When a quarter of the workforce was unemployed and banks were failing by the thousands, families didn’t wait around for the economy to recover. Here are 25 real ways Americans brought in money during the Great Depression, grouped by type of work, plus which ones still make sense as a side income today.
Updated October, 2026.
When jobs disappeared in the early 1930s, there was no unemployment check coming and very little help from anywhere else. Between 1929 and 1933, wages fell by 42.5%, and by 1933 almost 25% of the labor force was unemployed. That’s about 12,830,000 people!
Families still had to eat, and the rent was still due. So people turned whatever they knew how to do into a bit of extra cash. They grew food to sell, took in laundry, fixed what others would have thrown away and ran tiny home businesses decades before anyone called it a side hustle.
What struck me while researching this was how ordinary most of it was. None of these ideas required a business degree or a bank loan, and plenty of them would still work for your family today. By utilizing the knowledge and skills they already had, moms, dads, and even the kids were able to help keep their households afloat.
In this article
- How Did People Earn Money During the Great Depression?
- What Was the Great Depression?
- 25 Ways Families Earned Money During the Great Depression
- Want to see how your skills measure up?
- What Still Works Today
- Great Depression Side Hustles vs. Today’s Gig Economy
- Your Turn: Get Ready to Earn Money in a Downturn
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Related Great Depression Content
- If You Want to Go Deeper Into Depression-Era Resilience
- Final Thoughts
- Want More Useful Info Like This From Survival Mom?
Some of the links in this post may contain affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases without any increase in price to you.
How Did People Earn Money During the Great Depression?
Most families earned money through a mix of service work, selling food, handmade goods, bartering and small resale businesses. Hardly anyone relied on just one. A typical household had three or four small income streams going at once, and the kids usually pitched in too.
- Services: laundry, housecleaning, childcare, haircuts, repair work
- Food production: eggs, dairy, produce, foraging, baking, honey
- Handmade goods: sewing, quilting, soap making, woodworking
- Bartering: trading labor and goods directly, informal store credit
- Small enterprise: scrap collecting, reselling, newspaper routes, roadside stands
What Was the Great Depression?
The Great Depression was the longest and most severe economic downturn in modern U.S. history. It began with the stock market crash of 1929 and lasted through much of the 1930s. It shaped that generation for the rest of their lives, from the way they saved bacon grease to the way they felt about banks.
My own grandparents saved everything from rubberbands to smoothed-out “tin foil” and plastic margarine dishes. They passed along those habits and mindsets to their children, so these have never quite died out in many households and family trees.
Why Jobs Disappeared So Quickly
The crash set off a chain reaction. Banks that had invested heavily in stocks failed, and businesses lost access to credit. Factories cut production and laid off workers, those workers stopped spending, and even more businesses went under.
Economic downturns rarely announce themselves ahead of time. Even now, a whole industry can shrink in a few years because of automation, AI or a global crisis, and families who depend on one paycheck feel it first. That’s why I keep coming back to how people handled the 1930s.
How Families Adapted
Once the weekly paycheck was gone, families had to rethink almost everything. Even mealtimes became a challenge, and moms came up with their own Great Depression recipes to stretch what little they had.
Skills that once seemed optional, like sewing and cooking from scratch, suddenly paid whenever a customer could be found. Children worked, and neighbors traded with each other. The book We Had Everything But Money is full of first-person stories about how families pulled it off.
If you’ve ever had to tighten your own financial belt, you know there comes a point when there’s nothing left to cut. Every extra expense is gone. Now what? That’s when you start looking for ways to bring more money in.
25 Ways Families Earned Money During the Great Depression
Service Work
Services were the easiest place to start because they cost almost nothing to set up. All you needed was a skill and neighbors who trusted you and had the ability to pay or barter.
1. Housecleaning and Laundry
Women often took in laundry or cleaned homes for families who still had income. Even during these years there were some households that stayed financially stable and could hire help.
2. Childcare
As parents went looking for work, sometimes in another town, watching the neighbors’ children brought in a small but steady income. It took no equipment, only a reputation for being reliable and trustworthy.
3. Hair Cutting and Grooming
Barbershops were a luxury many people couldn’t afford, so someone handy with scissors cut hair at home for a fraction of the price.
4. Repair Work
Shoe repair, clothing mending and tool fixing were valuable trades when nobody could afford to replace anything. A person who could make a coat or a pair of boots last another winter could almost always find paying customers.
5. Odd Jobs and Day Labor
Thousands of men took whatever short-term work they could find, from hauling and painting to chopping wood and farm work. It was unpredictable, but it paid cash the same day.
Food Production and Agriculture
For families with any land at all, even a small backyard plot, growing food did double duty. It cut the grocery bill, and whatever was left over could be sold or traded. In rural areas, it was often one of the few reliable ways to get cash during the worst years.
6. Selling Eggs and Dairy
Families with a few chickens or a cow sold eggs, milk, butter or cream to neighbors. The amounts were small, but people still needed those staples, so the money came in week after week.
7. Selling Produce
Home gardens grew much larger during the 1930s. Extra vegetables and fruit went to roadside stands, town markets or straight to the neighbors. For some families, the garden went from a supplement to their main source of food and income. As a side note, this set the stage for the highly successful Victory Garden campaign, which went into high gear around 1941. Millions of American households already had gardens established and the skills to grow their own produce and then some.
