#there’s even a glasses cloth and the household credit and debit cards in those case pockets of his

[eemoo1o-animoo]

Is this Aloiscore or Lizziecore, I can’t tell (check tags)

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Armageddon on a Shoestring: Prepare for Disasters Without Destroying Your Budget

The Simple Dollar, 17 Sep 2017

Just before and right after every disaster, you see news coverage of crowded stores, depleted shelves, and interviews with people who don’t have enough (water, batteries, whatever).

Don’t be those people. September is National Preparedness Month, and its theme--”Disasters don’t plan ahead. You can.”--is also the theme of this post. Even if you’re on a tight budget, or living paycheck to paycheck, you should be prepared to live at least three days without basic services.

Should things go south, got any idea how you’d eat, drink, and stay warm until things got back to normal?

Two other things you might not consider until it’s too late:

Where would you and your family go to the bathroom if the power and/or water cut out?

Do you have a manual can opener?

Sound funny? It’s deadly serious. If you don’t have a plan for the potty, your back yard is going to get real foul real fast. (Assuming, that is, that you even have a back yard.) And imagine the frustration of not being able to open up those cans of soup for your hungry household. (Assuming, that is, that you have a way to heat them up.)

The good news: You probably already have a lot of the stuff that Ready.gov suggests you need. The better news is that you can get the rest of it very cheaply, or even for free. And the time to do this is now, before the next power failure, ice storm, blizzard, hurricane, earthquake, or windstorm reshapes your life.

What’s for dinner? The “food” section of Ready.gov suggests the best foods to have on hand: protein- and calorie-rich items with long shelf lives: soups, stews, canned beans, quick-cooking oatmeal, peanut butter, dehydrated foods (e.g., instant mashed potatoes), dried fruit, canned fish or meat, protein or granola bars, and crackers.

To that list I would add almond or other nut butters (not everyone likes peanut butter), some gelatin or instant pudding (a dessert can really brighten the day), Nutella (it’s just fun to eat), interesting foods from the supermarket’s health-food section (hummus, refried beans, even vegetarian taco filling), good-quality bouillon cubes, and hardtack--aka “pilot bread.”

You might already have a lot of the foods you need. Now you just have to keep it that way, i.e., never let your pantry get too bare. When something your household really loves goes on sale, get a few extra. Use a dark marker to write the sell-by date on the front (not the top!) of each food product and make sure they get rotated and replaced regularly.

Pro tip: A site called CouponMom.com does a state-by-state match of coupons, many of them downloadable, to sales in supermarkets, drugstores, and even dollar stores; fairly often you’ll pay nothing at all for food, toiletries, and first-aid supplies.

Should you buy disposable plates and bowls? Residents of hurricane country probably should, since they’re likely to lose water and power regularly. As for others, that’s up to you. If you’re without running water, you certainly shouldn’t use up precious stored water to wash dishes.

Pro tip: Watch clearance sales after major holidays and get up to 90% off paper plates, bowls, and cups. Don’t necessarily throw them out after eating; sometimes the higher-quality stuff can be used more than once.

Water, water everywhere? Ready.gov suggests stashing one gallon per person per day for at least three days. Got pets? Don’t forget some extra agua for them.

Rather than spending money on bottled water, fill empty milk jugs or two-liter soft drink bottles until you have enough. Every few months, use the water in these containers for tasks like watering the garden or doing hand laundry, then refill them with fresh water for storage.

A word to those who filter their water: that sink-mounted or whole-house filtration system won’t do you much good if the power is out or the municipal water supply system is damaged. In that case, have a filtration pitcher and at least one extra cartridge in your emergency kit. (I regularly see these pitchers at thrift shops.)

Or take a simpler route: Sprinkle a little powdered drink mix into each glass of water to disguise the yucky taste. These packets cost about a dime each at Walgreens and dollar stores.

Incidentally, most of us already have a decent amount of water stored--in the water heater.

Sometimes a hot drink is soothing--or even potentially life-saving--in a winter storm emergency. (Hypothermia victims are cold all the way to their innards.) Thus teabags, instant coffee, or cocoa mix are all great things to have on hand.

Pro tip: Whenever you boil water, make enough extra to put into a thermos-type jug.

