
Ask HN: What tips do you have for weathering a recession? - amflare
Joe Kennedy famously survived the Great Depression by selling out of the stock market once the shoe-shines started giving him advice. I&#x27;m not sure if it&#x27;s just I&#x27;m in an industry where people are more aware or not, but I&#x27;m starting to get worried about an economic downturn in the next couple of years. Either way, I figure what helps in a recession would be good to do anyway.<p>What advice have you guys heard&#x2F;followed for protecting against another recession? And I don&#x27;t mean the generic &quot;cut spending, have an emergency fund&quot; stuff. I mean the stuff that I won&#x27;t find at the top of a google search or on WikiHow.<p>Edit: to be clear, I specified against the generic advice because it&#x27;s already easy to find and simple to follow. I&#x27;m looking for advice and tips that can supplement it. Thank you to those who pointed out why the generic advice is still a good idea.
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stouset
Perhaps too close to the “generic advice” you’ve discouraged, but: accrue
money while it’s plentiful, spend money while it’s hard to come by.

Right now, money is comparatively cheap and easy to come by. Salaries are
high, the markets are doing well, and investment capital flows freely. During
these times, most people spend money as freely as they earn it, which is a
mistake. Your money will go farther during a downturn when liquid cash is
rarer. So hoard now while others spend, and be willing to spend later when
others are hoarding cash and it’s difficult to earn.

This is the personal finance equivalent of the poker maxim to play loose when
the table is tight, and play tight when the table is loose. And it works for
largely the same reason.

~~~
purplezooey
Eh, sorta. It seems like prices for anything never really go down, the firms
that can't make a profit just go under so there's less supply. Or prices go up
slower. You might have gotten 20% off a house if you bought during the 2009
downturn (or 50% in places like Vegas). This advice seems like Monday morning
quarterbacking. Or maybe works of you're Warren Buffett.

------
OliverJones
As an old guy, I've weathered a few recessions.

Some things to keep in mind beyond the obvious "save some money when times are
good" advice.

(1) they pass. slowly, for sure, but they do pass.

(2) you need something to do if you're thrown out of work. It's not for
nothing that graduate school enrollment climbs when unemployment is high. For
hackers, it's a good opportunity for an open source project.

(3) downtimes are great times to start new things.

(4) remember everybody struggles in a recession. There's no harm in asking
landlords for temporary discounts, especially if their alternative is an empty
apartment.

(5) try to make the subscriptions you have cancellable or downsizable. Let
your phone contracts run out and keep your phones longer. Avoid the old "two
year commitment up front in return for a tiny temporary discount" trick from
vendors.

(6) if you really get in trouble, DO NOT IGNORE YOUR POSTAL MAIL. If you get
summoned to court for an unpaid bill, SHOW UP! Often you can get a case
dismissed by saying to the judge, "please show me the evidence." Bill
collectors count on getting default judgements.

------
itamarst
Many people _don 't_ have an emergency fund, so it's good advice and worth
repeating. Being stuck in a high-expense life style, especially if you owe a
lot of money, makes it very hard to be flexible. E.g. you might not be able to
move to a new place where there are jobs. So living below your means and not
having a lot of debt really is important.

But beyond that:

1\. Get to know people outside your small industry niche and outside your
local geography.

2\. Don't define yourself by a single technology or set of skills. Get good at
learning new things on your own.

~~~
jo909
And please make sure some (most?) of your emergency fund is somewhat cash-
equivalent. Stocks, bitcoin, gold, life insurance and other investments might
be hard/slow to access or only with a significant hit on total value. I'm not
talking about physical cash, just the ability to access or transfer a large
enough sum in say a day to pay for whatever emergency needs funding.

Which is kind of obvious, but I had to stop myself from investing too much or
even all of my nest egg multiple times. If it pays a dividend it's likely not
an emergency fund.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I wish I had more than one upvote. If your emergency fund isn't a deposit
account that is FDIC insured, its not an emergency fund.

