This really hurt but I had to do it
Lloyd Alter
A year and a half ago I wrote a series of posts on Planet Green titled "Get Recession Ready" with a pile of tips to save money, get frugal, tighten your belt and live within your means. I also made the point that frugal is green; that if you reduce what you spend and what you buy, then you are reducing your carbon footprint at the same time.
Then the recession that hit hard and it was no longer about getting recession ready, we were all hit hard. Americans had it particularly hard, as their biggest asset, their homes, were suddenly under water, their jobs were lost and their communities were devastated.
I live a few miles north of the border in Canada, and we were not hit quite as hard. Our banks were tightly regulated and very conservative. Mortgage interest isn't deductible here, so house prices did not rise as fast or as high. But they did not fall much, either, so few people are under water on their mortgage. But other than that, the situation is not too much different, with our governments in dire deficit after bailing out industry.
I did not practice what I preached in those Get Recession Ready posts; I had two kids in University and some dumb business moves from previous years that were still costing me money. The credit cards crept up, the line of credit against my house reached its limit, and it became pretty obvious that it was time for a change.
So I have decided to make that change. I am folding all of my cards and my lines of credit into a small mortgage and am going frugal and all cash and am cutting up my credit cards. That is relatively easy here; we have a very sophisticated debit card system and you have all of the convenience of credit cards. But when there is nothing left in my account, I will have nowhere to go until my next paycheque, so I will have to learn to do something that I have never done before: to live within my means.
This is going to mean a major change in my lifestyle, and I am going to document it here on Planet Green- the changes we make in spending, diet, and more. Watch this space.
