"How I learned to stop worrying and love the recession"

[*anj*]

From Salon.com:

 

How I learned to stop worrying and love the recession

 

The market's in a slump and America's heyday is long gone. But I've found comfort in being a coupon clipper. By Heather Havrilesky

Apr. 18, 2008 | Lately I've been buying beans. Not canned beans, mind you: Dry beans. Bags of dry beans that only cost 65 cents, beans that have to be soaked overnight, beans that you have to sort very carefully to make sure there aren't any chunks of gravel in there.

This is my response to an impending recession, my move to scale back and batten down the hatches for the coming economic storm. Because, like so many of us, when I read about the subprime mortgage crisis and the Fed's $30 billion loan to Bear Stearns and the complicated credit default swaps that sophisticated market analysts claim even they don't understand, I picture our once-great nation as a shaking, teetering house of cards. I feel certain that America's heyday has come to a close, that the cocky overspending and luxurious indulgences and service-economy boom times are gone for good. When I read about hidden, complex, unregulated financial markets and peak oil and the rising cost of gas and food, it all dovetails perfectly for me with the news that "Dancing With the Stars" and "American Idol" are enormous hits, that Britney Spears is staging yet another comeback and that fighting rages on in Baghdad. Inferior cultural exports, abysmal international relations, dwindling hope on Wall Street ... Rome is falling. It's time to buy dry beans.

I'm sure I sound like one of those tender-pawed yuppies who shops at Whole Foods and buys $15 grilled salmon salads and $9 cups of prepackaged butternut squash soup prepared fresh by Wolfgang Puck's foodie minions, eats it all in one sitting, then laments that her grocery bill is too high.

But that's not me, my friend -- although I sometimes wish it were, as I drop a boneless pork shoulder the size of a handbag dog into my slow cooker. No, I'm just a regular, middle-class chump with a sizable mortgage and a husband who's hardly saved anything for retirement and a toddler who drinks organic milk and a stepkid who wants to go to college and two dogs who require almost monthly visits to the vet. Once I considered myself (as so many of us do when we're young and stupid) destined for a life that bordered on glamorous. I'm not saying that I believed with all of my heart that I'd be wealthy or that I felt entitled to huge tracts of land, but really, who knew? I figured I might meet a dashing young heir in line at the taqueria one day, and the next day I'd be flying off to the South of France to dip my toes in the crystal blue Mediterranean while nibbling on fine wine and really good cured meats and aged cheeses. These days, though, I'm old and I need a haircut and all I really want is a good recipe for black bean soup.

Which brings us back to the bean aisle at my grocery store. This is my new therapy (since I can't afford the old kind): shopping for alarmingly cheap yet nutritious foods. It's relaxing, somehow, to stand there in front of those bags -- 33 cents for split peas! Amazing! -- fantasizing about how my family will eat only beans from now on: chilis and bean burritos (Homemade tortillas! Just flour and water!) and bean soups, whole meals that cost less than $3 to make, that might feed the family for days on end. As I escape into a hazy daydream of delicious gourmet bean concoctions, all of which are practically free, I suddenly become aware that I'm not alone.

There's a stout, pragmatic-looking woman standing next to me, fondling a bag of 15-bean soup mix. "This looks pretty tasty," she says somewhat suspiciously, half to herself and half to me. "Fifteen beans!" She breathes those words -- "Fifteen beans!" -- in the same tone most people would say "five-course meal!" or "three-week vacation!" And then she just stands there, fondling and sighing for a full minute, like she's gazing out at the Mediterranean, snacking on a delightful array of cured meats and aged cheeses.

"That does look pretty good," I say, sociably picking up the same bag. It feels good to talk to a stranger about beans. I'm not only buying beans, you see, I am discussing various bean-related options with other bean buyers.

Then the woman notices the $2.69 price tag. "Too expensive!" she announces, and slaps the bag back onto the pile like it's covered in maggots. I stare at the bag in my hand guiltily. It looks really good, actually, and $2.69 doesn't seem like that much to spend. Then again, all of the other bags of beans are 50 or 80 cents, which means that $2.69 is downright criminal. "You're right!" I say, putting back my own bag. "You have to buy beans at the Mexican grocery store. They're cheaper," she tells me as she wheels her cart away.

