Over the weekend, I stumbled across this article: Britain urging return to wartime food frugality.
There is growing concern that affordable quality food will become scarce, not due to war, but due to the rising costs of both food and energy. Of course, this is a problem around the world, but until this article, I hadn’t thought about the fact that this will have a bigger effect on places like Britain, where so much of the food has to brought in on ships or planes, rather than simply by truck.
The article quotes a few people who vividly remember life during Britain’s wartime and post-wartime food scarcity, and it’s interesting to see their points of view. I particularly like this quote: “I know it’s old fashioned, but some old fashioned things are worth doing.” I think we’re really seeing a return to this with the rising prices of food and energy. More people are growing their own food and learning how to can vegetables.
I had to laugh at the references to baked hedgehog and squirrel-tail soup. I grew up in the rural midwest, and while I have never eaten hedgehog or squirrel, I do remember friends talking about the random animals that they had eaten, in stews or soups, because it didn’t matter if the meat came from a cow or from a possum – it was still protein to help feed a family.
At least, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten hedgehog or squirrel…
Abundant Life Spending Spree – $409,600
This would buy me a house in the D.C. area. Nothing too huge, but depending on how far I went from D.C., I could probably get a little house with a bit of land, enough to make me happy.
Megan is a 30-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
Life is certainly getting harder here in the UK.
Food prices have doubled over the past few years. It was the kick I needed to slim down and eat less. I grow vegetables and only buy basic ingredients from supermarkets.
The UK only produces 40% of its own food.
Petrol (gasoline) is the equivalent of a $10 gallon in the US (£1.25 per litre).
I don’t drive to the supermarket any more, I walk. The car might get used once a week.
The country is overpopulated, overcrowded and vicious. Your gun laws mean that people are more wary. Here guns are free for criminals but not the rest of us. Hence, everyone walks around with knives and expect only to wound. Of course, they go too far and there are deaths everyday.
Luckily I have a Spanish girlfriend and am moving to Spain soon. I will be glad to see the back of the UK.
Remember, however bad the US might seem, you have space.
James.
http://the-goodlife.blogspot.com
Thanks for your comment, James. This is very interesting. I hope that it doesn’t seem like I’m complaining in my posts, but I do realize just how lucky I am to live in the U.S. Even when things aren’t going as well as they have in the past, we really do have a lot of advantages.
I’d love to see you do a comparison of life in Spain vs. life in the UK sometime!
Thanks for your reply.
I shall indeed be writing about Spain when I move.
On the 24th of this month I shall be there looking at rentals.
James.
http://the-goodlife.blogspot.com