Source: My emergency fund was in a money market fund that was temporarily
insolvent during the 2008 global financial crisis.

------
saalweachter
Have a strong social network. If you lost your house / were evicted from your
apartment tomorrow, where would you go? Who would you take into your home for
months, years if they needed help?

Surviving being poor requires a lot more hustle than being rich. One of the
things I like about being a comfortably well paid programmer is that I can go
to work, get paid, and not care too hard about the details. The money will
work out, I don't have to be constantly looking out for ways to make a few
bucks or cheap deals on essentials.

When the economy is good, trying to become comfortably well paid is a
reasonable plan. You can look for _a_ job.

If things go to shit, you need to always be on the lookout for _jobs_ \--
someone needs a few hours of help per week here, a couple of days on a one-off
job there, a man with a van to haul a load cross-town. You've got to piece
together an income from a dozen opportunities you don't even notice casually
walking down the street on your way to your 9-to-5. You're not going to find
any one job that will give you much income for very long, so you've got to be
looking always for new opportunities.

------
beebmam
1\. Don't buy a house right now if you live in a big city. If you already own
a house in a big city, selling will probably net you enormous profits.

2\. Don't speculate in markets. You're very likely to get burned.

3\. Be the best you can possibly be in your field of work. If you're in
school, start working on your assignments as soon as they're assigned. Leave
no question as to your competence by being extremely prepared and reasonable.

4\. If you see your field of work probably being replaced by automation in the
coming decades, start training for another field of work that won't be
replaced. A UBI (or negative tax) is likely necessary in the future, but aim
to be someone that doesn't need a UBI to survive. You don't want to bet your
own survival on a UBI being politically possible.

5\. Be kind, support your friends and family as much as they need, and always
ask for help if you need it.

~~~
Sodman
Can you elaborate on point #1? I've always felt if the housing market crashes,
I'd just stay in the same house with the same mortgage payment. If I wanted to
move in the middle of a recession, my house's depreciation should be relative
to whatever new house I'm looking to buy, so is any value truly lost?

Eg if I have a house worth 100k, and there's a recession that values it at
50k, assuming I can stay employed is there a difference to me? If I wanted to
upgrade to a house worth 150k, assuming that house is now worth 75k in
recession times so if anything I actually have more buying power in that
scenario than I would in the pre-recession scenario.

I'll admit that I'm lucky in that I have job security, so that probably
changes my options significantly.

~~~
ktta
> I have a house worth 100k, and there's a recession that values it at 50k,
> assuming I can stay employed is there a difference to me?

You can sell now, get 100k. Buy during recession for 50k. You now have 50k
profit.

~~~
mooreds
Don't forget transaction costs (average 10% in the USA) and rent (which may or
may not be a rounding error).

------
fecak
Make sure you have a marketable skillset, even in a down economy. Having been
a tech recruiter for both good times and a couple downturns, I noticed that
the people who got released first were doing tasks that managers felt could be
passed along to others somewhat easily. No real surprise.

Since tech was my field, I first saw project managers who were non-technical
(couldn't code or add other value) getting let go. Tech leads were handed PM
responsibility. Sysadmins, DBAs, and some QA were also let go when there were
devs who could pick up the slack. Companies might not need dedicated resources
there, so contractors might be a more efficient solution.

Try to expand your skillset and have the ability to contribute in a few areas.
Companies may be more likely to get rid of someone who is only good at one
thing.

