No matter how many times you try to cross the street of life these days, no matter how many times you look left and right and start to safely cross; you are going to be hit by a huge bus with the destination sign in the front bearing the words “RECESSION” There is nothing you can do to escape this collision, it is just going to happen. There is one saving thing, just like in a collision, your airbag. Your airbag is not going to prevent the collision, it will not prevent damage from happening around you…but it just might save your face.

So what exactly is an airbag that will save you from the Recession Bus? (Don’t worry, I am not going to go into some Greenspan jargon. You have Fox and CNN for that. You chose to come here, so “ME” is what you get.) State Farm Insurance currently is running a commercial about during a recession, people get back to the basics.

Basics? That is a pretty scary word sometimes. Basic is black Maxwell House at home instead of the frothy latte you get in a handsomely designed Styrofoam cup. Basic is going to the consignment shop and picking through the well picked blue jeans from the winter collection to find several pairs that you can chop up and make into shorts and blue jean skirts for your child instead of ordering from the catalog. Basic is sitting in your living room playing charades with your family instead of playing the highly commercialized, high price tag, newest “interaction” game on a console. Basics is finding how many new and creative ways to prepare meatloaf instead of a three coarse meal brought home in a bag.

Don’t worry though, the basics will never include settling for generic toilet paper. This is just a crime against humanity and should only be purchased if you are considering a night with your friends out rolling someone’s house.

I recently hit a BOGO sale on Cottonelle (heaven on a roll, no poke through goodness) and stocked up and have a small toilet paper fort built in my garage. The survivalists may be on to something. Stocking up. How my heart leaps with joy and goosebumps cover my body when I see no less than 6 months worth of toilet paper all waiting for me to use when I need to. I skip happily by the paper good aisle in the store knowing that I don’t need to purchase anything there this time.

Nationwide there is a bit of a survivalist movement going on. Heirloom seed magazines are selling out a record speed. Canned rice and beans are flying off the shelf by the bulk. Spam recipes are once more making its way into the average household. Gardens and chicken coops are going up in suburban America as people begin to find a better way.

Is this really a better way or is it just the way that generations have survived tough economic times before us? I am going to pause here and let you view a video that I have enjoyed here recently…

Now that you have viewed that, is all this home baking, Starbucks denying, family night on the couch, 200 lbs of rice and beans in the pantry, generic ketchup buying really a bad thing? I won’t go as far to say we are in a position to start making our own laundry soap, candles or raising a cow next to our swing set so that we can still have beef from time to time. But getting to the basics, that’s something that I can live with. As long as I don’t have to use the generic sandpaper toilet paper.

I can proudly say that I have an airbag full of rice and beans. How about you?

Categories: Economy, home life, Recession