8. Fishing & Foraging
You didn’t need a farm or even a backyard to sell food. People near lakes, rivers or the coast caught and sold fish, clams and crabs. Good foragers picked and sold berries, wild asparagus and medicinal herbs. Today, sprouting seeds or growing microgreens is a modern version of the same idea.
9. Baking and Preserving
Good home cooks baked bread and pies or sold their canned goods locally. Homemade fudge was a big hit, a little comfort food for a few pennies.
10. Butchering and Meat Sales
Families with livestock sold portions of meat or offered to do the butchering for others. In farm country, that skill was always in demand. This was also true of anyone who had hunting skills and could sell off venison and other wildlife meat.
11. Farm Labor and Sharecropping
Families with livestock sold portions of meat or offered to do the butchering for others. In farm country, that skill was always in demand. My own great-grandfather was a sharecropper in Texas, and had to leave his family just to earn enough to stay alive.
12. Beekeeping & Honey
A reader shared that her grandfather kept bees during the Depression and sold the honey for extra money. When sugar was rationed during World War II, the family was in a good position to sell honey at a premium. It’s a skill that gets handed down, too. Her grandfather taught her dad, and her dad taught her.
Handmade Goods and Home Businesses
When factory jobs disappeared, many families turned practical skills into small home businesses. They needed very little money to start, and mom could earn from home while she took care of the kids.
13. Sewing and Alterations
Clothing was expensive and rarely replaced during the Depression. One shirt or dress had to last for years, and skilled seamstresses earned money by altering, repairing, or sewing garments for others. As children grew, hand-me-down clothing was a fact of life, and a local seamstress who could shorten, lengthen, take-in and let-out a piece of clothing had a skill most everyone in the community needed.
14. Quilting, Knitting, and Crocheting
Handmade blankets and clothing were made for the family and for sale. Yarn and fabric were often salvaged from worn-out clothes to keep costs down.
15. Soap Making and Household Supplies
Homemade soap, candles and cleaning products were sold or traded, since every household still needed them. This was also the era of the Fuller Brush Man, the door-to-door salesman who sold brushes and other household goods.
16. Woodworking and Small Crafts
People with woodworking skills built simple furniture and small household items. This wasn’t the time for decorative pieces. Customers wanted furniture that would be useful and last.
17. Taking in Boarders
Families with a spare room rented it to travelers, displaced workers, or anyone else who needed a place to stay. Some boarders paid in cash and others in help around the house or farm, and adding home-cooked meals brought in a little more. It was one of the most stable sources of income a family could have.
Want to see how your skills measure up?
Bartering
When cash was scarce, people traded what they could do or make for what they needed. Bartering didn’t end the hardship, but it kept families going when savings were gone and jobs were hard to find.
18. Trading Labor
As long as you had a strong back and some energy, you could work in exchange for what you needed. One neighbor might fix a fence in exchange for help bringing in the harvest. Others traded carpentry, sewing, childcare or mechanical work.
19. Swapping Goods
Families traded surplus food, handmade items and household goods for whatever they lacked. Eggs might go for flour, or a few jars of preserved vegetables for a load of firewood.
20. Becoming The Neighborhood Go-To
In many towns, one person became the shoe repairman for the whole neighborhood, while someone else was the mechanic or seamstress everyone used. When money was tight, people chose to work with those they trusted, so a good reputation turned into steady work.
21. Credit at Local Stores
Some small-town merchants let trusted customers buy essentials on credit and pay later. It depended entirely on relationships, and families who were well known in their community had options that isolated families didn’t.
Small Businesses & Resale
Some people didn’t wait for work to show up. They made their own by buying, selling or offering small services wherever they saw a need.
A few well-known companies got their start during these years:
- Krispy Kreme Donuts (1937): the founder began by selling doughnuts to grocery stores.
- Dairy Queen (1940): even in hard times, people would spend a few cents on a soft-serve cone.
- Revlon (1932): women still wanted affordable ways to look their best
- Penguin Books (1935): cheap paperbacks sold well when hardcovers were too expensive.
22. Collecting Scrap
Scrap metal, rags, bottles and other reusable materials were gathered up and sold. The profit was small, but it took almost no money to start and paid right away.
23. Reselling Used Goods
Enterprising people bought secondhand clothing, tools and household items cheap and resold them for a profit. Fixing something up first meant a better price.
24. Newspaper Routes & Errands
Kids delivered newspapers or ran errands for a few cents, which helped when the grown-ups’ work came and went. A boy could earn a little extra by being promoted to “Corner Captain,” a sort of Great Depression multi-level marketing program where he recruited other kids to sell papers and took a cut.
25. Street Vending and Roadside Sales
People sold produce, baked goods and small handmade items from roadside stands or in town. Anywhere a crowd gathered, you’d find someone selling everything from paper fans to apples and home-baked muffins.
Ingenuity is something that can never be stolen by thieves, confiscated by a government, or lost to flood or fire.
What Still Works Today
Today’s economy is far more digital than it was in the 1930s, but the basics of earning money in hard times haven’t changed much. When a recession hits, people cut the extras first, but they still need food, repairs, childcare and help around the house.
Low overhead mattered then and it matters now. The less money a venture takes to start, the less you lose if it doesn’t pan out. Practical skills held their value too, because a person who could fix shoes or sew a dress found customers no matter what the stock market did. Families rarely relied on just one paycheck, either. They had learned the hard lesson to never count on an income source lasting forever. Many small income streams kept thousands of them going.
