W2R
Moderator Emeritus
At least with ketchup soup, you can maintain your dignity and tell yourself that you had tomato soup for dinner. (Yes, I have a lot of imagination.)
Mustard and relish soup has to be a guy thing. (tee hee!). Ewww.
What was the worst ecomonic period you had to suffer through
- Thread starter wildcat
- Start date
At least with ketchup soup, you can maintain your dignity and tell yourself that you had tomato soup for dinner. (Yes, I have a lot of imagination.)
Mustard and relish soup has to be a guy thing. (tee hee!). Ewww.
As long as we're trading recipes, my college favorite was to cook a cup of rice, stir in a can of cream of mushroom soup and then a can of tuna fish. That would last about 4 dinners. I think the cost of the soup and tuna was about 20 cents. The variation was to brown a pound of ground beef and add instead of the tuna. Ground beef cost about 15 cents/lb so it ran the price up to a quarter.
I had my "Gone With the Wind Days" while still at home in high school. My dad lost his job. My mother was a "non-working spouse" which was pretty normal then. There were also 5 kids. My older brother and I were the only "abled body" help so we worked with our father cutting grass on FHA repo houses. I was so glad when he got on with the Post Office.
Orchidflower
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
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- Mar 10, 2007
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Amazingly similar background as want2retire only my "father" was a stepfather and I was the proverbial "stepchild." By the time he died, he showed his meanness and cruelty to everyone around. I think he was just a miserable human being in general.
Left home in 1964 for D.C. with exactly enough money to live on for one month ($450!) IF I lived with other people. Knew nobody in D.C., but somehow I made it.
I look at it as building character.
Left home in 1964 for D.C. with exactly enough money to live on for one month ($450!) IF I lived with other people. Knew nobody in D.C., but somehow I made it.
I look at it as building character.
Never been hungry, never succumbed to credit card debt, but was kind of a late-starter concerning putting $ away for retirement. Somehow, the beauty-of-compounding-interest lesson was not part of my high school or college education.
Once moved to another state for a new job while still owning two houses in a state where real estate was falling.
Parents never invested in stock market, so I'm still trying to educate myself and figure things out. Back in the mid-nineties I did learn one lesson the hard way (investing on margin, doubling my money in a few months, then stubbornly holding on the way down (believing it would go back up) even though the little voice in my head was screaming "This is not YOUR great wisdom, hot shot, this was a fluke!", losing it all, paying margin calls - - ack!)
About this time a big balloon payment (sort of) on our house was due. It had become evident that my start-up business required way too much travel to suit our family - and the business was not going to make it anyway - and I needed to get a job.
So we paid the balloon and cinched all spending DOWN. I can remember getting ready to head out on errands and telling the kids to fix themselves a bottle of cold water to bring along, and a sandwich or snack if they wanted it, because we would not even be buying a dollar soft drink when we were out and about! Fortunately, one of my local clients asked me to come to work with them full-time which I did for the next five years.
Now I look back at the "reserve" we had at that juncture and it was very thin. If something had happened (job loss or injury) to one of us, it could have been big trouble. I would never want to be that marginal again on liquid emergency fund, etc.
The experience was oddly empowering, in that I know I can "cinch it down" if necessary.
Once moved to another state for a new job while still owning two houses in a state where real estate was falling.
Parents never invested in stock market, so I'm still trying to educate myself and figure things out. Back in the mid-nineties I did learn one lesson the hard way (investing on margin, doubling my money in a few months, then stubbornly holding on the way down (believing it would go back up) even though the little voice in my head was screaming "This is not YOUR great wisdom, hot shot, this was a fluke!", losing it all, paying margin calls -
- ack!) About this time a big balloon payment (sort of) on our house was due. It had become evident that my start-up business required way too much travel to suit our family - and the business was not going to make it anyway - and I needed to get a job.
So we paid the balloon and cinched all spending DOWN. I can remember getting ready to head out on errands and telling the kids to fix themselves a bottle of cold water to bring along, and a sandwich or snack if they wanted it, because we would not even be buying a dollar soft drink when we were out and about! Fortunately, one of my local clients asked me to come to work with them full-time which I did for the next five years.
Now I look back at the "reserve" we had at that juncture and it was very thin. If something had happened (job loss or injury) to one of us, it could have been big trouble. I would never want to be that marginal again on liquid emergency fund, etc.
The experience was oddly empowering, in that I know I can "cinch it down" if necessary.
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