~~~
osrec
Definitely agree with this. If you're a PM, make sure you can code. Similarly,
in finance, if you're in the front office, be sure to understand risk and
compliance - those are often the departments that begin hiring in a recession,
while the others cut back!

~~~
purplezooey
I've known 30-40 PMs in my time in the valley and maybe 2 of them could code
professionally if it came to it. Mostly they are people who like to be the
decision maker.

------
the_gastropod
Live beneath your means. This is beneficial in two ways: 1\. It allows you to
save more money today, which will be handy during a recession for obvious
reasons. 2\. It prepares you for being comfortable when your income may dip.

The smaller the chunk of your income you need to live a happy life, the more
resilient you'll be.

------
reverend_gonzo
First and foremost: knowledge and relevance. Your working income will always
return more than your investments (at least, until you've made enough that it
doesn't matter anymore). Keep yourself thoroughly employable, even better if
its in multiple fields.

Second, diversification. You can't count on any one thing to weather a
recession, but if you have some of your assets in ETFs, some in bonds, some in
real estate, it's less likely that everything will take a hit at the same
time.

Lastly, at least a good portion of your assets should be liquid. Some people
like to put everything into real estate, which is great and all, until the
real estate market crashes or interest rates skyrocket and nobody is buying.
Now, if you want to sell, you're going to take a hit on the already reduced
value. At least with stocks, etfs, etc, you can liquidate easily and cheaply
if you need money, for example, for food.

~~~
tapatio
Worst case you can get an HELOC approved in about two weeks.

~~~
astura
Just because you've always had easy access to credit in the past doesn't mean
you always will in the future. Depending on easy access to credit for
financial security is very foolish.

People lose jobs during a recession. People without income don't usually have
easy access to credit and lending standards tighten (or even temporarily halt)
during a recession.

If the housing crash causes you to become underwater or close to it on your
mortgage you aren't going to get approved for a home equity line of credit.
Any lines of credit you did have will be cancelled.

~~~
tapatio
If you have 50% equity in your house, you'll get a HELOC. It's just an easy
way to access equity without selling your house. Of course if you have close
to no equity this won't work.

~~~
astura
Housing crashes strips away your equity, that's kind of the definition of a
housing crash.

HELOCs were cancelled en mass during the last crash.

Lending standards are tightened and new laws are passed during crashes, just
because you can get a no income HELOC ("liar loan") _now_ doesn't mean you
always will be always able to in the future.

~~~
tapatio
Get it now and let it sit. Why would you wait until the market crashes?

~~~
reverend_gonzo
1) A lender can reduce (or freeze) your HELOC. 2) Pulling money out of your
house during a downturn is dumb. You now have to pay interest on that, and in
a few years or so, you're going to have a lump sum payment to pay off that
loan.

If you just keep pulling money willy-nilly, you're very likely to lose that
house.

~~~
mooreds
Agreed you shouldn't pull 'willy-nilly' but it can be an additional source of
'income' and can help with short term cash flow (which can be crucial if you
move from being an employee to a contractor).

Like any other tool, be aware of the way it can help or hurt you.

------
astura
There's no secrets and the real answer is really just boring generic advice.
Being financially healthy is the absolute only guaranteed way, anything else
you do to prepare would be gambling.

Spend less than you make and have a budget, even if it's an informal budget.
This is the most important. Ideally you should end up saving at least 20% of
your income. This means you may not be able to afford the things you may like
to have, be at peace with that. [1]

Have an sizable CASH emergency fund. The amount depends on your life
situation. If you have plenty of cashflow and can easily cut expenses during a
loss of income then you need much less than if you can barely make the
bills.[2]

Get out of debt. If your debt is high interest (>~6%) then prioritize paying
off your high interest debt BEFORE building your emergency fund.

Once you are out of debt stay out of debt (besides a mortgage). That means
saving for big expenses.

Diversify your investments. Certainly don't put all your wealth into your
house.

Don't put money in the stock market if you plan to spend it in the next ~5
years.

Work on increasing income (or lowering expenses) until at least the above is
easy peasy.

This has nothing to do with weathering a storm but part of being financially
healthy: purchase term life insurance but only if the loss of your income
would severely negatively affect your heirs.

During a recession, don't panic, you have prepared for this. If you can keep
saving and investing.

Bonus advice: If you buy a house you almost certainly will be offered a larger
loan that you can realistically afford (while still following the above
advice). Budget for your house beforehand, don't let loan officers tell you
what you can afford.

