought variety!

 

Grandpa Green was also handy, and though he had steady employment, he also worked hard to make the most of what they had.  He and my uncle, Thomas Allen Jr.,  reroofed their home on Kingston Road in Cleveland, OH, laid a flagstone walk and even built their own picnic table and canoe! Later, grandfather retired to a nine-acre home site that was originally improved only with a small two bedroom house and a stand of maple trees in the back.  He, my father, Mildred and others helped a contractor to greatly expanded the house to include two more bedrooms, a large living area and numerous utility and storage areas, as well as the requisite workshop.  The living great room was built with massive wooden beams hewn from trees he'd felled on the site, and another room was paneled with lumber of similar origin. Grandfather also built a large shed and a maple sugar shack in the reat of the property.  He and friends would tap the maple trees in late winter and boil the sap down to make maple syrup and sugar.  In the summer he mowed the large meadow in front with a tractor he'd fashioned out of an old Ford Model A and a mowing bar.  When us children would visit, grandpa would tinker with a steel merry-go-round he'd bought and refurbished for such events so we could go round and round as long as we liked. 

As I child I just enjoyed the rich and varied pleasures of visiting my grandparent's home in Willoughby.  As an adult, I greatly appreciate the hard work and careful thought that went onto creating that small, family paradise.  It is especially meaningful to realize that all those good things came out of the hard times they endured in the Great Depression and the privations of the second World War. 

Now our small family is also struggling in a time of economic hardship and war.  It may not be so dramatic as it was in the past, but the opportunity to make something good out of it is at hand.  Inspired by my parents' and grandparents' examples, I am optimistic that we too shall emerge better for it and enjoying a good life in the more prosperous and peaceful future.  In future posts I will elaborate on some of the things we are doing along those lines.

SURVIVING THE GREAT RECESSION

Today I am starting my first blog.  The goal is to chronicle my efforts to continue living life fully during The Great Recession, desipite significant challenges and reverses. The purpose of this is to generally thank those who have helped and encouraged me and to make available good advice and inspiring stories to others in similar situations.

Check back for more details as they are added.