It Pays to Be Second Hand Rose

Why is it that it is always at the time when you least need things to go wrong that they are almost always bound to do so. Murphy's Law I guess. That is how I feel about this recession.

Thus it is that when money is extremely tight, this is the time when it is guaranteed that major household appliances will start to seriously malfunction and so on.
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When this happens the first question that needs to be asked is, does whatever it is that has just died really need replacing? After all, whilst a second or a third TV set in the bedroom might be handy, it's not really something that you could genuinely claim to be absolutely essential.
There are lots of things in my life that are luxuries and that I can live without. But, what do you do when something really does have to be replaced?

The simple answer is, try to find whatever it is you're looking for a second hand, rather than immediately driving down to the mall to buy a brand new one.

No matter what you are looking for, you will be on to find a bargain if you spend enough time and make some effort to find what you're looking for.

The first place you should look would be on a global auction site like eBay.com. Another way of trying to find what you need online is to look at free classified advertising sites like U.S. Free Ads or Craig's List Alternatively, try searching Google for national classified ad sites for whatever country you're based in, because again there are plenty of sites like this.

There are also lots of ways that you can find high-quality, recycled products using offline resources as well. For example, most major towns and cities have a local newspaper, and many of these carry classified adverts. In addition, major cities often have free advertising newspapers or journals that are distributed to the user at no cost, with advertisers paying for their adverts to be featured.

One of the major advantages of buying recycles or used goods nowadays is that most modern equipment is made to last, and often times, people are getting rid for a reason that has nothing to do with something being worn out. For example, with the soaring rates of divorce all over the world, it is a fact that an increasing number of homes end up ‘splitting' with the result that the home contents (generally, in very good condition) end up on the market.

This is of course terribly unfortunate for the original owners, but when you're having a tough time in your life, you cannot afford to be overly sympathetic to others, so you should take advantage the cheap offerings.

How to Avoid Panic During the Recession

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!