You can absolutely weather almost any storm using this advice. If Joe Kennedy
had followed this advice he would have had survived the crash even if he
didn't liquidate his stocks beforehand.

[1] This has the added benefit of giving you a massive amount of flexibility.

[2] You have no idea how truly amazing this is for your sanity. We had a
surprise >$4,000 expense a few months ago. Because we had already had saved
that money in an emergency fund it was absolutely _no problem, no worry,
nothing_ , it was a _complete non-issue_. I had considered that money already
spent. Most of the people without an emergency fund would be absolutely
devastated by this. Now we are adding a few hundred a month to our fund to
replenish it.

------
abfan1127
the best way to weather a recession is to have cash. The emergency fund is the
most important tool. IF you don't have cash, you can't spend time
transitioning from one area of work to another. You also need a low burn rate
when switching areas. Low debt enables this.

------
michaelthiessen
Keep a long term view (10+ years or more) and not a short term view (< 5
years). That's what most of this advice boils down to.

Almost all bad decisions result from not taking a long enough perspective.

The recession will end at some point, so how can you use the recession to
improve your situation?

------
Apreche
Have skills so you can easily get a job that will still exist in bad economic
times. For example, if nobody is paying programmers to write useless apps
anymore you can be a plumber. People will always shit in toilets, no matter
what the economy is like.

~~~
mywittyname
Being a tradesman during a downturn is a bad time.

At least a programmer can write not-useless things to potentially make money.
A plumber can't wish work into existence.

------
kerr23
Be prepared to take advantage of it. Downturns are basically sales.

~~~
mattpk
That's a distorted view that you get from imagining if you had invested at the
low of the last recession. Look at Japan's index, where it still hasn't caught
up to the 1989 peak.

~~~
thisisit
By Japanese index, I assume you mean the Nikkei 225. And don't you mean 1989
crash's low? The 21k levels have now become the new highs.

Calling a low is almost as impossible as calling a high. Though there are
methodologies like Graham's which provide decent net-nets to invest in. A
study on the Graham stocks since 1990: [http://www.netnethunter.com/benjamin-
graham-is-this-where-mo...](http://www.netnethunter.com/benjamin-graham-is-
this-where-money-goes-to-die/)

So, it really depends on the methods used to find the bargain which matters.

------
peterwwillis
There's an economic depression (edit: recession) about once every 5 years. You
can weather it by not owing people money, having assets, and always saving.

Sorry this wasn't a sexy answer. Being fiscally secure is boring.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Recessions are common, depressions are not.

~~~
peterwwillis
Correct, I misspoke

------
6841iam
1) Stay solvent 2) Buy high growth assets when everyone is selling. There's a
lot of value to be had during recessions/bear markets. Asset prices invariably
go up when the market turns around.

------
taprun
Become a minimalist and learn to be happy with less.

~~~
ng-user
Express gratitude for things/people that are already in your life. Become
truly grateful for the life you live. External validation can only do so much.

------
googletazer
Have multiple streams of income. Know a "trade" you can do with your hands -
string rackets if you have to. Sadly I've neglected this part for a while.

~~~
brutus1213
Do you have suggestions for good trades for tech people? Software is pretty
different than other things. I'm decent at sw. Not sure what trade I'd have a
chance at and that would be recession proof.

~~~
aaavl2821
In California if you are a plumber, roofer, HVAC, electrician etc you can make
six figures. If you own a small contracting business in one of the above
fields you can clear $400K a year, tax free, for like 6 months of work. The
real estate boom in CA combined with a shortage of skilled blue collar labor
means that if you have these skills you literally have a 2-6 month waitlist
for your work

I know some people who grew up in very low income situations, in and out of
jail, but took an HVAC or plumbing course and are now making $150-200K at age
25-30

Of course this is definitely not recession proof but I was super surprised to
learn this

~~~
dver
With the North Bay fires toss in several billion dollars of insurance money as
well. It's going to be a construction Gold Rush up there.

