Recession?!?!?!?

Yea I have not posted in like what, 2 weeks, don't care.

Ok, so first of all it might be late but Spam-a-Lot was great. Worth every penny to go see. Also blackberries are sweet. Got one just a while back (Actually my last post was made with mine) I love having net access 24/7.

Now here is where I shall go crazy for just a bit. I have been thinking about this and just want to throw it out there for anyone that might not have been thinking on it. Gas has been going up constantly with only a few dips here and there. Naturally a lot of people worry about it but its making a lot of people ignore the whole situation. Food jumped us 4% in 2007. The average for the last say 15 years has been 2.5% per year. Suggested thus far for 2008 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is 4.5%. Its getting worse, not better. Not sure if its true but supposedly Sam's Club is now limiting the amount of rice you can buy per trip. Now I don't think its all connected directly. Gas is going up because of greedy oil companies as I see it. We started using ethanol and all which has a lot more farmers growing corn. Wish means there is less local crops so we have to get that stuff from out of the country. Which of course means higher prices.

Now I will go ahead and state that yes I know I don't really do much to help. I don't have a lot of options though. My wife and I do recycle now. We shoot for a repair rather then replace lifestyle. I now drink from my own coffee cup at work rather then using the Styrofoam ones they have which I also don't like to use since A) they don't exist and B) the info I found out here. I even think I am going to offer to recycle the paper from the office as well. Little things to decrease our waste are good and no do not make me a hippy. Still going to eat the red meat!

That said since I went off topic kinda, I do worry that this recession as its called is going to be a lot worse then people are thinking. I think everyone should be doing some prudent planing for the future. Now not to the extreme of "Money is going to be worthless buy gold coins" or that kind of thing. However you might want to learn a few skills that would help if you have to supplement your food from fishing, hunting, foraging or even farming. Buy a shotgun. Buy some fishing twine and a pole. Invest some of your money into tools (Not power tools), repair books, general knowledge books. If inflation keeps going up which is the better setup. An extra $100 in your account or not having to buy a $2000 refrigerator and being able to just buy a $150 part to fix the one you have? I would rather have the knowledge and tools to save me the money later. Especially if its gets to the point of $400 or more just for a week of groceries for a family of 4.

My recommendations are simple stuff, I am not saying hoard up food but perhaps when you do buy food shoot for stuff with a longer shelf life. Save money where you can. Try to learn skills that will help you save money. Buy a gun or two. Learn how to use them to hunt. IF you can even go as far as to purchases some simple reloading equipment and learn how to reload shells for your guns. Make sure to stock up a little one the needed supplies. If you have a well make sure to have a manual pump installed so if you were to need to ditch your power you could still have water.

Another thing on bills, get rid of what you can. If you have credit cards to pay off. Do so now while its more cost effective. Once you have them paid off don't use em any more. Every little bit you can shave off will help. They to get enough money saved that you could go without work for a few months and still be ok on all your bills. Have a safe too. Don't keep all your money in the bank. If it gets bad enough and to many try to pull out there money the banks will close there doors. Its not going to matter what your statement from you bank says you have, if you cant get it out to pay others then its not worth a damn.

I am going to try to keep coming here and posting different stuff that could be helpful in either recycling or surviving the recession. I am not crazy, I just think we should all be prudent and perhaps plan a little just in case. If nothing else this stuff might help you save a bit of money here and there enough to make the gas prices not bother you as much.