The recession has me worried. Sometimes I am truly concerned about how I am going to make ends make. Absurd as it may sound, the first thing that you should not do in a recession is panic. Panic is the opposite of logical, well planned preparation, which is exactly what you need in order to survive a recession.
Regardless of how you define a recession or how it affects national governments or international conglomerates, the meaning of recession on a personal or family level is fairly straightforward.\
In times of recession, there is considerably less money around than there would be when times are better and tightening the purse strings in this family has been necessary for a while.
Hence, on a personal family level, the first step that you can take to fight against the recession is to get your own house in order before it actually becomes necessary or critical to do so.
In order to start getting things sorted out, the first thing that you have to do is prioritize, and then you need to economize.
To begin the prioritization process, write down everything that you are currently spending on a piece of paper or create an online document for the same purposes. Then, put everything that you are currently spending money on into a prioritized list, with the most important aspects in the top slots and less important requirements further down the page.
Remember that this list is designed to be a prioritized list of things that you want to money on, rather than things that you would like to spend money on. Consequently, there is no place on a list like this for something as frivolous or unnecessary as upgrading your present 36 inch LCD TV to a 42 inch model when you got kids to send to university.
It may seem like it should be unnecessary to mention such a thing, as who would consider spending money on is what is non-essential, luxury item when money is tight?
Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is, quite a few people, because over the past few years, I think it is fair to say that people in most developed Western nations have convinced themselves that owning luxury goods is a ‘taken for granted' necessity. It just isn’t especially if you have kids!
It is absolutely essential to get out of this way of thinking right now if you are to have any realistic chance of surviving a recession with your mental self esteem as well as your physical health intact.
In short, no matter how bad things might appear to be, panic is not going to help in any situation or under any circumstances, so don't succumb to acting in unplanned haste!