As far as later in life activity we just utilized a local older guy who does
minor home renovations work to keep busy. $80/hr, could charge more, turns
down work all day long.

~~~
brutus1213
[https://www.ecao.org/become-an-electrician](https://www.ecao.org/become-an-
electrician)

According to this website, in Ontario, Canada, it seems becoming a licensed
electrician requires five years of apprenticeship. Talk about a barrier!!

I think other trades are similar :(

------
aaavl2821
In addition to the comments about diversifying your skills and being frugal,
you can start to rebalance your investment portfolio towards safer assets.
This means reducing exposure to volatile stocks (tech / biotech startups,
emerging markets, crypto). This strategy will likely mean you see your friends
and peers getting richer than you for a period of time, maybe even years. If
you can deal with that as a price to pay for more financial security, then go
for it

If you really want to get aggressive you can get short exposure to risky
stocks, but this is an incredibly risky strategy that rarely makes money and
requires considerable expertise, research, and luck to make it work

Overall your best bet is to not try to time the market, but if you are worried
about a recession and have an investment portfolio with risky assets, maybe
take some of that risk of the table understanding that you may sacrifice real
financial gain

~~~
michaelthiessen
This only makes sense if you are planning on using that money in the near term
(< 5 years from now).

Like you say, timing the market is a bad idea, and that is what you are doing
if you try to move to "safer" assets when you "think" the market will go bad.

If you keep your assets in riskier stocks (which have higher long-term
returns) for more than a decade, you may take a huge hit during a recession,
but you'll come out the other end way ahead than if you try to time the
market.

~~~
aaavl2821
It depends on the stock. I'm referring more to stocks with a high chance of
going to zero (like early stage biotech) than small cap high vol stocks

There's a subtle difference between market timing and adjusting your portfolio
as risk / reward changes. As an example, suppose you invest in a stock
thinking it will give you a 40% return in one year. The stock does just that,
and in a year it has risen 40%. At that higher price, the risk / reward is no
longer the same as it was, and you will need to re-evaluate that investment.
However, many people just hold on to these stocks because they made money
without rationally re-evaluating their investment vs other options

probably didnt make that as clear in the above

in any event, investing strategy is based on personal goals. if your personal
goal is to protect yourself more against a recession, selling risky assets is
a good way to do so

------
Blackstone4
Above all maintain an abundance attitude. Stay positive and focused on
building your network and thinking big. If you're one of only a few taking
risks, there will be greater rewards.

------
SirLJ
My experience based on a few market cycles and a lot of work put into this and
it is a bit contrary: do speculate in the stock market (I am trading using
robots) those are the best times to make money going up, near the top, going
down, etc... for me the hardest (losing years) is when the market is trying to
get off the bottom... SO I can't wait for the recession, because it is a great
opportunity for me personally... Besides that, having paid house and FU money
is great...

------
babesh
Think hard where the new opportunities will be. Go back to school in that
area. Take on federal student loans. You don't have to pay them back till you
finish.

Minimize monthly expenses. Rent out rooms if you own or vice versa if you
don't. Buy raw ingredients instead of prepared foods. Food kitchen. Goodwill.

Pool resources. Costco runs.

Saving during good times is the best advice though.

------
JSeymourATL
Tony Robbins suggests, more than solid finances-- 'state of mind' is the key,
be prepared for extraordinary opportunities >
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSi7BUqXuU4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSi7BUqXuU4)

~~~
thanatropism
What's with the Tony Robbins wave on HN?

What does he bring to the table that's special?

------
JoeAltmaier
Property can weather downturns. Investments can go bust. If you own property
outright, it may go up and down but never (almost never) zero. And you have a
place to park your butt. And maybe grow some food.

~~~
brutus1213
I don't agree with this advice. IMHO, a lot of property (specifically, real-
estate) is ridiculously overvalued compared with the income generating
capacity of locals. In Toronto, an average house is close to a million bucks.
I don't think you will get a lot of land to grow. But lets say, you go really
far .. like an hour or hour and a half. Still .. it is pretty expensive and
you just raised your commuting costs.

I think for people with skills and few assets, saving cash is the most
important thing to do. When shit hits the fan, you will be mobile to move to
where the jobs are.

