The society that we all live in is starting to crumble. It will not collapse overnight, but will take a slow and bumpy ride down the slope to oblivion. How long that process will take is up for debate, but unless there is a major change in the way that we use energy and other non renewable resources, that collapse will come sooner rather than later. The signs are already there in things like the real wage of the middle class, which has been dropping since the 1970’s and has really started to drop in recent years. In the US, the official unemployment rate is in the region of 9%, but the rate when people who have given up looking for work, the number is more in the vicinity of 25%. In the US, 45.8 million people, or 15% of the population are using food stamps. The divide between the rich and the poor is reaching record proportions. Add on to this the problems of peak oil and climate change, and we are in a real predicament.
At this point, there is very little chance of avoiding a collapse, and the few opportunities that do exist are being ignored. Civilization as a whole appears to be doomed. For the individual though, there is the chance to prepare and to smooth the ride down. One of the main things that needs to be done is to get off the consumer bandwagon and learn to live within your means. The banks will be one of the last organizations to fail, as they have the most resources to work with, and so you will need to be out of debt to the banks, or they will confiscate what little you do have left if you are in debt to the banks. People need to learn skills that will allow them to sustain themselves, to provide themselves with food, clothing and shelter. Stop going to restaurants for all your food, learn to cook at home from scratch. You will be living healthier and saving money at the same time. Learn to do at least simple home repairs. No need to call a plumber to fix a broken toilet. The parts are simple and easy to replace.
A couple of generations back, people were much more self sufficient and relied mostly on their own skills, so it is possible for people now to relearn these skills. One of the problems that will be faced is that a lot of these skills have been lost, since the current generation do not see the need to learn these skills from their grandparents, and in most cases that generation has died off, and those skills have been lost. A lot of things will have to be relearned, although fortunately some skills have been documented in old books. This generation needs to learn these lost arts so that they can prosper in the rough times ahead.
By practicing frugality, you learn to live with a smaller footprint on the environment, and have the added bonus of saving money.