Plenty of these ideas translate well to today:
- Repair skills still save people money. Appliance repair, for example, is in high demand during a time of inflation and job loss when people simply can’t afford to replace a major appliance if a repair is possible.
- Some suburban moms run “porch bakeries” and sell sourdough loaves to neighbors. Backyard chickens provide eggs to sell, and one mom I know set up a few shelves near her windows to sprout seeds for the farmers market.
- College kids earn money washing windows or running a basic pool-cleaning or lawn service.
- Reselling used goods has moved online to Facebook Marketplace, NextDoor.com, and eBay.
These ideas work best in small towns and in communities where people still hire someone because a neighbor recommended them. For most families today, they make the most sense as extra income rather than a full replacement paycheck.
Great Depression Side Hustles vs. Today’s Gig Economy
The Depression didn’t invent the side hustle. It just made one or more mandatory for most families to have just enough to live from one week to the next. The instinct is the same today: start with a skill you already have and keep your costs low.
| Great Depression strategy | Modern equivalent | Still viable today? |
|---|---|---|
| Housecleaning, laundry | Cleaning apps, TaskRabbit | Yes, there’s always local demand |
| Childcare for neighbors | Care.com, babysitting co-ops | Yes, check local regulations |
| Odd jobs, day labor | Uber, DoorDash, TaskRabbit | Yes, this was the gig economy’s original template |
| Selling eggs, produce | Farmers markets, CSA boxes, Etsy | Yes, always a market for these |
| Sewing and alterations | Custom sewing on Etsy, alteration shops | Yes, though the customer base has thinned |
| Taking in boarders | Airbnb, house hacking, roommates | Yes, think college students and contract workers |
| Scrap collecting, resale | eBay, Facebook Marketplace, thrift flipping | Yes |
| Newspaper routes | Instacart, Amazon Flex, grocery delivery | Evolved, not gone |
| Door-to-door sales (Fuller Brush Man) | Direct sales, affiliate marketing | Yes, with a different delivery method |
| Repair work (shoes, tools, clothing) | Appliance repair, cobblers, mending | Yes, and rarer, which makes it more valuable |
Every strategy on the left took almost no money to start and solved a problem for someone nearby. The apps just handle the advertising and payment now instead of a hand-lettered sign in the front yard.
Your Turn: Get Ready to Earn Money in a Downturn
Now is the time to think about how you’d earn money if your income dried up, whether or not you’re out of work today. Ask yourself:
- What skills do you have that someone would pay for during a severe downturn?
- What do you know that would help others?
- What could you make or grow to sell?
- What could you teach?
Frequently Asked Questions
Formal jobs were scarce, so most people pieced together small income streams instead. Yard work, housecleaning, childcare, sewing, selling eggs and produce, reselling and repairs were all common. Government programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) also put millions of people to work.
Most families relied on multiple small income sources rather than one steady paycheck. They grew food, bartered services, repaired instead of replacing items, rented out rooms, and took on part-time or seasonal work.
Yes, and kids often came up with the most creative ideas, like digging clams to sell or picking berries. Older children delivered newspapers, babysat, worked on farms or helped in the family business. On farms especially, a child’s work could decide whether the family got by.
Very, especially in rural areas. When nobody had cash, people traded directly: food for repairs, labor for produce, sewing for childcare.
Unemployment peaked around 25% in 1933 and stayed high through most of the decade. The economy didn’t fully recover until the early 1940s.
I think they work in good times and bad. Small home businesses, practical skills, reselling, repairs and growing food still bring in extra money, because people’s basic needs haven’t changed much since the 1930s. Before you sell anything homemade, check your state’s cottage food laws. Many states allow home-baked and canned goods with few restrictions.
Related Great Depression Content
- The Real Reason Some Families Survived the Great Depression and Other Didn’t
- Growing Up During the Great Depression: What Kids Did and Why It Mattered
- What the Great Depression Can Teach Us About Cooking on a Budget
- Stay Healthy Using These Great Depression Remedies
- Could You Survive a Great Depression? Take the Skills Quiz
- Extreme Frugality: When the Money Situation is Dire
If You Want to Go Deeper Into Depression-Era Resilience
Much of what we know about how families earned money and stretched food in the 1930s comes from diaries, oral histories and firsthand accounts. These books are a good place to start.
- Clara’s Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great Depression by Clara Cannucciari and Christopher Cannucciari: how one family cooked and thrived through hard times.
- The Great Depression: A Diary by Benjamin Roth
- The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan: Dust Bowl families who survived economic collapse and environmental disaster at the same time.
- We Had Everything But Money: short, easy-to-read personal stories.
Final Thoughts
When we read about the Great Depression, it’s easy to focus on the soup kitchens and bank failures, but there’s another side to the story. Ordinary families learned new skills and leaned on their neighbors, and when the regular paycheck disappeared, the one the family had counted on, they found small ones to replace it.
Most of them didn’t think of themselves as resilient. They were simply doing what needed to be done for their families.
Ingenuity is something that can never be stolen by thieves, confiscated by a government or lost to flood or fire. There’s plenty to learn from those who lived through the last depression, and I hope one of these ideas sparks one of your own.
YOU REALIZE that thanks to the U.S. government, most of those things on the list are illegal to do now! EPA, FISH & GAME will not let you go get your own fish, collect wood or even rainwater or make anything they can’t regulate!
and forget making food at home, the county department of health would shut you down in a hot minute. people don’t like door to door salesmen and with the risks of murderers and pedophiles out there in large numbers, this is not safe anyway!
so thanks to the government, being poor is now a crime if you try to help yourself out of poverty!
