Flash Backs and Digging In

I am having major flashbacks. Talk of unemployment and lay offs have dominated the news for weeks now and last week's numbers of lost jobs in both the US and Canada were shocking - and worse than anticipated.

The long wirey tentacles of these statistics have far reaching affects and inevitably, the reality of them have penetrated the lives of my family members. My sister's 26 years of service to the phone company offers little shield from impending lay offs. Her husband's newspaper job hangs in the balance - uncertainty from recent mergers - and now purges. My brother also works for the now same huge communications conglomerate - with over 20 years service as a sound technician in the TV arm. His future there is tenuous as well.

On Friday my eldest daughter, with only a few years into the working world, experienced layoffs first hand. She was thankfully spared however the remaining office workers were asked to entertain a work sharing arrangement supported by the government. They would work greatly reduced hours and be paid by their company, and the Canadian Unemployment Insurance program would supplement a portion of it. This is supposedly to keep all somewhat employed. She will grow up quickly now.

All I could offer her was practical, real world advice:
to dig in, minimize and reduce any unnecessary spending
and preserve every dollar possible.
Put away for harder days ahead.
Think creativity how to make more money
to supplement her income.

Flash back to 1983 ... Times are reminiscent of the early 80's when I was just starting out; unemployment in Canada was over 12% and mortgage interest rates were also over more than 12%. Success and prosperity seemed to perch high on unreachable mantles. Funny enough, it was during that year of economic crisis that at 23, married with one kidlet and another on the way, we bought our first home - a tiny detached bungalow in a tired neighbourhood in the city. The 1940's wallpaper may have been drooping, but it was all mine (ahem -- the bank's and mine). My then-husband and I made a little better than minimum wage.

I wonder now how we did it ... we were lucky in that our menial jobs were relatively secure; that coupled with the fact that we didn't spend anything on entertainment, vacations, dining out or much of anything else other than mortgage, gas and food made it possible for us to eake by. I was fearless and naive. I remember calling the bank after I received my first annual mortgage statement showing that we owed alot more than we borrowed. Why weren't our payments showing up? The patient lady from the bank explained that in the first few years, you only pay interest...

Now, once again, the tide has turned from excess and prosperity to insecurity and fear. Statistics representing broken dreams, tumbled lives and hardships are aimed at us constantly. And it would seem too trivial to say that these times of tumult will eventually subside; that this downward cycle will eventually spiral itself down to a point where we can rise again. I have a feeling that when we do - we will rise renewed and different; stronger, wiser with a knowlege that we are truly a global village and that challenges must met and problems solved as humankind.

Until then, I think we had better hunker down, dig in, hold on to those hard earned dollars - and, those of us with jobs - count our blessings.

Now - can you give me a hand getting down off this soapbox??