Florida Catholic | Struggling Families Learn How To Live On Less

Struggling families learn how to live on less

PEGGY DEKEYSER | FLORIDA CATHOLIC PENSACOLA-TALLAHASSEE BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 07.16.08

TALLAHASSEE | More people, more need, more urgency, more desperation and more stress characterize what’s happening at Catholic Charities of Northwest Florida’s Tallahassee regional office, according to director Debra Williams.

“We’re also seeing anecdotal indications of an upswing in domestic violence, which may be in response to the current economic pressures,” she said.

Jack Keillor, a caseworker for the agency, conducts financial literacy classes for clients. “Gas prices are especially hitting those on fixed incomes hard. They’re having trouble understanding how they can adjust, the changes they can make to help them through this,” he said.

The financial literacy classes include helping the clients find new options for transportation, energy savings and food.

“It’s a cross-generational group. It’s interesting to see the interaction between the older members and the younger ones,” Keillor said. In trying to stretch their limited incomes further, the clients are turning their attention more frequently to a way of life that seemed to have passed from the American scene, Keillor added.

“They talk about living near the bus route, walking to the grocery store, hanging clothes on a clothesline instead of paying to dry them. Some of the younger clients have never seen a clothespin. They talk about living close to town, close to services, so you can walk where you need to go. It’s the way many of us grew up in small-town America in the years following the Depression and on through the 1950s,” Keillor said.

The class shared some tricks for saving money at the grocery store:

• Plan a menu first, then check specials and coupons to find the least expensive foods.

• Never go to the store hungry.

• Beware of the marketing traps and lures stores use to trigger impulse buying.

• Shop at the least expensive stores.

• Avoid convenience and individual serving size foods.

• Always check unit pricing.

• Cook once; plan leftovers to make more meals.

• Always take your lunch to work.

• Try not to take your kids to the grocery store, or help them know how to resist impulse buying to seek out the best values.

Keillor recalled the lessons his mother, who grew up during the Depression, taught him. “She would cook a big ham for a Sunday dinner, then slice some to put in a potato casserole and for sandwiches, make ham salad with some, use the little bits for ham and beans, cook the ham bone with beans or split peas for soup, and finally give what was left of the bone to the dog. That was financial literacy!”

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