Batten down the hatches!

How very comforting to awaken in the morning to the news telling you that two major financial institutions in your country have just gone belly up. Holy shit, people. Our economy is not just struggling, it is in a full-on tailspin. How far can our government stretch if this process continues? So far the feds have had to enact some bailouts, and other financial institutions have bought out previous competitors to keep things somewhat moving. But there has to be a breaking point, doesn't there? Where everyone just throws their hands up and goes home for the day?

I find it all completing unsettling, and so I am battening down the family financial hatches even tighter than I had before. That kitchen renovation that we'd been dead set on starting next spring (after I'd suggested pushing it back a year for each of the past four years)? Maybe not going to happen after all.

No, we don't have stocks and bonds with the large investment houses, but the economy is crumbling in large and small ways that affect us all. I'm starting to think I should read up on how my grandparents' and great-grandparents' generations survived the Depression, just so I'm prepared when things really go down the crapper. Having three months worth of income stashed away for an emergency no longer seems a high enough benchmark. Ken and I both have fairly good job stability, but never say never when it comes to layoffs or places just plain going out of business. I'd much rather be prepared for bad times--an ant, not a grasshopper. It's not as if we've been wasting money; we budget pretty tightly as it is. But now I'm doubly intent on avoiding any unnecessary spending and increase our savings as much as we can.

Do you think it's too early for Padraic to get a paper route? He has a tricycle and a wagon. OK, just trying to toss some levity into this downer of a post. Seriously, though, I feel like Ken and I are already pulling our full weight apiece, and we have good jobs, but that's not a guarantee of a comfy lifestyle anymore. Constant vigilance of your finances can be a huge stressor and brain drain so I know I can't go over the top with worrying, but I do hope after the election things will begin to turn around. I'm trying hard not to envision what it'd be like if things got worse.