These weren’t illegal back in the 30s, otherwise there would likely have been far more deaths due to starvation and exposure. 🙁
If we experience a second ‘great depression’ and people are hungry, nobody will care about what the government says.
A lot of people today would starve before eating ‘beans’. Remember the beggars who throw away food that others give them? My ‘food stamp’ relatives eat the most expensive meats, etc. They make fun of me for eating beans.
In some states making food at home is not illegal. Maine has a law that permits “cottage industries”, which means I could make and sell home-made preserves from my kitchen.
It’s also not illegal to sell firewood here in Maine. In fact, because of concerns regarding invasive insect species and the proliferation of tourists who come to Maine for camping, a whole industry around selling firewood has bloomed, especially in my town. The State and local communities would rather allow folks to sell firewood on the side of the road than to have people from out-of-state import their, potentially, contaminated wood.
Check the local laws, but there’s probably a lot less that’s illegal than we think.
Aaacccctuuualy, here in western canada .. the whole list is illegal..
That’s why we in the USA who value FREEDOM so often see Canada as far too Socialist/Communist leaning to wish to ever live there. We were Sooooo very happy to see so many of our Lefist children take off for Canada during the Viet Nam War and thus not stay here to infect any more badly with the stupidity of Communism then those who stayed have already managed. Thanks, you Canadians, for taking all those intellectual losers. Now maybe we know why Canada is so strict about who it lets in from SOUTH of it’s border !
So you’re saying that mending clothes and renting out a room in your house is illegal in Canada? Yikes.
It is unfortunate that there are a number of commentators spreading misinformation and paranoia.
I see in some areas of Canada they are, indeed, very restrictive about food safety, but I know of two ways around this. I’ve known people to rent or borrow a restaurant kitchen or school kitchen during off-peak hours to make their jams or other products, and this seems to satisfy those particular health regulations. Also in some areas there are now “Kitchen Incubators,” which are basically professional kitchens (funded as a non-profit) set up for individuals and budding entrepreneurs to use. There are two in my area. This is a relatively new thing, so it may not be in your area yet. There are also in almost every area, non-profit organizations that assist small and new local businesses to understand the regulations, apply for funding, create a business plan, some offer free design services, etc. They will be a wealth of local information on how to do a start up, and they are free.
It can also depend on the state. Texas laws about making and selling food items are much less restrictive than in Arizona, where I used to live. Also, note that this article is about earning money during the Great Depression, and if such desperate times ever occur again, it’s likely most people will ignore regulations and do whatever they need to in order to earn money and survive.
I agree they can ship in baby food, and pet food from China that poisons both, but forbid a homemaker from selling anything out of the home, it’s so corrupt.
You know very well that fishing and gaming is regulated so that we don’t fish and hunt wildlife into extinction, which we nearly have done many times in our history of America. Regulation has helped the numbers of buffalo, bison, fish, deer, beaver, elk, salmon, swans, American Bald Eagle, threatened plants, etc. to come back, as well as has cleaned up our rivers and lakes from poisons such as mercury. Without it, we likely would have nothing to hunt, but yes, that nothing would be free. There would be no catching… but it would be free. You can still fish without a license on private land, for free… assuming you have the permission of the owner or own the land yourself. The government, for which you have so much venom, also runs huge fish stocking operations, to restock fish we can eat into such places as The Great Lakes, so that people like you and I can fish more, and also to bring income into our states in the form of tourism. To learn more about how and why conservation works, and what opportunities you have for hunting, fishing, and restocking a pond, I suggest you look up your state’s Department of Natural Resources.
My parents were kids during the Depression and the war years, so they weren’t trying to make a living. However, they both talked of selling soda bottles to earn enough money for movie tickets. There are very few places where you could do that now, although I have sold some jewelry to make a little extra money.
One thing I noticed from my research is that even kids felt responsible for earning a bit of money to help out their families.
They were returning the bottles for the deposit. We used to have a nickel deposit on bottles of soda and got a nickel for each one returned. I’ve done this to get extra change but they sell soda in plastic bottles with no deposit on them today. There went that source of spare change.
But you can recycle cans!
This reminds me of a teen couple that stopped here when I was gardening, asking for my redemption bottles (but not offering to work for them). Maybe I should have given them over, but would they have just bought drugs with the profit? Another day, as I mowed, schoolgirls tried to sell me restaurant coupons, but why didn’t they offer to do yardwork to support their team? Sadly, it’s a different world now. But mama taught
me frugality. I used my saved bottles for grocery money, mowed my own yard (a no-gas pusher), and got lettuce from my garden (saving $2 a head). Yep, I’m the proud daughter of a Great Depression survivor.
We have purchased a set or two of those restaurant coupons and got very little use out of them! Yes, help with chores would be a great money maker, but I’ll bet in this day and age, it wouldn’t be safe.
In the 1930’s, the government didn’t demand money before “allowing” people to grow & sell, or bake & sell goods. The current federal govt does all it can to quash individual self-help efforts. You need to be very careful nowadays.