For the rest of my shopping trip, I try to think like the woman who refused to pay too much for beans. Four dollars for half a gallon of milk? Isn't that obscene? $2.99 a pound for pears? Maybe my kid should try to develop a taste for apples. I steer clear of the aged-cheese-and-cured-meat aisle completely, fearing temptation.

This picture might seem sort of droopy and pathetic to some of my friends, who would feel as deprived as Haitian boat people if they couldn't afford their regular $70 bottles of Erno Lazlo moisturizer. But honestly, I've found my newfound role as recessionary coupon-clipper oddly soothing.

What I'm allergic to are the boom times. Reading about a "return to glamour" and lifestyle coaches and vaginal rejuvenation made me break out in hives. Sept. 11 was supposed to make us all more down-to-earth and more honorable -- you know, the way World War II traumatized the so-called Greatest Generation enough to put down the bottle and stop beating up the little Mrs.? We were supposed to choose valiant, heartfelt, courageous paths, to give of ourselves like never before, to come together as a nation. Instead, most of us have spent the last seven years monitoring Nicole Richie's eating disorder. We haven't been volunteering or running for political office, we've been reorganizing our walk-in closets and talking on the phone about the ideal age to start Botox. As the economy soared, there were far too many options available to us, but we were all whiny and depressed over it nonetheless. Wasn't it sort of lame and bourgeois to work for a living, after all? Wouldn't it be much nicer to spend all our time shopping and getting spa treatments like those women in Paris Vogue? Just a few years ago, charging too much on our credit cards seemed like a really prudent way to rack up enough frequent flier miles for a round-trip ticket to Italy. The only pressing, heavy question we faced was whether or not we should sell our houses for a hefty profit and retire to Costa Rica to start an organic milkweed farm.

Personally, I'm happier when my options are limited. I like knowing that I can't afford to move and I can't afford to quit my job and I can't afford to think about the boundless possibilities that the universe has to offer, I can only afford to clean my own stupid house and eat leftovers and lose weight so the shi**y clothes I already have don't look even worse on me than they would otherwise. Under the duress of an economic meltdown, I have to learn to bake bread and grow tomatoes and hit up my friends for hand-me-downs for my kids.

I say bring it on! As long as people aren't nattering on about cosmetic surgery or their stupid kitchen remodels anymore, as long as the skyrocketing costs of food and gas will make us stop for two seconds to consider how impossible it is to feed a family these days on our laughable minimum wage, I'm on board. We may cheer when it looks like the economy is firing on all cylinders, and there's certainly suffering and unemployment in store when it's not, but the fact is that ballooning housing prices have made the American dream an impossibility for most Americans. And those who dared to dream, charging the good life on their credit cards and taking on enormous loans that were considered absolutely normal not so long ago, are painted as fools by the same scribes who breathlessly gushed over plasma TVs and department store couture and whatever else the pushers of high capitalism were peddling during the golden age.

 

Note: This was too long to for the board format, so I had to trim it. I cut off the last 3-4 paragraphs, but you can read the article in its entirety here.

 

 

 

[fiddledeedee]

I know I'm scared about what's going on in the economy. I'm most scared because we barely make it as it is, if our economy crumbles we're doomed. I wish I could say we had lots of money saved in anticipation of this, but there's nothing to save, there's not enough to go around as it is.

 

I think it is a good wakeup call for many people, I'm astounded at how people can afford what they have. We have a very modest mortgage, an 11 year old car that could really use new shocks, we don't go on vacations, we never eat at restaurants, we don't go to the movies/theme parks/most anywhere fun, because we usually are lucky just to eat for the week! It's hard to have it all getting even worse and worse. My groceries this week were diapers, wipes, milk, eggs and bananas. I couldn't even afford more than that. I'm just awfully tired of living hand to mouth, and wish I could afford to pay my bills on time, eat, have enough clothing, and be able to save some money for later.

 

The economy makes me so nervous, but I try to remember that we have always had enough, and so many people are worse off than we are. I'm happy to have milk this week!

[RebeccaC]

Ummm this is not the first recession I have lived through and each time it is the same thing........:svengo: the end of our great country and this will be the first generation that leaves the next doing worse, ect.......... Sorry I am almost 50 and I don't worry and I don't fall for the fear tactics that sell newspapers or create ratings.

