Bad Times and Good Choices

Are you getting your daily vitamins, the ones that address the likelihood of depression and dark moods? Are you ready to deal with the anticipated continuing slide in the economy, in joblessness, in consumer confidence and spending, in reduced possibilities for any near term solutions to this economic morass we find ourselves collectively experiencing?

Heading off this misery will take more than Pollyanna perspectives. Looking at the bottom line trying to ascertain if there is enough to make it through whatever years remain in retirement is a profile in courage.

Giving in to the bad news and getting hyped up about all the bad news aren’t solutions. They are options, but not solutions.

Here are some possibilities we are trying in our home and family. Maybe they will offer some insight and encouragement.

*Put yourself on a diet of information intake. Do not watch or read about every downturn daily. Keep up with enough, but don’t deluge yourself with more than necessary.

*While it may be too late to salvage certain of your nest egg investments, evaluate whether, how, if you have options to protect what remains.

*Eliminate absolutely every unnecessary expense from bottled water or coffee at the Quik Stop to nonessentials in the grocery store. Shop for bargains. Engage in the new discipline of non impulse buying. Stay away from the store, if you can’t handle the need to be more prudent.

*Eliminate all together any trips that do not have a purpose or a plan to keep expenses at a bare minimum. This includes going to the mall, just strolling by the stores, reading the ads in the paper, taking seriously the come on commercials on tv, ad nauseum.

*If you want to get together with friends, host a pot luck, with everyone participating in preparing and providing the meal.

*Adjust the thermostat. No suggestions needed, you know the drill.

*Adjust your oscillating fans, for winter circulation, but turn them off when not in the room.

*Live in less space in the house.

*Take walks, with your pets, for exercise. Look at the cost of membership in a Health Club.

*Keep Giving to others. If you can’t do cash or check, then donate time, stuff, and ideas.

Getting through this may not be easy, but it may also test our will to adopt a life style that may just be very healthy, emotionally, economically and physically for us.