Don’t forget- prospecting for local gold will be back in action as gold goes for $10,000+ per ounce… get your Minelab detector now eh
Not so quick! California, the Golden State, is forming legislation to regulate individual gold dredging with a $900 permit required and limits on how long you can be at any one place in a stream. We have lots of amateur gold panners and dredgers here in the Gold Country (western Sierra), who will be directly impacted by this. The gravel disturbed by these one-man dredging operations is, of course, immediately redeposited in the stream bed, and no Northern California legislator would touch this bill. A southern state legislator was recruited to propose it (where it has no impact). Regulate, regulate, and remove individual freedom to support yourself (or have fun getting cold, wet and dirty for profit)!
My father had 13 jobs by the time he was 13. He had a paper route, a shoe shine box and shares of other shoe shine boxes that he financed to do business outside of military facilities in Rhode Island. He also was known for knowing the neighborhoods and the people in it. Servicemen
would get a shoe shine and ask where the Ladies of the Night lived. They would tip him for the information and then the Ladies would tip him for the referral. So on and so on.
During the depression my grandfather kept bees they would sell the honey for extra money. When rationing started on sugar during the war they were in a good position to sell honey at a premium. My grandfather taught my dad how to be a beekeeper and my dad taught us three kids. It’s a skill you never forget.
That is a great addition to my list!
My mother in law was a little girl during the depression living in Nova Scotia. She said back then lobster and crab and other shell fish were not luxury items. It was what the poor ate. So I doubt many people would have bought them. They would have used them for themselves. She would often head down to the shore and catch a couple and cook them right there on the beach. She would bring extras back to the family to eat. It is like how all the bottom feeder fish that no one ate ever have suddenly become the in thing to eat not necessarily because they are better but because we have over fished the oceans and the good fish are gone.
I’m sorry, but I think your friend is living in a dream world if she thinks she would still be doing well by offering beauty services in a despression type situation. I have been living in a depression type situation for the past 6 yrs. My husband lost his 6 figure job and has struggled to find anything since. Fortunately he has a skill -being a handyman- that helps us eat, but the last few years we’ve lived off 12K a year. We’ve lost our house, our belongings, our savings, our retirement, and have scaled back tremendously on expenses that aren’t necessary.
The first expense to go? Anything beauty related. I went from having my hair cut and colored every 8 weeks, to not having a haircut in SIX years! Manicures, pedicures are a long forgotten memory. There is no way when you have 35 bucks for food that you would tell your family you spent all or most of it on your hair cause Mama likes to feel pretty. Come on! Get real!
I went from having beautiful undies and bras to having cotton ones from a box store and the only reason I have those is because I was down to 3 pairs of undies so my friend bought me some more. Believe me, it ALL changes when you are desperate. ALL OF IT.
I’d have to agree with you. When I was making less than 20K and trying to pay of debt (I did it BTW!!) I didn’t get haircuts or buy very many beauty products. I think in two years I bought 1 tube of mascara, and I added OO to that to make it stretch out longer than it should have. I worked at a really cheap paying office. They expected everyone to look good, but didn’t want to pay us so that we could. Anyways, if I had to go back to that lifestyle I wouldn’t get haircuts and I’ve never been a manicure, pedicure type of girl, but I wouldn’t get those either. Its about whats important to you. I suppose if you were a “lady of the night” it might be important enough to have a few beauty products though. *shrugs*
If it happens again which people are predicting. i will cut hair, do colors, shave or anything to do with hair. I have a license to do hair and teach kids school or so on to make ends meat.
HEY gals, diy. I started cutting my own hair decades ago. Then youtube showed me some tricks. Get good scissors and a big mirror and go for it. (But keep a nice hat handy in case something goes wrong). Saved me at least $180 a year. I also groom my dog myself; he loves the attention. I find first aid scissors are best for pets.
Those are both great ways to save money AND, if you needed a second income, could develop into a side business.
I agree
These I do to save $
Married to a disabled man
I cut my own hair
I use cheap wash clothes as TP then bleach the crud out of them
I wear zero makeup except chapstick, face lotion as needed, sunscreen, bug spray, and oils moisturize older lady skin.
Coffee at home is hard cause I love Starbucks
Water in milk to stretch it
Feed a bit old food to pets to save pet food $
Motorcycle instead of car
Sleep in clothes (don’t need PJ’s)
Buy no sweaters just a good coat
No socks
No underwear except for period x’s
Cheap comfy bra’s with insertable pads
No mail polish
Do own callous on feet removing
Buy bulk foods only. Huge rice, huge beans
Drink only water a lot
In a book I read about the potato famine caskets (sad but true…homemade out of wood) sold really well.
Keep tools on hand. Shovel, saws, hammer, nails, & plant a garden with a greenhouse for winter growing of foods.
Chickens are an easy protein providing food. They weed gardens and eat Peary bugs. You can eat their eggs and them. They take up little space and reproduce.
Knowing how to cook over a campfire is vital but most of our kids don’t know how. I grew up cooking our food on an old 1800’s wood cookstove but this also takes some know how. Cookies come out chewy. Foods in oven need turned every once in awhile to be cooked evenly. Lard works great to cook in cast iron pans.
There’s so much our kids don’t know how to do in a Great Depression type situation!!! It scares me for them!!! How to make butter, soap, glass, bread from scratch, to bathe outside in a lake or river….. to build an outhouse. We need to be teaching these skills. How to darn a sock. How to knit mittens or a scarf.
All of those are excellent suggestions, and right now with the high inflation we’re experiencing, all of us need to find ways to pinch every penny we can.
