The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent stock values downward, which undermined consumer confidence. This led to a sharp economic decline that spread from the United States to other countries and continued for several years.
The effects of The Great Depression were severe. Since the government provided no unemployment insurance, lost jobs quickly translated into lost homes and extreme poverty. In 1931, tent camps and shack towns began to appear. One large encampment that residents called "Hooverville" in honor of the President whom they blamed for the Depression.
Unemployment was at an all time high with more people losing their jobs everyday. Businesses closed. Banks were going bankrupt which meant even people who were thrifty and wise with their money lost their savings they had put in the bank they trusted. People were evicted from their homes and were literally starving.
The people who went through The Great Depression know what it’s like to live frugally in order to survive. They didn’t make frugal choices to save up for a trip or pay down excessive debt. They had to find ways to be frugal in an effort to just be able to put food on the table and try desperately hard to keep their homes.
We can learn a lot from The Depression Era, not only when it comes to perseverance, strength, and the will to survive, but also on how to save money. These people didn’t fool around. They knew how to be extremely frugal. Their survival depended on it. Forget trying to live frugally on one income many families had to learn how to live frugally on NO income.
Here are twelve frugal living tips they used to survive those hard times.
12 Lessons from The Great Depression
1. Foraging
Foraging is the act of gathering wild food for free. Various kinds of nuts and berries, like black walnuts and blackberries, were often foraged to help feed the family. Dandelions were often used in meals as well. Even squirrels and rabbits were consumed. My daughters great grandparents often ate squirrel for survival and showed us how to do it early on in my marriage. I’ve eaten odd things like turtle, rabbit, and frogs legs. People of the Depression Era struggled to buy food, so foraging was a good way to help them put food on the table.
2. They Lived Within Their Means
If they didn’t have the money, they certainly didn’t put it on credit. They made do with what they had and if they didn’t have it they made do without. They had to learn to stay within their budget. They kept track of their finances and often bartered for the things they needed.
3. Meat was Replaced with Inexpensive Foods
They learned to make do with what food they had and made meals that didn’t require meat. They would cook with beans or potatoes, or make cheap meals such as pancakes. If they did eat meat they would stretch it as far as they possibly could. While I never had to eat things like mustard sandwiches, I know that my parents did.
My grandfather says they made corn bread and gravy with water because that was all they had. My uncle Paul used to love to go to my great grandparents farm because there was always plenty to eat there, unlike at home.
4. If It Broke, They Fixed It
Clothes were mended at home, not replaced with something new. Most homes were equipped with sewing machines for these types of things. If something in the home stopped working, they repaired it. It would be unthinkable to just throw it away. They often used items around the house to fix broken things, like using cardboard to fix a worn out sole in a shoe.
5. They Bartered
It was very common for people to barter during this time. Money was hard to come by, so if they had something they could barter with in order to get something they needed then that is what they did. If they lived in the country and raised their own meat, raised chickens for eggs, and grew their own food, they could go to town and trade or barter these items for things they needed but couldn’t produce like gas or kerosene, or other food items they could not produce on the farm.
6. They Grew some of their own Food
Backyard gardens became a necessity. The more food they could produce on their property, the better chance they had of keeping food on the table. You can learn the basics of gardening by borrowing books from your local library for free. My grandfather and his brothers always had more than one garden when I was growing up and my grandmother preserved all that food. They had lived through hard times and they were always prepared in case it happened again.
7. Nothing was Wasted
When it came to food, everything was used or eaten. For example, when it came to something like a chicken, the feet and bones would be used for soup, the gizzards would be consumed, even the feathers would be used for featherbeds. My brother cooks with chicken feet even today. Fruit with bruises would just have the bad spot cut out of it before eating it. Absolutely everything they could possibly eat was used to feed their families.
8. People Took In Boarders
A boarder is someone who rents a room in someone's house. Renting out rooms in their homes meant extra income to help them survive. With so many people without work during this time, they looked for other ways to make money.
9. They Recycled
Instead of throwing something out, it would often be used for something else. Feed and flour sacks were used to make clothing, newspapers were used to line the walls like wallpaper to keep drafts out, old scraps of clothes were used as rags. Wood scraps would be used to make toys. They kept everything they could in case they could make use of it.
10. They Layered Clothes to Stay Warm
During the depression, many people couldn’t afford to properly heat their homes. To save on resources they often didn’t heat the house while sleeping. They layered their clothing to stay warm and slept under horse hair blankets or feather beds made from chicken or goose feathers.
At our house we layer clothing, but I do use a blanket throw heating pad on the coldest of nights. While it uses electricity, it can save you money because you can set your thermostat lower at night. It is cheaper to heat just your bed instead of the whole house.
11. They Made Stuff
When they wanted or needed something, their first thought was to figure out how to make it instead of running out and buying it. They were experts on how to figure out how to make it themselves.
12. Other Modes of Transportation
Riding bicycles and walking were popular during The Great Depression due to their frugal nature. If a person did have to drive somewhere, they did it as minimally as possible and avoided going out of their way in an effort to save on gas.
These frugal tips from The Great Depression are excellent ideas of how we can save money today. While we hope we never have to suffer through a depression, we just don’t know what tomorrow may bring. While we can’t always control outside factors that affect our finances, what we can control are the skills we continue to learn to become more self-sufficient. The more we learn to be frugal, the more we are able to be self-reliant, the better off we are in the long run.
The lessons we learn through the stories from that time can continue to teach us today. It is because of what they went through that we can learn the best ways to save money and be frugal. The frugal living tips from The Great Depression are some of the absolute most successful ways we can cut our budget and expenses.
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