Depression survivors offer sage advice

Ed and Betty Ries and Sam and Blanche Weiss made it through the Great Depression. While they are reluctant to give people advice for coping with today's difficult times, they did share the mantra of their generation: If you don't have the money, don't buy it.

“We didn't have plastic,” Blanche says. “We had real money. That's where many people get in trouble today.”

Later, when they did get credit cards to start building a credit record, they paid them off each month. The only thing you bought on time, they say, was a house.

When it came to work, both these men took jobs, whether they liked them or not, to support their families, to survive. And they all say that doing without, waiting for what you wanted, is an attitude they worry is missing today.

“You just need to suck it up,” Ed says. And not be so indulgent, he adds. His daughter, Laurel Natan, wraps her arm around his shoulder and laughs as he launches into a familiar speech on the cost of a cup of coffee.

“It makes my teeth grit,” he says, “that people pay $3 for a cup of coffee. You can do without that.

“If you've been in the habit of spending money, if you're used to buying anything you want on a whim, you've got to get over that. Don't buy it if you don't need it.”

They all believe many people have just too much stuff.

Above all, Blanche says, this economic downturn will teach most people one important lesson: “They will realize what can happen when you're not careful with your money.”