If things get as bad as the Great Depression it will become a matter of arranging for neighbors to protect one another from the government’s injustices.
Remember the #1 way that people survived? Illegally distilling alcohol, and it was the local police, OFTEN TIMES, who protected those entrepreneurs… because the entrepreneurs were smart enough to make it worth their time to do so.
That’s why any enforcement that WAS pursued came from the Federal government. The locals were “in it together.”
NOT endorsing breaking laws. Just pointing out that survival is a pretty basic need, and unjust laws tend to go by the wayside when the choices are few and STARK.
The people now-a-days don’t want to be bothered. Think about how many of your neighbors you actually know. I know my neighbors, because I made an effort! Some of them I know as acquaintances only, and if times got tough, I really think they would let us starve. But, bringing community back to an area is going to be the first hurdle to get over with people. Everyone is in their own little world and doesn’t care much about anyone else. Just look at how people act when you go out to eat, or to the movies, like you’re bothering them just by being there. There was a time that people knew that their neighbors were their friends and a part of each others safety net. No longer. And I don’t think the police are going to want to help people anymore after all this crap about them bullying people…
I agree
Now days we have just cars and no horses. It’d be a seriously hard time if we no longer can buy gas for whatever reason. America is so spread out that without cars that alone would make a Great Depression type event happening again in America rediculously harder than it was for the previous generations. Horses are far and few between and reproduce very slowly. Just a thought. You think?
That’s a good point. And there have been times very recently when the price of gas has skyrocketed. I remember once years ago, we had to cancel a long road trip because our money was so tight and the cost of gas, along with all the other traveling costs, just put that trip out of reach.
I’m almost 60…. My mom and dad were older when they got me (I was adopted). They were depression-era children, Dad was in WWII, and Mom stayed home and worked at People’s Drug Store and kept their little apartment going in Fredericksburg, VA. She was one of 9 children and they would all remark that they didn’t know they were poor. Thankfully, their daddy never did lose his job….and they gardened. Her momma made all of their clothes, too. My favorite (of many) stories was hearing how her mom would hear of a neighbor in need, and would go down to her cellar and box up home canned goods and send them. They also “Fed the neighborhood” as my mom put it….as in there were always extra people around their table. They were NOT rich by any means….but, they were not truly poor. I wonder if the giving heart had something to do with that………..
Not to add to those ministers who’s bread is buttered by the seed and harvest message and little else of the true Gospel. But the truth is, whether in this life or the next, we do tend to reap what we sow.
How about raising red worms for everything from fishing to fertilizer to chicken treats. They are inexpensive, prolific, and their food, like decayed leaves etc. is free.
I believe I may possess the only flock of chickens that will not eat earthworms. Caterpillars? Yum!! Grubs? Yum! Earthworms? Yuck!
My grandfather had a job loading trucks during the depression. Some times, oops, a crate of vegetables fell and broke. He’d take it home, shared with the neighbors and the rest for his family. Man next door was good at carpentry, lots of trading of work for goods . Those two two neighbors became my grandparents.
What everyone forgets is that not every person was broke during the Depression. The bankers closed the banks and kept cash for themselves. Government officials still got paid-otherwise they put you in jail for not paying your taxes or they took your house and property. Also, many safe deposit boxes were rifled (read confiscated) by government officials and the gold, jewelry, etc was used to sustain their families. So, many profitted and survived by very nefarious means. Those ladies got their hair done, the families ate at fine eateries, etc. So, in the coming Depression/Collapse I expect my local IRS agent to be doing pretty well!
Another point is the type of job you had. Doctors, nurses,Dentists, and hospitals still had business. They might get paid in food or other items, but they at least got something. I worked with a lady in the ’70s who started at AT&T in 1932. She was an operator, who made the royal sum of 35 cents a week to start! She kept her parents and brother until 1938 when her dad and brother got jobs as coal diggers.
The most important thing is to be able, willing, and happy to do what it takes for your family to survive. Because AFDC, EBT cards, and welfare payments will be over once we have another collapse. If the choice is between paying a Senator or sending somebody a welfare check, I already know who wins. So be prepared to take what you can find.
Local-local-local; and keep on prepping!
So when this collapse takes place and you and husband live in an apartment and can no longer pay rent? Guess I better buy a tent now? And remember, not all folks are living in houses. I worked all my life, lived in houses for most of the time except now since I remarried my first husband, we are living in an apartment now looking for a house so I can grow vegetables and do those everyday practical things our grandparents did. Everything is instant and convenient and not many families have passed those skills down to our generation or the newest generation. So then you’re stuck and have to teach yourself quickly from books? The way I see it, if everything collapses, how do you pay your rent? or your mortgage. If government confiscates everything? And don’t forget the internment camps located in ALL 50 states either. The New World Order is what they are trying to bring to pass. Sometimes all of this gets me so depressed, I just wish I would die now and get it over with before ISIS beheads more Americans or some idiot in the White House just decides to kill us all with our food and water contaminated with something. I grew up in the ’50s when we did “duck and cover” in school. Tell me, how in the world would a wooden desk protect any child from an attack? Come quickly Lord Jesus, this planet is in a mess! All the talk about prepping and right now, I just lost one part time job and the other ends in December. Any jobs out here? Let me know where….