~~~
rdykl
but saving cash isn't a good plan for building wealth. sometimes it can be
tough to save quickly enough while also minimizing opportunity cost of not
investing that cash.

~~~
brutus1213
You are totally right. The stock market seems dangerously overvalued to me so
I don't invest outside my 401K. Keep losing out to inflation. I guess the
rational strategy is to diversify. But doing that in a meaningful way requires
a lot of assets to begin with.

~~~
lev99
Anyone can trade in index funds, commodities, and bonds and CDs. It's not a
meaningless amount of diversity available to normal folk.

------
adjwilli
What industry do you work in that would give you insight into a coming
downturn?

~~~
itamarst
My uncle did tax preparation in NYC, and he definitely saw signs of 2008 bust
coming.

~~~
squashmode
Can you elaborate on that? What signs did he see?

~~~
itamarst
Been a while, but IIRC people losing their jobs, or making less money.

~~~
astura
Probably while still having huge mortgage interest deductions.

------
LoSboccacc
don't take debts. that way you can quickly shrink your expenses if times come
by. the only acceptable debt is for investment (either financial or material)
that have a guaranteed roi or a short term vesting.

------
aerophilic
Much of the advice I have seen is very relevant and useful, especially the
idea of saving up and living well below your means. However, to more
specifically address what you are looking for, I think the most important
thing to think about is what are your risk factors, and how can you mitigate
them?

Here are a few risk factors (more to give you an example):

(1) Loss of income from employment / Inability to get a similar income in your
next job \- Do you have the savings to weather 6 months of unemployment (or
more)? There is a saying, though I don't know how true it is, that for every
10k of salary, you need to plan to allow up to a month to find a comparable
job. \- Is your job set something that will always be needed, or is it
something that is somewhat fickle based on the markets? As a concrete example,
ActionScript may have been a popular language at some point, but you would be
out of a job now if that was all you knew. \- Are you yourself either
specialized in something that will never go away, or flexible enough to handle
whatever comes your way? You need to be one of those.

(2) How is your health? \- I think this is something most people missed below
in terms of preparedness. It is easy to think you can weather any recession if
you have your health... but what if you lose it? The #1 cause of bankruptcy is
due to Medical Issues. Do you have a means to weather medical issues? \- Are
you actively keeping care of yourself (an ounce of prevention is worth a lb of
cure as the saying goes). \- Do you have a healthplan (or means of switching
to a health plan) that will cover you in the worse case scenario? (note: you
can usually use COBRA if you get suddenly unemployed, but what is the monthly
cost?) \- Note the specific "backup" health plan should be tailored to your
risk factors: does your family have a history of cancer, etc.

(3) Risk of your assets getting severely depleted \- People make a lot of
assumptions about how "safe" their investments are. It is always worth taking
a hard cold look as to what your risks really are, and making sure they are
diversified. For example, is real estate in the bay area really independent of
tech? I would harbor to think NOT. \- A general safe bet (if you follow Warren
Buffet/Ben Graham) is to look what everyone else is doing, and do the
opposite. "Sell when everyone else is greedy, buy when everyone else is
scared".

(4) Your "other expenses"/Cost of living \- Do you have any expenses that may
come up? Do you have a kid that might be needing money for school? \- What is
your monthly costs, and how easy would it be to slash them? \- While I don't
know this from personal experience, what I have heard is that the single
biggest mistake that a person/company can make is not cutting hard enough
early enough when faced with depleting resources. The early you make those
hard decisions, the better you are able to weather hard situations.

Those are meant as examples, you know your personal risk factors than anyone
else. The best thing of course is to be prepared with options.

Hope this helps...