 

My grandparents lived in OK during the great depression and dust bowl and they used to tell stories that would make you hair stand on end. Grandpa saw more than one Indian drop dead from starvation on main street, ect........ Not in all my life have I seen things that bad in America and I doubt we will this time. The recession in the early 80s was quite a bit worse than it is now. Times are tight but they will get better and that is just the ebb and flow of life. :ohmy:

[battlemaiden]

That was a fun article. I couldn't quite decide if she was being tongue-in-cheek, or actually grateful for the realization period that she is in. But I chuckled at all the references to popular culture insanity- Nicole Richie, Botox, Erno Lazlo mosturizer, kitchen remodeling, and cosmetic surgery.... :lol:

 

How bad can the economy be when we still in the shedding of our extravagancies phase?

 

It gave me a real giggle.

 

Jo

[mcconnellboys]

Loved it; thank you!

[OhM]

How bad can the economy be when we still in the shedding of our extravagancies phase?

 

Yup - this sums up my feelings! Of course, like previous posters, I've lived through several of those recessions now. (Including the mid-80's, when I was looking for a job with my brand-spankin' new engineering degree while most big employers were instituting hiring freezes.)

 

We are not in any danger of losing the things we really need or value.

[*anj*]

I thought it was a fun article too. Very much tongue in cheek, although like many things there was an undercurrent of truth. I don't think this period will indicate the end of the world as we know it. On the other hand, I do think that since forewarned is forearmed it would behoove us to tighten up our budgets.

[MomofSeven]

Ummm this is not the first recession I have lived through and each time it is the same thing........:svengo: the end of our great country and this will be the first generation that leaves the next doing worse, ect.......... Sorry I am almost 50 and I don't worry and I don't fall for the fear tactics that sell newspapers or create ratings.

 

My grandparents lived in OK during the great depression and dust bowl and they used to tell stories that would make you hair stand on end. Grandpa saw more than one Indian drop dead from starvation on main street, ect........ Not in all my life have I seen things that bad in America and I doubt we will this time. The recession in the early 80s was quite a bit worse than it is now. Times are tight but they will get better and that is just the ebb and flow of life. :ohmy:

 

I just get so tired of the doom and gloom in the media and generally all around. Could it be election year attitudes? Probably. But still, like you, my parents and probably many in older generations just sort of brush it off as just another slow down in our cyclical economy.

 

"We may cheer when it looks like the economy is firing on all cylinders, and there's certainly suffering and unemployment in store when it's not, but the fact is that ballooning housing prices have made the American dream an impossibility for most Americans. "

 

THis quote really bothered me only because we live in the greatest country ever and the american dream is accessible to anyone who works hard to achieve it. My dh works hard at building his own company. Has he arrived yet? Not even close, we're still living paycheck to paycheck. Still, the fact that he can even start a business of his own is part of the American Dream. And if it fails, there are still plenty of jobs for him to fall back on. I just believe that with sacrifice and hard work, you can accomplish anything in this country whether the economy is firing on all four cylinders or not.

[abbeyej]

"We may cheer when it looks like the economy is firing on all cylinders, and there's certainly suffering and unemployment in store when it's not, but the fact is that ballooning housing prices have made the American dream an impossibility for most Americans. "

 

THis quote really bothered me only because we live in the greatest country ever and the american dream is accessible to anyone who works hard to achieve it. My dh works hard at building his own company. Has he arrived yet? Not even close, we're still living paycheck to paycheck. Still, the fact that he can even start a business of his own is part of the American Dream. And if it fails, there are still plenty of jobs for him to fall back on. I just believe that with sacrifice and hard work, you can accomplish anything in this country whether the economy is firing on all four cylinders or not.

 

I think though, that she's defining "the American dream" as "owning a home". In that case, there *are* several parts of the country where *that* is unattainable to many hardworking people -- even those with the advantage of a fabulous education to get them started. *If* owning a home is the definition of "American dream", she may be right. On the other hand, if it's defined as freedom of choice to pursue whatever career one wants, to start a business, to leave the city where one will never be able to afford a home (even if it means leaving your family and community and the only support system you've ever had) and start life over in a new part of the country... All of those things *are* available to Americans, and that's pretty amazing.

[Leta]

Also, just to add on a little, we are free to move to places where housing is affordable. There are still many places in the U.S. where housing is cheap. That's one of the reasons we moved to our current location.

[ShelzNH]

This great! Just what I needed thanks!