People need to pay their homes off for sure!! But even then they will need to pay taxes. So…. My question is…. In the Great Depression what was the best way to live? Rent or own a home? Live in an RV? Live in a car and camp? You can set up a huge self succulent farm only to have the towns around you up and leave or become ghost towns and therefore making you also having to abandon all your hard work. Buy or rent? I get tempted sometimes to sell our wheelchair accessible house in a neighborhood to rent in the country to grow a garden, have chickens etc….. or to move into our wheelchair accessible pull behind camper to save tons of money & get out of debt…. Which would you do?
That’s a really tough question. You have to think about physical safety and the impact of the elements. Homelessness is highly stressful, and most homeless people, including those living in cars, are much more likely to be attacked and otherwise victimized. If you have kids, that would make it far worse. I’d say hold on to your home in any way you can. Take in renters, go door to door and offer housecleaning, yard work, cooking, anything at all to bring in money to make mortgage and tax payments.
You asked about living in your camper for a while. Can you do that and rent out your house? That might be ideal. It would give you time to see how you like living in a camper fulltime (I know some people love that lifestyle). You would still have living expenses but they would likely be far less than the rent your house could bring.
Add to your list, the man in our alley who sold strawberries off his horse and buggy! I still hear him hollering ‘STRAW BERR IES”
My dad told me that the only thing that can’t be taken away from you is knowledge. He encouraged us to always be learning. I used to think it was discussing that my dad got better grades than I did on his tests. He was always taking corispondence courses to better himself as a master mechanic. There wasn’t much he couldn’t fix on a car or a truck. Or anything else as far as that was concerned.
I tried to buy fire brick and could not get any when I tried to order it they said they could not get any. Then I bought a kiln to make my own. Getting good clay for it is a problem here where I live. Making your own heat or hot water/ cooking heat/ electricity would greatly improve chances of survival during economic collapse. Having a job that won’t go away is important so I work at a county event center where the rich folks go to have fun. It also has tons of wood left over from events. They give it away to get rid of it.
Home Depot has fire brick. It’s seasonal but they carry it.
I just love your help so thank you. My grandparents used to tell us stories. Many of them are still happening today.
i’m down in TN…
We have cottage industries everything from pies to sandwiches to wood. The food is usually sold to shift workers. One create flyer stating what they off and for how much etc… Shift workers on weekends flock to these folks… and the Pie lady she lived in the slums when she started well now she has had to hire other seniors to work with her n making 7 figures… Her pies are awesome.
My parents and grandparents were on a farm n my Granddad bartered for almost everything. The local Dr. loved cream well Granddad loved free medical care they worked a deal n viola! The Dr also used my Grandmere’s herbs many times along with her chicken soup He did that with many things.
They had pigs, cows ( meat n milk), poultry, rabbits, quails, worms, mushrooms, smokehouse, venison, turkeys, –
Gave away food at church every Sunday to others. had a road-side food stand, sold everything… If one couldn’t pay well he always needed something done on the farm.
The people helped each other always…
my Daddy n Uncle sold wood , my Aunts made quilts and crocheted n knitted pieces which were always raffled off. Get creative and find good old recipes. Start home business now even if only part time. We grandchildren would listen for hours to the stories.
Thank goodness i am able to use that old knowledge today.
Also I had need of a Food Pantry one time – well when I didn’t need them anymore I went to the Director and offered to conduct classes on putting food up n freezing and stuff.
The class was free and we got some equipment and seeds and plants too, donated n it was 4 days worth on evenings n weekends to get to as many as possible. It was awesome the response and being able to share my knowledge of something I dearly love – oh wow!
Thanks for letting me share.
Another good thing to know how to do is make soap. Or even how to make wood ash lye. I do k ow how to make lye soap. It is one thing I like doing.
That would be a class I know I would be very interested I learning ! Maybe with COVID you could video the class and sell people rights to download it.
So please tell us how to make wood ash lye….and soap from it?
We have never posted a how-to article on this topic and maybe we should! In the meantime, I did a quick search on YouTube and there are a number of helpful videos. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=soap+from+wood+ash
Well if we do have an economic crash then chances are the government will close a lot of jobs that are going to be considered frivolous or unnecessary, Possibly, a lot of businesses will go under. A lot of property will be foreclosed. A lot of people might also be living in tent. I think if people could get around prohibition then people can get around other obstacles to make money. Heck, they do it now.
It’s often I find those taking issues with other people of experience telling about government & the legal restrictions imposed on us in regards to life in the depression & then comparing today’s restrictions as freedom. If u believe u r free to do what’s practical & makes u money then try it on a street corner & you’ll find laws find u quite quickly.
When & if it serves to make us more dependent on city, state & federal governments demanding more taxes then you’ll find the “long arm of the law” will reach u soon enough. What appears legal today wherever you live, don’t be fooled if it allows freedom & independence from taxes & government regulation it will soon be challenged! If your under a certain age chances are u have your parents to recall memories & grandparents. But, be not fooled the laws being passed without vote or consideration are designed to regulate incomes made from a girl selling lemonade on the side walk will surely reach the farm where real survival of America’s heart land made us a great nation. The days of freedom to provide without government restriction is going to be tested with our lives blood. Yes, indeed it already has. And yes, my dad recalls when government officials in the 30’s dressed in black came to the farm & made my grandad plow under 7 acres of cotton & destroy several head of cattle burning them & ordered not to salvage any parts. If u don’t understand please don’t show your ignorance by saying how free u think u r! Wake up! Millennials love to be provided for with convenience. And because of this we are the last generation to know freedom to the degree we do. Socialism will give u what they think u need while they take from u what they demand to feed the machine that rules over it’s people not for the people & by it’s people. Learn to grow what u eat & fix what u drive or be slaves to it’s master.
