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Now Patrick Wojtowicz, 36, his wife Melissa, 37, and daughter Gabrielle, 15, raise pigs and chickens for food on 40 acres near Alma, Mich. They're planning a garden and installing a wood furnace. They disconnected the satellite TV and radio, ditched their dishwasher and a big truck and started buying clothes at resale shops.
"As long as we can keep decreasing our bills, we can keep making less money," Patrick says. "We're not saying this is right for everybody, but it's right for us."
Hard times are creating economic survivalists such as the Wojtowicz family who are paring expenses by becoming more self-sufficient.
Reviving "almost lost" skills and preparing for tough days make people feel more in control, says Charlotte Richert, consumer sciences educator for Oklahoma State University's Extension Service in Tulsa County.
Karen Gulliver, MBA program chair at Argosy University in Eagan, Minn., expects the movement to grow as the sour economy forces people to reassess priorities. People are asking, "Do I really want to be 100% vulnerable with no self-sufficiency skills if something happens?" she says.
Some signs of the trend:
•Stockpiling. When the stock market drops, orders surge for freeze-dried food, survival kits and emergency supplies, says Nitro-Pak president Harry Weyandt. One best seller: a $3,375 food reserve that feeds four people for three months.
•Gardening. Sales of vegetable seeds and transplants are up 30% from 2008 at W. Atlee Burpee, the USA's largest seed company. The National Gardening Association says 7 million more households will grow food this year than in 2008 — a 19% rise. A book on building root cellars is the top seller at Johnny's Selected Seeds in Winslow, Maine, supervisor Joann Matuzas says.
•Canning. Jarden Corp. says sales of its Ball and Kerr canning and preserving products are up more than 30% from 2008. Sonya Staffan, owner of The Jam and Jelly Lady commercial cannery in Lebanon, Ohio, is offering twice as many classes this year.
•Sewing. More people are learning to sew so they can mend clothes and make home décor, says Rachel Cohen, spokeswoman for SVP Worldwide, owner of sewing-products makers Singer and Husqvarna Viking.
•Relocating. Steve Saltman, general manager of LandAndFarm.com, a national real estate company, says more customers want to "live simply in a less-expensive place." Jonathan Rawles of SurvivalRealty.com says more people moving to rural areas "are specifically worried about economic and social instability."
Patrick Wojtowicz's family decided to transform their lives when his paycheck began to shrink last year. A truck driver, he was spending more time on the road, paying his own expenses while waiting for loads. He disliked being away from home for weeks at a time and worried about losing his job. Melissa Wojtowicz is self-employed and works from home.
Their dual paychecks allowed them to live comfortably, but they weren't satisfied, Patrick says. "We would basically buy stuff to feel good," he says. "When that stuff stopped filling the voids we had, we started analyzing what it was that we were really missing. We were missing being around each other."
The Wojtowiczes made a list of the things they could give up if Patrick quit his job and they relied on Melissa's income. They already lived in a house on property Patrick inherited from his father a few years ago.
Gabrielle "put up enough resistance to qualify as being a teenager," Patrick says, but soon she was reminding her parents to turn off lights to save electricity.
Steps such as that, and keeping the thermostat set on 63 degrees this winter, cut monthly electric bills from $300 to $150, Patrick says. He hunts deer and turkeys. Instead of buying books and going to movies, they visit the library weekly. For Christmas, they got canning gear so they can preserve the food they grow.
"The earn, spend, earn era has come to an end for us," he says on truenorthfound.blogspot.com, their blog. "The idea of living a fuller, more satisfying life seems simple to us now. ... Money, cash, credit, maybe they don't matter. Maybe, just maybe, it is those things that impede our ability to be truly happy."
Whatever happens to the economy, the Wojtowicz family hopes to remain self-sufficient. Instead of spending their tax refund, as they usually did, they used it to pay down debt. They stopped using credit cards and they're trying to build up savings. "I'm working harder than ever," Patrick says, "but it's more satisfying work and ... it's much easier to sleep at night."
Most Americans accept the continuing attack on tobacco companies and smokers, but how do they feel about the massive government deception? In 1998, 46 state attorneys general and major tobacco companies signed the Master Settlement Agreement. The major tobacco companies agreed, among other things, to give states $240 billion over 25 years to provide for smoking cessation programs and cover the health costs associated with using their product. In return state attorneys general promised tobacco companies that they wouldn't sue them and would use their lawmaking power to protect the major tobacco companies from competition from small tobacco companies. Of the $80 billion extorted so far, states have spent about 30 percent on health, not all tobacco-related, and less than 6 percent on smoking cessation programs. Instead, state legislatures spent the bulk of their tobacco money for items such as museum building, tax relief, rainy-day funds and other expenditures having nothing to do with tobacco or health.
The U.S. Congress' deception was, and continues to be, a major player in our financial meltdown. In congressional hearings, before the meltdown, on the soundness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Rep. Maxine Waters said, "Through nearly a dozen hearings, we were frankly trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines." Rep. Barney Frank, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, said, "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Other congressmen gave similar assurances. Unfortunately for our nation, the forces pushing for "affordable" housing won the day and saddled us with today's unprecedented financial disaster. How stupid is it of us to ask those who brought us "affordable" housing to now turn their attention to bringing us "affordable" health care?
Congressional deception about government finances means today's children will face a financial disaster that will make today's mess seem like a walk in the park. What's called the public debt stands at $11 trillion and growing. That pales in comparison to the federal government's unfunded liability -- obligations that are not covered by an asset of equal or greater value.
Mike Whalen, former policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, commenting on last year's Social Security Trustees annual report on the state of the Social Security and Medicare programs, said, "The report on the state of entitlement programs is rather grim -- the combined unfunded liabilities of both programs are $101 trillion." What that means is that in order for government to make good on its promises, Congress would have to put aside tens of trillions of dollars in the bank today. Keep in mind that our GDP is only $14 trillion.
In the absence of massive tax increases or cuts in benefits, in order to meet its promises Congress must cease spending on one in four programs by 2020, such as education and highway construction, and one in two by 2030, and by 2050 or so all federal revenue will be spent supporting Social Security, Medicare and prescription drug benefits. Such a scenario is unsustainable. There will be economic and political chaos. Today's politicians are not likely to take measures to avoid the coming chaos because senior citizens, the major beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare, vote in large numbers and will exact a high political price. Plus, neither today's senior citizens nor today's politicians will be alive in 2050. I'd be more optimistic if my fellow Americans were simply suffering from congressional deception as opposed to their not caring about the economic calamity that awaits tomorrow's Americans. I'd be even more optimistic if today's seniors started putting heat on Congress to allow those Americans who want nothing to do with Social Security to opt out.
