Remembering a REAL Recession

It takes living for awhile to get perspective on the recent wild swings of the Stock Market and the Economy. We had two young children and were living in a trailer when the Recession in the early 70's hit. We were a one income family, with few debts, but it was still a difficult time.

I remember that somewhere along in that time frame we tried to get a mortgage to build a new home on our lot, and although we qualified for the mortgage, we could not get the loan ... because mortgage money had literally dried up. Sound familiar? The big difference between now and then was that we were very good credit risks, but we still could not get financing.

God has a way of watching out for us when we really think He's turned his back on us. We were so disappointed in not getting that house, and now I am so glad we didn't. You see it was one of those split level kind where the front foyer has steps leading up or down to the living areas. I have a Movement Disorder. We would be forced to move out of our home if we were living in one that involved using steps every time you wanted to go just about anywhere in the house. But that's easy to see in hindsight, not so easy to accept at the time. And yes, some years later we did build on our lot, and we're still living in our Dirty Butter Estates on Hard Scrabble Hill.

But I digress. What I do remember very distinctly were a few Christmas shopping sprees where my credit was denied at the cash register, because I had charged over my limit. (Back then even going over a dollar was enough to have a purchase denied.) It was embarrassing, and it didn't happen very often, but it did happen.

When our older daughter started using her first credit card some years later we were mortified to find that if she went over her credit line the card companies would just up her limit, or gleefully charge over the limit fees. But they never stopped her from charging anything. And they never seemed to mind how many cards she applied for and got, either. It was like a bottomless well of credit, and she simply thought we were old fuddy duddies for even suggesting that this was not the way it should be.

She's older and wiser now, but has had some life threatening health problems that have her and her husband watching their money very closely now, after lots of health care expenses ran their bills up again. At least this time it's not from the free spending days of her twenties.

So, some people say we are in a recession, and some are even saying we are in the beginnings of another Great Depression. But hubby and I have seen the Savings and Loan implosion from the 70's, the long lines at gas pumps when we were only allowed to even try to get fuel on certain days of the week, interest rates on home mortgages up in the teens, and we've seen the Health South, Enron, dot com bust, and plenty of other scary events in our adult years. And now the current economic "crisis". This situation seems to be a natural consequence of way too casual a view that far too many people, and companies, have had for way too long about the risk of incurring large debts.

I hear and see on TV so much fear about the current problems, and I'm not saying they are not real problems, but what I am trying to say is that we Americans have dealt with bad economies and scary financial times before, and we have gone on to thrive and prosper. We have been burned before by poor choices, and learned from our mistakes, and been better people because of it.

I hope people will look at history, find some perspective on today's news, and breathe a little easier. I know my hubby and I do.

A Tank of Gas

My hubby tells stories of him pooling his change with his buddies on Friday and Saturday nights to put a dollar's worth of gas in his friend Johnny's old car, so they could drive around and hang out together. They would go to Sky Castle's and one of them would order a coke while they sat and talked, and when the waitress would be about to shoo them out, another one of them would order something. It was all like a scene out of Happy Days! That was way back in the 50's, before we met and started dating.

I was reminded of his stories when I saw this in the newspaper the other day:

When I was in high school in the 60's, I could fill up my car with $2 worth of gas. Interestingly, I couldn't afford a tank full of gas back then, either.

So, is gas really all that high even now? I'm not so sure. Our first apartment was $52.50 a month. Our first home cost us $101 a month, and it was all we could do to qualify for the payment. My first teaching job paid a whopping $265 a month, after paying for college to get it. When you put the prices of everything else from way back then in perspective with what those things cost today, gasoline probably is right about where it should be. Not that I like paying $4.00 a gallon, mind you. But considering how much money everything else costs, I think our reaction to gas prices may be more emotional than intellectual.

Any thoughts???

First Home Memories

Things are finally beginning to fall in place around here as far as handling Daddy's affairs are concerned. We finally did get the Death Certificate last week, so we have an appointment Thursday with our niece, the lawyer. Our DD and SIL have been busy already planting flowers and painting and re-doing the front porch up at Daddy's, and hopefully soon the house will really belong to them. They've already talked to the mortgage people, so it's just a matter of getting the legalities taken care of, and the house will be theirs. It's so much fun watching their excitement, and it brings back great memories of our first house, and when we built this one.

I can still remember that wonderful rush when we signed our first mortgage and moved into our first home. We barely qualified for the mortgage back then for a whopping $101.00 a month! Back then they wouldn't take the wife's income into account, because she would probably be quitting to have children. That $101.00 got us a really nice house, too!! Now, I shudder to think what our children must pay for their mortgages.

Used to be, if I wanted a quick idea of how prices have changed with inflation, I could multiply what we paid for something way back when by 5 to get an idea of how expensive it would be now. For instance, for a long time this worked for gasoline, as we paid 29 cents a gallon when we got married in the 60's. That would put it about $1.50 now, if only inflation were involved. Obviously, gas is more than that, but that's the idea anyway. At the rate things are going, I'm going to have to change my estimation to 10 times to come closer to modern prices. After all, Cokes were 10 cents when our children were little!!

Well, I digress. I guess the day will come when DD and SIL will look back on the mortgage they paid for this first home of theirs and be just as amazed at how little it was per month. But right now, it sounds like a fortune, just the way our $101.00 did.

It's so much fun listening to them planning all the improvements and changes they want to make to the house, knowing full well that most of them will stay in the realm of pipe dreams, once the reality of paying for it all hits home. But let them dream ... it's got to be one of the most exciting times of their adult lives, and I'm glad to be able to share even a little bit of their enthusiasm.