I agree!
It’s a full time job to have to ask for just food from people in todays world on a street corner. We’re talking fast food. This isn’t asking others for cash but literally for 1 meal. You can’t live on food from food banks either and I’ve asked others for small jobs to do in exchange for money only to have them be so full of distrust that they won’t hire you. Having experienced this season of having to ask for help has changed me drastically on how I view our nation and all its people. We hit a hard season and while attending church. Our church did not help us while we were plummeting into trials so we stopped going to church altogether and became bitter at the church until….. I had to ask on streets for food….. it was the church who was there to help gladly and the unbelievers who threw fries and nasty requests or comments. I pray I will never have to do that again!!!! But so have returned for the most part to attending church again and am changed for the good for that experience!!! Gods people truly are the salt and light of the world!!! A treasury of top notch human beings!!!! Thank you for feeding the poor!!!
One benefit of spending time and some money prepping is that you not only have a margin for yourself if times get rough, but you have a little to spare for people in need.
In the midst of this Covid 19 crisis, our family has seen the benefit of several bags and boxes of groceries and supplies brought to our home from unexpected sources.
God is good. We can still depend on him, but we must do with what we’ve got.
Blessings,
Laura of Harvest Lane Cottage
I love that comment! Good for you, on so much! It is great you went back and helped… I wish more people would… Your comment reminded me.. Food stamps, EBT, etc can be used to buy plants, tomato, peppers, etc… And I think seeds for food crops as well…many stores do not remember this, but it us true in most places…many rural mom and pop stores that have been around a few decades remember.
And check out the info in regrowing fruits and veggies from scraps and or some clever preplanning if you are buying things from any old grocery store you can use so much to provide food again and again, but you only need to pay once! Regrow your lettuce and celery, buy veggies at the ethnic markets for usually less money and I have always had more luck using seeds from tomatoes and peppers from the Latino markets than buying from Walmart! I hope everybody looks into that…
And learn about what’s plentiful around you too. Acorns with the tannin removed can be used like flour, used for amazing pancakes, made into a warm mush type oatmeal type “cereal” and awesome brittle.. White oak is better… Check out for walnuts and other old trees..many older fruit trees are wasted because the fruit is not very pretty or gets gritty…but it makes great preserves.
Berry bushes and trees are all around us.. Many people do not want the mulberry litter or crab apple litter but have the trees… Knock on a door, worst you can get us a no… Crawdads and mudbugs live spring boxes and those old big concrete covers on wells… Violets make amazing syrup..and small spring leaves have loads of vitamin c, add your dandelions and you have spring salad.. Learn about what’s around you..even in a city you will find loads of purslane, chicory and dandelions… And so called decorative trees that make edible fruits! Heck, kudzu and cattails are in most places and can be used for so much too! The are the Walmarts of the plant world! Wild grapes are in many places and wild dog roses make little rose hips that have so much vitamin c, dry, freeze, and or make jelly… And those dogroses are are in rural places and forgotten corners of cities too.. They look similar to a briar…hence one common name is briar rose.. Redbuds are in the legume family, the flowers taste like peanuts to most people..and those Asian dogwoods, “kuza” very decorative with large knobby berries, those can be eaten in moderation… Like mulberries, do not eat until ripe… Mulberries and such are slightly hallucinogenic before ripe! Learn about poke sallet and Jo Pye, usually considered nonedibles… But when young, and things like multiple changes of cooking water make them very edible, and some become very good when canned or pickled… Try our making probiotic Rich kimchi, not just with bokchoy… Its great with cukes, zucchini, and many other crisp veggies… If you can piçjle it, it might be great kimchi… Or at least you can pour the left over kimchi “juice” on it an make a refrigerator version..let sit at least 24 hours in your fridge.. With cukes the ice box version goes quick in my house! Slightly sprouted onions garlic and potatoes from the back of the pantry can become pounds of goods by fall… There us so much around all of us.. Tulip flowers and bulbs are edible…and were eaten during times of famine… Keep your eyes open, check out good foraging book and find a class… A book’s great but misidentification poses too much of a risk later when doctors or money become sparse. Truly knowledge is the most valuable thing! I have always said its the only thing no man can steal… Only time can steal away something as important and valuable! Learn something new everyday and your mind will stay sharp well into your golden years!
But I don’t get any money for that in Henrico Virginia
I worked in a retirement community for many years (Beauty Salon). One of my customers shared how she would wait outside the restaurants til they were closing and take the food they were throwing out home to her family so she could feed her children. She was an educated lady (school teacher) and I could tell this was very difficult for her to share but, I was thankful to her for making what happened during the depression real to me. My grandparents on my Dad’s side owned a farm and often fed people. My grandparents on my Mom’s side owned a gas station and my grandmother made and sold clothes (wedding dresses).
We may read the experiences of people during the Great Depression but we don’t fully understand, do we? Thanks for sharing, Pamela.
Here in Wisconsin we have the ability to sell home baked goods and canned goods from our house to customers. I believe they are the cottage law and I think the pickle law. I could be mistaken on the names.
Wow. I was today years old when I learned about cottage laws. I just checked, and we have them in Washington State. You must have a permit, and they are 8-10 weeks out in processing applications because of the high volume of applicants. Great tie-in, Barbara. Thanks for sharing!