All Walks of Life

Time magazine is out with an interesting report, "Thrift Nation - How Americans Spend Now," featuring a series of vignettes that detail the impact the financial crisis is having on individuals from all walks of life. Examples include:

"The Unemployed Couple":

Chris Strong for TIME

Barbara, 46, and Kevin Lowe, 52, Grand Rapids, Mich.

The cell phones were canceled; so were all subscriptions and outside entertainment. We didn't go skiing this winter, and we won't be golfing over the summer. No more wine. We used our severance and some savings to pay off Kevin's 2008 Saturn and pay down the house. We debated whether to cancel the local newspaper, but in the end kept it for the Sunday coupons. We now eat every single item in the house until it's gone. If that means we have curly pasta and penne and spaghetti all mixed up, so be it. I have 101 ways to use half-eaten boxes of pasta. We're much more careful shopping — no more running in to get one or two things. We wait until we have a big list, and then buy only what's on that list — and at the local grocery warehouse, not the food boutique.

You'd be amazed at how you don't even know where your money goes. It took us a couple of months to get a firm handle on our expenses. There are some things you only pay a few times a year and you forget them, and then they crop up and you don't have $40 for the water bill or veterinarian. I distributed flyers around the neighborhood offering babysitting and elder-care services. I can take care of an infant for a few hours as well as any high school girl. I'm tired of waiting for someone else to offer me a job.

It's hard to invite people for dinner, so we don't accept many invitations. We went to the art show on the day tickets were discounted, and told friends we'd brown-bag our lunches. One of them said we could go to a cheap restaurant, but I can't. I'm not sure they really understand how it is. I know I didn't until it happened to me.

We are still confident something is going to come up. We have discovered we can live on a very small amount of money, but we need to find something with health insurance before our COBRA expires. We take turns having meltdowns.

"The Gun-Store Owner":

Danny Wilcox Frazier / Redux for TIME

Jody Windschitl, 49, Missouri Valley, Iowa

Our sales are up about 33% this year compared with last. As an industry, they say it's the "Obama effect." We have never been in business when the Democrats are in office. We've been told that gun sales go through the roof, and they weren't kidding. We can't even get stuff. Ammunition has just dried up all over the country. Right now we're so busy, we've had to hire one person. People are afraid also of the Democrats' putting a ban on firearms — that's the biggest fear factor.

I used to see about five M-15s sold a year. Until about two weeks ago, we were selling about five a week. Now it's three a week. More women are buying, especially older ones. A lot of them are widows who are alone, and they want to have self-protection, just because of the economy. We've had a lot of robberies and break-ins in our area, and they're attributing that to people being out of work.

"The Emergency-Room Doctor":

Bill Cramer / Wonderful Machine for TIME

Naisohn Arfai, 33, Philadelphia

I started in mid-July. I was a resident here, so I'm not entirely new to the system, but I'm new as an attending physician. You feel like you're at the front lines in emergency medicine. It's both rewarding and very painful at the same time. I feel like I've seen more people coming in in the past half-year telling me they can't afford their blood-pressure medicines. They haven't been able to see a doctor for a while. They used to have a doctor, but they're not covered anymore.

They come in when they've reached a point of desperation. They could be having a stroke or a heart attack or kidney failure. But more commonly what we see is people who are coming in with recurrent headaches. They feel lethargy. They feel like they're having blurred vision, headaches. Sometimes they have some mild chest pain or difficulty breathing. They come in, and they say, "I know my blood pressure's high. These are the kind of symptoms I get." It's frustrating, because you know you can remedy it temporarily, but in the long run, how can I be sure that these people are going to be seen by a physician after they leave?

There are times when people will come in and they'll need a chest X-ray, but they'll ask, "Well, how much is this going to cost me? How much is a CT scan going to cost me?" Oftentimes I don't see these people again. I don't get to see what happens after they leave the ER.

Here is the complete list:

1. The Unemployed Couple

2. The Sports CEO

3. The Restaurant Owner

4. The Autoworker

5. The Financial Adviser

6. The Blackjack and Roulette Dealer

7. The Gun-Store Owner

8. The Boutique Owner

9. The Bulk Shopper

10. The Organic Gardener

11. The Movie-Theater Concessionaire

12. The Emergency-Room Doctor

13. The Grocery-Store-Outlet Owner

14. The Therapist

15. The Financial-Aid Officer

16. The Doggie Day Care Owner

17. The Free Health Care Clinic CEO

Michael J. Panzner
Editor, Financialarmageddon.com

Also by Michael J. Panzner

Michael J. Panzner is a 25-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets and the author of Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes, published by Kaplan Publishing.