Juanita Kuyat is 86, lives in Rogers Park and thinks that growing pot might be a good way to go...not for her, but perhaps for modern day moonshiners hoping to wade through the current financial waters. Her family made it though the Depression with a little help from her dad's whiskey-making in the kitchen. Her REAL advice for the rest of us? It's a simple one that is very "Apartment Therapy"...
...eat at home! That's what our blog, The Kitchn, is all about - you won't find any restaurant reviews there.
Agatha Fincher is 95 and lives in the North Center. Her advice is to take transit or walk. She says, "When I was coming up, if we had one car, we were happy. Now, these guys got to have three cars in one house! They have to stop all that. Ride the bus, ride the train. Or walk! I used to walk to Sears Roebuck on North Avenue. I’d say it’s 13 blocks from where I lived. Most of the time, I’d beat the bus."
Elizabeth Boling Smith, 91, advises that those feeling the pinch should "do the right thing, however it manifests. Don’t ever let your short-term goals interfere with your life goals. Stay down-to-earth."
Time Out Chicago has a full-on Recession Survival Guide in this weeks issue (also online) and one of our favorite features are the interviews with 4 Chicago women who remember the Great Depression and have advice to share.
Check out their complete very interesting q&a's by Web Behrens:
Photos: Nolan Wells/Time Out Chicago
Tina Wilson's Striking Style 
30 DIY Projects for the 3-Day Weekend
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Dunes & Duchess Can...
20 Scrumptious Brunch Recipes 
Magic One-Ingredient Ice Cream 5 Ways: Peanut Butter, Nutella, and More
Comments (8)
What a great, inspiring post. I've been thinking about that so much lately, about having taken my grandparents' advice to heart years ago, and also always keeping my own moments of lack in mind when I make my choices now. Really, these women are advocating good, old fashioned common sense. It's just that we don't always remember! Living simply has so many benefits, not just the immediate financial ones.
Agree with the other comments, great post.
I haven't been hit as hard by the recession as some other people, but it's amazing to me how different our standard of living is today.
These women talk about making shoe soles out of cardboard and working at a factory at age 14. Now, kids think they're destitute if they don't have an iPod or can't drive a BMW at age 16. Not that I'm exempt from being spoiled, either, but I just think these women's stories are a great reminder of how lucky most of us are, and how what we consider frugal would seem extravagant to our grandparents.
On the flip side, living in such a wealthy society does make poverty seem relative. I recently read Dave Eggers' "What is the What," in which a Sudanese refugee remarks that certain elements of living in the US were harder, albeit in a much different way, than surviving on practically nothing in Africa.
Sorry about the rant there, this article just got my mind going!
Great article. Recently I think my group of friends has become more thrifty, without making any major lifestyle changes.
We have young children and lend/trade baby clothes as they grow out of sizes. We did the same thing with out maternity clothes and I barely had to buy anything at all during my pregnancy. When my mom was young, women did this all the time.
LOL Juanita. Not sure pot's my thing, but maybe by the time it gets really bad, my orange trees will be big enough that I'll let them fruit. They're not hot items or anything but they sure kill fewer brain cells.
The themes of the day seem to be DIY, live with less, borrow/barter before you buy, eat lower on the food chain, invest for the long term. I've been doing some of those things all along, so I don't expect to be hit terribly hard... and even if we are, our lifestyle won't change a huge amount. People around us... well, we'll see.
the unwritten rule of pregnancy is 'don't buy anything new and if at all possible get from others.' I think we bought new car seats, but the rest were passed down from other moms, or found in church basement sales, thrift shops, etc.
We even get many christmas presents secondhand, and why not? if something 's available in great shape at a second hand shop, then why on earth buy it new?
budgets - I don't know about you, but I'm appalled when I read that the annual amount spent by the average CAnadian individual on Christmas presents is somehwere in the range of $700. yipes. no wonder we have money issues. At our house, the total price for all presents (2 adults, 2 kids, 2 grandparents, 2 cousins, 2 siblings, miscellaneous teachers and daycare staff), and including the postage for everything that's mailed out of town (And out of country in many cases) is about $350. For all of us, combined. And none of us feels hard done by. in fact, we could probably do with less.
Liked this post, but I've got to say -- I LOVE the photos! What beautiful portraits.