------
wheresmyusern
As others have said, the important things are having money saved and knowing
how to have an inexpensive lifestyle. Someone said that you should live an
inexpensive lifestyle so that you can get those savings started and build the
habits and knowledge you need to live inexpensively. I agree with this and in
fact I have been doing it for a while.

My total expense for one month of living is 600 dollars.

I have around six thousand dollars saved right now (which is very little, but
I've just started saving and working). So I could last around a year without
any income.

I pay 400 dollars for rent. I live in the city and share a two bedroom
apartment with four other people. The key to making this arrangement work is
to live with nice people. I've managed to find nice people to live with and I
enjoy it. If you want to really save money on shelter, build a passive house.
Please look at my comment history before commenting that houses are expensive.

My food costs 70 dollars per month to meet all nutritional requirements, and
in really tough times I could cut my protein levels in half (still getting
more complete protein than most Americans probably) and bring that cost down
to 25 dollars per month. I've put a lot of thought into my diet system, and
it's nice to finally have an excuse to discuss it.

The human body requires carbohydrates, (complete) protein, fat, essential
fats, essential vitamins, fiber and water. Some of you may be familiar with
Soylent -- I was a big proponent of Soylent when it first came out. Soylent
turned out to have a high GI, a high cost and a high impact on the
environment. But the mentality of Soylent is still rock solid: the human body
is not magic. If you give the human body the things I listed above, it will
function properly. So if you are trying to optimize your diet, you first need
to understand what the minimum viable diet looks like. Now that we know what
MVD consists of, we need to find the cheapest sources for those things -- the
cheapest sources that truly meet all quality and nutrition requirements.

For protein I eat canned chicken. There are probably better solutions but I
haven't seen them. It's lean, complete protein and it's cheap. I get a months
supply at Costco for 30 to 40 dollars. It also helps me meet my cholesterol
requirements.

For carbohydrates and fiber I eat whole wheat bread. You can buy fifty pounds
of whole wheat flour at Costco for around 13 dollars. The salt and sugar are
so cheap in bulk that they aren't worth mentioning. The yeast comes in dense
dry packs, 5 dollars for many months worth. Just open the dry pack and put it
in a sealed container and pop that in the freezer. You can add oil for good
fat. all you need to do is put these ingredients into a bread machine. If you
don't have a bread machine you can buy one at your local thrift store. I
bought mine that way and it's been going strong. It only cost 7 dollars. I see
a bread machine almost every single time I walk into a thrift store, which is
quite often. They are rarely more than 10 dollars. The cost to make a large,
very dense, 2000 calorie loaf of delicious whole wheat bread (real whole
wheat, not the hybrid garbage you would find in a super market) is 50 cents at
the highest. This includes the cost of water and the electricity to run the
machine at a cost of 15 cents per kWh. To store my flour I have food-grade
buckets with so-called Gamma lids. Its extremely convenient.

For essential vitamins I take a complete multi-vitamin. Just to be extra
cautious, I eat a vegetable here and there. There is very little doubt that I
get all the vitamins I need. The vitamins I get from Costco -- they are beyond
cheap.

For essential fats I take fish oil, which provide Omega 3 EFAs, and for Omega
6 my whole wheat flour is enough. It would be trivial to adjust my EFA levels
up or down if I wanted. The fish oil is also from Costco and is very cheap
indeed.

Some might look at this diet and wonder how anyone could sustain it for long
periods of time. I wonder how anyone does anything else. If you read up on
heart disease I think that you will view this diet in a much better light.
Most diets are high in saturated fat -- anything with saturated fat will stay
with you. A portion of the food will literally stay with you, inside you -- it
will collect on the inside of your arteries and cause them to harden. Then
your arteries will crack, bleed and clot causing you to die in a very painful
manner. This diet is very, very low in saturated fat. It has an
extraordinarily good glycemic index. It is not only the best way to eat on a
diet, it is a very, very good way to eat in general. If I had a billion
dollars, I wouldn't change it. This dual purpose makes me very happy with my
diet. I've been using it for almost a year and I feel great.

