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Our frugal future?

Not likely. Used to be the Amrican dream was to own your own house, etc. Nowdays the dream is the same but the reality of it has changed. Now it seems to be, at best, to die with your needs met (somehow) and some of your wants also met (somehow) and just far enough in debt to accomplish all of it. All the while you've just got to make sure you've got enough life insurance to actually pay it all off when you do die and set everything up so the government doesn't get any more of it than they already do...
 
Yes, I do see a different America. People are going to put a lot more thought into their purchases from now on. I have noticed even this board has changed from "buy everything" to "buy it only if you need it".
 
Got the car paid off, paid off all credit cards, resolved to be debt free. Thats when the sh1t hit the fan. Its hard not to go right back in, but we are currently living out the tight times waiting for sunnier days.

Not sure if frugal is the word, maybe simpler?

Aaron
 
I think this site is not a good place to ask this question. Most people here won't have to change much, as a whole. We come to seek advice on how to keep our 40+ year old farm machinery working. I can't count how many times someone has been looking for info on his '90 Buick or '93 half ton chevy. We come asking for gardening advice. Some offer plans for homemade wood furnances or an opinion on which chainsaw to buy, what tools last and what ones don't. We have stories on how we keep the family warm and fed when the power is out. People here are going to do as they always did. That's why I love this site. Real hardworking Americans (and some from abroad) looking out for each other. Offering lifetimes of information and asking for nothing in return, except good conversation. Conversation which is hard to find anymore. I think I will enjoy a simpiler life, if that is what's instore. (Hope I won't have to give up my 'puter and internet). I don't have any children now, but hope to in the next few years. I would love for my kids to learn how to can vegetables, or husk sweet corn, bale hay for the neighbor's cows, and shovel snow by hand for the elderly neighbor. Not that they can't do these activites in good times, but I think it will sink in more as they get older knowing that it HAD to be done that way and it wasn't just the oldman being a harda**.
 
We are debt free, but we are nervous about the future. Simpler times they may be, but I wish they included a few more $$$!!!
 
You might be right, there are probably better places to ask a question like this. But I have been on this site for a long time, and find there is a lot of wisdom here. Ya gotta have finance for the romance!!!
 
I don't have any children. I'm just getting out of college. And I see a real world of... retarded people and stupid things.
 
I have always been frugal. Never did the credit card or car loan debt thing. 30 year fixed rate mortages are 4.875%, after writting off interest the effective rate is 1% or so. They are practically giving away houses now, even in great areas. We are out to spend every penny we can borrow. Soon the government is going to start printing money to pay off its bills and inflation will rage. It feels good to reduce income taxes and pay off debt with inflated dollars.
 
No, I really dont. My philosophy has always been, if I cant pay for it, I dont need it. I've borrowed money 5 times in my life. I hate it, absolutely hate it. Feel like Im a slave to whoever I own. Once, it was float to buy some cows when I was in highschool, paid them off in 30 days. The big one was to buy my first farm, demand note in the mid 6 figures. That one hurt 10 percent interest. I did buy one truck financed since the rate was better than my CD's were earning but I couldnt stand it so I paid it off. Another 30 day float to buy some property that I was turning around fast. Then the last time was on a house. I kept that one for years since my ex view money differently than I did. It was the only way I could get her to not spend everything.
 
I think we're entering a precarious phase for our country. Watch what happens to the autoworkers...if Congress REQUIRES them to take a pay cut, who's next? Plumbers? Steelworkers? Welders? It's always a slippery slope when we give that kind of power to government, no matter who the party is. And wage deflation cuts consumer purchasing power...at a time when consumer purchasing power is what we need to roll the country out of this recession, it just seems counterintuitive to start demanding pay cuts for any workers.
 
Not very likely, todays folks want it all and want it NOW. I was always carefull spending only on what i needed. Even my own kids but one think they where done short growing up, and buy now whatever they fancy , they owe more on the fancy stuff than i ever did on the whole 2000 acre ranch. Get with the times Dad, is what they say.
 
With todays generation teaching the next generation i highly doubt it. Everyone wants it all and they want it new and now. They dont want to have to start out with the used item and work there way up to the new item. They have to impress and be sumthing they are not.

My youngest daughter whos 24 works at a local manufacturing plant. Shes became friends with a girl whos 36 and has 5 kids. Husband is an engineer and the kids are spoiled. Each kid has there own computer, own TV and cell phone.

She was telling me at supper that her and her friend were talking about "credit". As my daughter wants to buy a new car and that she wasnt quite able to becasue she hasnt established enough credit yet. She said Her friend went into a rant saying how the whole concept of having credit was stupid. That people shouldnt have to have good credit to purchase stuff like cars, homes, credit cards etc and becasue of the whole credit concept that younger people were being disinfranchised and being kept down in the world.

My daughter said and i think shes nuts about that.

I raised her right, so far.
 
I'm looking to retire next fall--maybe work two days a week. As long as I have a few bucks for tractor gas or to go fishing now and then, I'll be a happy camper. I don't need a new car--I can take the old truck anywhere and not worry about scratches.

