Kelli B. Grant for Smart Money offered tips on trimming expenses from the household budget. Look at your bills and see what you’re paying for but don’t use. Buy generic food and drugs, and take a look at frozen fruits and vegetables. Stick to regular gasoline, in most cases. The winter months are coming – throw on an extra blanket while you lower the thermostat by a degree or two.
As we’re all trimming our budgets and scaling back to the necessities, it’s become obvious why this crisis affects everyone. Dave Kansas for the Wall Street Journal says that it goes even deeper than that, though. The credit markets touch on everything from 30-year Treasury bonds to securities tied to auto loans, and essentially act as a lubricant to the nation’s economy.
Already, we’ve felt the impact: auto sales are down in part because of the difficulty in securing financing; getting mortgages is a lot tougher; credit card interest rates are up, and so on.
There have been a lot of news reports out there talking about the crisis, and it’s important that we remain rational and remember that this, too, is going to pass someday. It’s also important to realize that no one truly knows the outcome of this, or when things will get better or if they’re going to get worse.
