It would appear as though our focus on provident living has just become stylish!
Daaahling, we're in vogue!!
America Becomes Thrift Nation
By NANCY GIBBS
Thu Apr 16, 2:55 pm ET
Sometimes we change because we want to: lose weight, go vegan, find God, get sober. But sometimes we change because we have no choice, and since this violates our manifest destiny to do as we please, it may take a while before we notice that those are often the changes we need to make most. We ran a good long road test of the premise that more is better: we built houses that could hold all our stuff but were too big to heat; we bought cars that could ferry a soccer team but were too big to park; we thought we were embracing the simple life by squeezing in a yoga class between working and shopping and took an extra job to pay for it all.
Now we're stripping down and starting over. . . .Most people think the pain will be lasting and the effects permanent: only 12% expect economic recovery to begin within six months, half believe it will be another year or two, and 14% believe we are at the start of a long-term decline.
Our institutions watch for economic vital signs. But maybe, for individuals, the sickness is what came before - the hallucination that debt would never need to be repaid, that values only rise, that bubbles never burst. When the markets collapsed, that fever broke. In our assumptions and attitudes and expectations, the recovery is already well under way.
. . .Unlike any other downturn since the 1930s, this one has affected everyone, either the fact of it or the fear of it. Even when prosperity returns, 61% predict, they'll continue to spend less than they did before. Among people earning less than $50,000 a year - roughly half of U.S. households - 34% have not gone to the doctor because of the cost, 31% have been out of work at some point, and 13% have been hungry. At the same time, 4 in 10 people earning more than $100,000 say they are buying more store brands, 36% are using coupons more, and 39% have postponed or canceled a vacation to save money.
. . .For all the reflexive analogies, this is not the 1930s,. . .And yet we're channeling our grandparents, who were taught, like a mantra, to use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without. Now, if you can make it, you don't have to buy it: just replace the lawn with a vegetable garden, eat your fill and then store whatever is left. Sales of canning and freezing supplies rose 15% during the first three months of the year compared with the same period last year. . . .The discount shoppers view their task as a scavenger hunt and take a certain pride in finding the bargain, cutting the deal; 23% of us are haggling more, a profitable contact sport.
No one wishes for hardship. But as we pick through the economic rubble, we may find that our riches have buried our treasures. Money does not buy happiness; Scripture asserts this, research confirms it. Once you reach the median level of income, roughly $50,000 a year, wealth and contentment go their separate ways, and studies find that a millionaire is no more likely to be happy than someone earning one-twentieth as much. Now a third of people polled say they are spending more time with family and friends, and nearly four times as many people say their relations with their kids have gotten better during this crisis than say they have gotten worse.
A consumer culture invites us to want more than we can ever have; a culture of thrift invites us to be grateful for whatever we can get. So we pass the time by tending our gardens and patching our safety nets and debating whether, years from now, this season will be remembered for what we lost, or all that we found.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090416/us_time/08599189152700
LDS Employment Resource Services
NEW
A series of Job Search Tip sheets have been developed to help you be successful in finding employment. The tip sheets go hand in hand with the Career Workshop taught at the Church’s many employment centers and highlight the most effective techniques for finding a job. The tip sheets are a great tool for employment specialists to use when coaching members.
Visit the following links for more information:
http://www.providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,8550-1-4774-1,00.html
How to darn a sock
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nY1jTVyBE0
Elder Dallin H. Oaks
"You can never get enough of what you don’t need . . ."
“Joy and Mercy,” Ensign, Nov 1991
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Teddy bear collection of 57 year-old woman in New York