Every since I was a kid, I've had a great time outdoors without a nickle in my pocket--Nature has so much to show us if we look. I'm as excited as a kid on Christmas morning to find a new vine of bittersweet, wildflowers, or native grass where there hadn't been any before.

I've never been frugal, but I've learned the discipline to save. Times ahead are going to be rough. Even if the big 3 get rolling, they need to make cars people want and can aford. I don't see that happening with Congress trying to run the companies.

:Larry in MIchigan
 
NOPE. Being frugal is part of our past, but there will be a lot of gnashing of teeth before it is part of our future. Too many iPhones, Xbox, Wii, and other gadgets out there to go along with spoiled children and worse parents.
There are also too many people chasing Mr. Jones and worrying about their "image".
 
It's going to take a lot of training. Watch the news, in particular the young news casters, when the market (DOW 30 industrials) goes up 500 points. They are all smiley faced and think well the worst is over and we are on our way to prosperity once again. They don't seem to understand what makes an economy work and work well. The real turn around won't occur until there is reversal of the balance of trade and people are earning a living selling goods that are needed, priced right and can't be easily made by some foreign worker undercutting the cost of wages.
 
as far as debt i think were going to see a return to the past,we will have to adopt the old pratice of "if i cant pay for it,i'll get along without it" except for houses and cars, and i expect to see some different ways of financing those too,most of us older folks were brought up that way, and most havent strayed too far, i myself can sell 1 dump truck now and be totally debt free, but we also have about 30 years worth of young people who have the brain set of "i want it all, and i want it all now" they look at the guy next door with all his stuff and cant seem to concept that it took the guy 50+ years to get all that stuff, they instead get all the credit cards they can and get loans to buy all the other stuff with the intention of paying it all off someday without any real idea of how there going to do that, those people are about to get a rude wake up call
 
WE need to DEMAND Congress takes a pay cut ! They put this country farther in debt than anything else.
 
BOBM25.........when you and your kids bale hay for your "OWN" cows is when you'll get the full benefit of everything you've read here on this site.
Lifes Blessings to you.
 
I'm debt free,have some savings,and will never borrow money again.Young people need to save up 25% of their own money for a down payment on a house or a car.They need to take some ownership in stuff.120% loans on houses doesnt work as so many found out.

I have no cell phone,no 4 wheeler,no fancy TV,drive older vehicles,take no expensive vacations-etc.All my farm machinery is older and paid for.I have all I want or need and do live frugal compared to lots that I know.
 
Watching It's A Wonderful Life the other day, thought the comments below related to our current economic situation and wondered you was more correct and prophetic.

Potter: You see, if you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money. What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty, working class.

George: What'd you say just a minute ago?...They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home. Wait! Wait for what? Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken-down that they...Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five thousand dollars?
 
Hi Larry,I am retired and agree with all that you said but am wondering about the part where the auto makers should make cars that the people want. I think that they are going to have a hard time with that part. They were building the large vehicles because that is what the people were buying. Those people could have bought the smaller ones before the high gas prices but most didn't. I have never had one of those small cars and don't intend to buy one either. In fact I have never bought a new car. Some people need a larger vehicle because of the number of people that they haul or to haul supplies, a camper or whatever. For myself, it doesn't pay to even spend $1,000 for a small vehicle and then buy plates and insurance and have a place at home to park it, to save a little gas when I don't need the larger vehicle. Now someone who drives a lot of miles to work and don't mind a small vehicle it may pay off. I car pooled to work a lot even though it was only 5 miles because it kept another vehicle off the road. I am wondering what type of vehicle the big three should build that the people would really want and would buy. An electric one? There goes our electric rates up again. :eek:)
 
It's not a choice; most of us don't have the resources to continue "conspicuous consumption", no matter how many say it's patriotic or necessary to keep the economy going, despite the fact that there's a lot of economic truth in those slogans.
We've supported half to two-thirds of the world with our credit purchases, and the world's economies, as well as ours, are contracting because there's no more free and easy credit.
Those of us who never believed in all the producers/retailers/governments urging to "buy now!!" will have less to lose, but we'll all be hurt to some extent.
 
Yea,but I thought that just came with old age. As for the kids,they'd better live doing without. That's how they were raised. You do without now,build real assets and get rewarded for it later. There's a whole generation that had better be relearning that. They'll be better for it in the long run.
 
I doubt it. For some maybe. But I think as soon as most dont feel thier jobs are at risk. They will go back to spending at will.
Now those that took it up the shorts. I think they will.
 
I'm already more frugal than my parents, most folks in my generation here (the rural ones anyway, lower - mid 30s) are the same. Took over the finances on the farm this year, now I'll spend the next 5 years at least trying to pay Dad's bad debts because he certainly never cared about paying anything off as long as he could get more credit somewhere.
 
Yes, I would love to have my own "cows". That is too big of an undertaking to start from scratch. Grandpa sold the milk cows back when the uncle was very young. You can be assured there will be some beef feeders around though. I like feeding cattle. Your own t-bones are always better than the store's. Merry Christmas, Randall
 
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