Our nation and much of the world struggles through tough economic times today. Moreover, mother nature has also provided us with more than a few extra snowstorms, earthquakes, flooding and now, hurricane Irene, all in 2011 alone. It’s no wonder that alerts and austerity measures loom large.
Gloomy statistics
Per a Forbes article written this past week, the sentiments are stated simply. “As we clean up the destruction from Tropical Storm Irene consider the recession, the debt debacle, the AA downgrade and the decline of the stock market. These events have put a damper on the consumer mindset. In August, just one in five (20.6%) is confident/confident in chances for a strong economy, representing a six point drop from one month ago (26.5%); this is the lowest August reading to date. Consumers haven’t felt this dreary about the economy in more than two years (Mar-09 = 19.5%).”
Revisiting economics
Most young readers today may not know of a book published in 1973 called Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered – a collection of essays by a British economist E.F. Schumacher, who worked with John Maynard Keynes. The original phrase “Small Is Beautiful” came from Schumacher’s teacher, Leopold Kohr and is often used to express how empowering small can be; in contrast to “bigger is better”. Even moreso, if you hail from Texas, where we are conditioned with “Texas sized” and more.
The message
Small Is Beautiful published during the 1973 energy crisis, encouraged a mindset that is not only inspiring and powerful but very today. Schumacher proposed the ideas of “enoughness” and “smallness within bigness”. Similarly, I have mentioned in earlier articles that an economy is the sum of its parts, namely its citizens, so it is up to each of us to work towards creating better futures for ourselves and those around us. Citizens and residents of a nation contribute to the larger national good.
Why small budgets are beautiful budgets!
Consider making the following changes that require living on a smaller budget or in real words, living with less, to achieve greater financial freedom!
You could (and should) do away with expenses you don’t really need – this would bring almost immediate results to your savings account – such as unnecessary cable bills, eating out and buying unncecessary items etc. Put some thought into your current lifestyle, and find more places to do away with or reduce – examples are evaluating cell phone usage and going down a notch on usage & plan, unnecessary insurance premiums, and other fixed and variable expenses that create monthly charges. You can easily make changes to save the environment that also saves your bills by conserving resources – use less water, electricity, gas, chemicals, etc. It can also be as simple as using a bicycle or walking more often to run errands. You could also consider making larger lifestyle changes when possible, such as shifting to a smaller, more energy efficient home, buying a hybrid vehicle next time around, buying energy efficient appliances and so on.
What do you think?
Listed above are just a few examples of how small is truly beautiful -this mentality creates a healthier and wealthier approach and conservation allows for larger investments in the future. What are some of the measures you have adopted that have allowed you to downsize your living expenses in an effort to create a better future?
By Ritu Mehta