edit:

if you live in an apartment, consider a portable washing machine. before, i
had to pay four dollars to do a load of laundry in the machines that my
complex provides. i dont own or want to own a car, and even if i did i wouldnt
want to take my clothes to a laundromat. it turns out that they make washing
machines for use inside an apartment. i have a 3 cubic foot model that hooks
up under my bathroom sink. its literally ten times cheaper. i also air dry my
clothes, which saves even more money. air drying clothes is amazing and i have
no idea why it isnt done more in the US. its free and works just as well as
machine drying. it doesnt require any more work or time (human engagement
time) than machine drying, either.

~~~
tbirrell
What do you do for variety? If anything.

~~~
wheresmyusern
Variety isn't necessary for survival. In my case, it isn't even necessary for
happiness. But if I want variety there is no shortage of it out there. In good
times you might eat out every weekend. But when hard times come, you will be
able to stay full for almost nothing. Having experienced extreme hunger due to
a lack of money, I find tremendous value in it.

i do like chipotle. brown rice, black beans, chicken, vegetables, mild,
sometimes cheese, corn, sour cream, guack.

------
antisthenes
Own property. You can always rent it out and you will never go homeless
because of that.

~~~
michaelthiessen
> You can always rent it out

This is clearly false.

Additionally, if you can't pay your mortgage because the recession hits you as
well, then you can lose the house.

There is no bullet-proof strategy.

~~~
antisthenes
> This is clearly false.

Wow, nice argument. You can't rent out property during a recession? What stops
you, exactly?

~~~
michaelthiessen
You can, but that doesn't mean that it's going to be a cake walk. Just because
you are trying to rent out a property doesn't mean it _will_ be rented out.

That's all I was getting at in my poorly constructed reply.

------
joshfraser
Hold bitcoin

~~~
Frankston_B1375
What makes you sure that Bitcoin would be recession proof? I know the common
arguments for Bitcoin and it being "similar" to gold.

But recently, it feels more like Bitcoin is just another investment product,
with its price being ballooned by big time investors and a concentration of
96% of existent bitcoin in the hands of just 4% of the holders.

So if a recession does hit, what would stop investors from dumping their
bitcoins to hold on to the cash (cash being an even more valuable asset in
times of crisis)?

~~~
joshfraser
Recessions often go hand in hand with a breakdown of trust in governments and
banks making a trustless system like Bitcoin far more appealing.

------
spajus
Stash cash.

------
mtgx
1\. Don't have any debt

2\. Lower your monthly costs as much as possible

3\. Save money

4\. Although we don't know how cryptocurrencies will fare in a recession (I
think it could go either way, if people cash out, for instance, to buy their
daily needs), I think it could be safer to hold some money in solid/proven
cryptocurrency compared to say _a bank_. Modern banks, especially U.S. ones
are built on quick-sand with their 100-500x leverage for their assets. If
something goes wrong for them it will go wrong _quickly_. And if things are
bad enough, the government will even ban people from withdrawing their money
from banks.

~~~
zrail
US bank accounts are federally insured by the FDIC or the NCUA. During the GFC
hundreds of banks closed and every single account holder was made whole up to
the limit of FDIC insurance. There was no cash liquidity issue for ordinary
account holders.

Trusting cryptocurrency over the FDIC is naive in the extreme.

------
oscarcp
Step 1: Keep your knowledge as sharp as the sharpest knife. Knowledge is the
ultimate currency.

Step 2: Research people's attitude during that time (every recession creates a
change in behaviour and personality) and find a personality trait that will
match it so you can gain their trust or affection (not in the partner sense),
especially higher ups that can give you employment or any other sort of
resource (recession is not a time to be thinking of money as the only
resource).

Step 3: Meet people, force yourself to do it and apply those traits. Don't
become an asshole in the process.

Step 4: Repeat with other resources that may be handy during that specific
recession. Diversify.

