Tag: panic

Your sweetheart of a wife, who may have her faults, but who generally seems appreciative of you and how you help around the house, suddenly starts finding fault with everything you do. She grumbles and grouses at you no matter what the occasion. She fusses about how poorly you mowed the lawn, didn’t line up the trash barrels properly, forgot her mom’s new husband’s birthday, and on and on.

She suddenly objects to behaviors she never even mentioned before: that you keep her awake with your snoring (she used to find it soothing), and wore mismatched socks last Tuesday (she used to find it cute).

With luck, most of us match our family income to our costs of living and come out ahead of the game. At times, of course, we may experience a run of expenses, often unanticipated, that cause us to dip into savings or even float a temporary loan to tide us over. As long as the problems are resolvable and the costs controllable, we can usually work our way out of the difficulty. There are, however, circumstances that spell real trouble. Let’s look at a few of these situations to see what can go wrong and how they may be tackled.

1. Family illness. One of the principal reasons for economic hardship, often resulting in the filing of personal bankruptcy, is serious family illness. Medical services are expensive.

Perhaps the most famous newspaper headline of all time appeared in the New York City Variety on October 30, 1929, the day following the massive sell-off in the stock market known as Black Tuesday. It read: "Wall Street Lays An Egg." A period of economic malaise followed, culminating in a worldwide depression lasting throughout the 1930s that strained the very fabric of society. That financial cataclysm shattered the confidence of a full generation of Americans in stock investment. Many never returned.