Are we in a recession or aren’t we?
I’m going to be honest: That question sort of galls me. Definitionally, no, it doesn’t seem that the U.S. has dipped into a recession quite yet (though when I’m feeling salty I can easily argue the opposite view), but when it comes to the aspects of daily life, it’s hard not to feel like a recession is looming on the horizon at best, and sitting on the front porch at worst. So with that in mind, it doesn’t mean anything that we’re not officially in a recession yet. Many of us are already feeling the pinch, are we not?
So whether we’re in a recession already or not, in terms of how I’m thinking about my household finances, it really doesn’t matter. I’m preparing for a downturn and I encourage you to do so as well.
What does that look like on the heels of nearly three years of global pandemic, here in the Year of our Lord 2022? A few things right off the bat:
Clipping coupons. Now, I’ve never been an extreme couponer, and to be honest I find that coupons often lead me to purchase items I wouldn’t have even bought otherwise so I often stay away from them – with one key exception. One of our local grocery store chains, Harris Teeter, has started sending out $10 off coupons, good for one week each for a month. I’ve dutifully clipped them, pinned them to our family tack-board, and when the new week of shopping rolls around I fold it up around my store loyalty card before going to shop – that way I won’t forget them at home, which is easy to do!
Cooking at home. Granted, the pandemic has broken our habit of going out to eat multiple times a week, but I must admit I’d been looking forward to ramping that back up! But with restaurant prices being what they are right now, and with me keeping one eye on the financial future, we’ve kept our dining-out budget scaled waaaaay back. In exchange, I’m working to add a bit of spice to my weekly meal plan just so it’s not a constant rotation of beans and rice (we don’t call it Old Faithful for nothing!), salads and pasta all the time. For instance, on Saturday we enjoyed Sushi Night at home – what a treat!
Scaling back future leisure plans. Coming out of the acute phase of the pandemic, LeeLee and I had been looking very forward to going to see some shows again, as well as ramping back up on our beloved travel. Right now, we’re admittedly feeling like we’re in a bit of a liminal phase with this – we don’t want to NOT plan for travel and entertainment, but we don’t necessarily want to raise the stakes on anything either until we figure out what’s going to happen. Now, I could very easily just not allocate any money whatsoever to the aforementioned, and maybe 2023 Hope will think that is what I should’ve done. But at the moment I’m taking a bit of a middle ground – not throwing money around wildly, buying up tickets to every show in town and booking airline reservations from hither to yon, but rather booking some refundable hotels, eyeing some airfares that I can easily exchange for airline credit if necessary and keeping tabs on the concerts and performances I’d REALLY like to see, prioritizing those well above anything that warrants just a “This sounds nice.”
As you well know, this blog was created during the last major recession in 2008-09. We’ve been here before. We survived. And we can – and will! – survive again. There’s no need to panic (a relative liquidated her entire stock portfolio at the very first dip this summer – please don’t do that!), but there is a need to be cautious. Maybe even a little wary! That wariness is what gives us our edge and keeps us sharp. After several years of hypervigilance against a dread disease, I must admit I am not super-excited about keeping up that level of vigilance against a potential economic downturn, but I also know I can do it – and so can you.
We’ll get through it, one meal at a time!
:)