What weathered the last depression?

My daughter asked my mother this. She told her that the people who got through just fine were the ones who owned their land free and clear and who knew how to work the land to grow their own food. My daughter started a garden and is learning how to can. She has more than 1/2 equity in her house (at least she did last month) so she should be ok.

Keeping their heads on their shoulders and working hard at their jobs.

Many of them lost their jobs.

Many did: the unemployment rate was in the 23–25% range. But a lot of that was because the government was exerting a lot of pressure to keep wages high, and so businesses couldn’t afford to hire more people.

Make yourself valuable to your employer, work hard, and live as frugally as possible.

I am a small business owner. If people can’t afford to remodel their homes I can’t keep my employess employeed no matter how hard they work or how valuable they are.

My pat. grandfather was resourceful and rode around in a goat cart selling RX eye glasses. He called himself Dr. Finkel. We still have pictures and his record book. He then started a second-hand clothing store: when he had salted money away, he and two partners opened The Finkel Umbrella Co., with a patent for a snap-open umbrella.

My mat. grandfather was an auto mechanic and could take a wreck, undent and rehab. it. He moved a lot and always started an auto-wrecking business wherever he was.

No one was rolling in cash but they got by until times improved.

I feel for the bastards that have to live through this twice.

continue to or make a commitment to live within your means.

They were flexible and open-minded.

One grandpa took on all odd jobs mainly as a farm hand (he’d already been laid off as an apprentice machinist). When there was no work here, he went out west for three summers during the Depression era w/a cousin and they worked as ranch hands.

FYI-the Depression never really hit out west(Montana & Wyoming mainly, sometimes the Dakotas). News travelled slow. (And, their money was under their mattresses!) ;)

The other was a farmer. His family lost good horses & cows in a drought JUST before the Depression hit. They obviously had no trouble feeding or sheltering their family. Just lost money on crops & milk. But trapped for pelts and always had pocket money.

BTW-sets of grandparents married after the Depression in civil ceremonies. During the GD, both grandma’s worked by cleaning, sewing/mending/ironing/cooking…whatever helped their families out.

To make it through if one should in today’s world, you’ll need to figure out what people can’t live without, don’t like doing and will pay for no matter what, or shore up your own finances and household now so it doesn’t devastate your family.

In my family (we own a tavern) people like to say, “In bad and good times, no one does without liquor and cigarettes”...Yep, it still holds true. Now people are addicted to gizmos and coffee, too!

I forgot to add, besides their mattresses (actually neither was that umb mattresses burn——think metal cash box instead & hide it in a spectacular places or places around your home) They both kept money & didn’t lose it in LOCALLY owned and operated banks & credit unions. One grandpa was able to recite all of the banks in our area that failed, and all that survived without issue. Neither kept all their money in one institution on the “what if” principle.