For hot water you’ll need a safe heat source--and again, you may already have one in the form of a wood stove, camp stove, barbecue grill, hibachi, or burn barrel. While modern gas stoves may not function normally in a power outage, you might be able to use the range the old-fashioned way: lighting the burners with a match.

Any pan you use for heating water or food is likely to get sooty over a fire. Consider looking for an extra pot or two at thrift stores and/or yard sales. (I’ve found three pans that way, including a cast-iron skillet, in the “free” boxes at yard sales; maybe you’ll be that lucky, too.)

Note: It is essential to cook outdoors with grills and open flames, not indoors, due to the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Generators pose the same risk. The Orlando Sentinel recently reported that five people died and more than a dozen were injured due to CO poisoning after Hurricane Irma.

Thus if you’re planning to create your own post-emergency power, get a CO detector and follow other best practices suggested by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

A roof over your head. Organizations like FEMA and the American Red Cross may show up after major disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. But they can’t always help everyone, and some people prefer to shelter in place. Besides, some problems (windstorms, ice storms) don’t necessarily make your home unsafe--just inconvenient.

The questions, then, are how you’ll stay warm or cool. In cool or cold weather, dress everyone in layers: long underwear top and bottom, plus wool socks, extra shirts, fleece layers or sweaters, and knitted caps. The quilts or comforter from your bed might stand in for a sleeping bag.

Pro tip: Plan to have everyone sleep in the same small room for shared heat.

If you don’t have enough warm items for everyone, time to hit the thrift stores and yard sales. For other tips, search online for “staying warm during power failure.”

Keeping cool post-hurricane or during power outages is a real challenge. Some fairly obvious tactics are staying hydrated, wearing light clothing, and avoiding direct sun. Pull the curtains or shades and close off warmer rooms (e.g., the ones with south- and west-facing windows) to keep things from heating up. Sleep in the basement, if you have one (and if you have enough flashlight batteries).

Lighting is an enormous issue with regard both to safety and morale. While plenty of people stock up on candles, the danger of fire is very real. If you must use them, put them in jars set well out of the reach of children, pets, and anyone who might bump into a table.

Flashlights are safer. My partner and I have five headlamps (he bought them in a blister pack at Costco) plus some hand-held torches. If you don’t want to store batteries, look for flashlights that recharge by being cranked or that can recharge via your vehicle’s cigarette lighter.

Where’s the bathroom? As the children’s book says, everybody poops. The question is where you’ll do that.

I grew up in a rural area and we filled buckets and the tub with water when bad weather was predicted, then used that water to flush the toilets when the power went out. That’s still a good idea.

Pro tip: Before filling the tub, thoroughly duct-tape the stopper in place. Otherwise the water may slowly, inexorably seep out.

You may already have a giant bucket (or more than one) left over from a painting job or a bulk buy of laundry soap. If you don’t, get one: It will make a passable toilet. (Check Freecycle and the “free” section of Craigslist.)

Since not everyone is physically capable of squatting over a bucket, look online for toilet seat that snaps onto most five-gallon pails. If you’re flush, so to speak, then splurge on a prefab portable toilet.

Pro tip: Line the bucket with at least one layer of garbage bag, and throw in some clumping cat litter.

You’ll want hand sanitizer for afterwards, and some baby wipes (which I call “shower in a pouch”) to keep the rest of you clean. And speaking of babies: If you’ve got one and you routinely run out of diapers, break yourself of that habit pronto. You don’t want to be down to a couple of didies when trouble starts.

The same is true of pet food and supplies, and prescription medication. Do not run out of these things.

A few more final tips: When severe weather is predicted, boil some or all of the eggs you have. Should the power go out, you’ll have an easy-to-eat protein. Should the power not go out, just about everybody loves deviled eggs.

Buy supplies with gift cards you get by cashing in points from rewards credit cards, or rewards programs, to get gift cards to places like Walmart, Target, and Amazon.

Check out the dollar store. Paper products, hand sanitizer, and some interesting foods can be found there.

Keep small bills on hand. It’s possible that stores won’t be able to process credit or debit cards right away.

Make sure you have matches--even if you aren’t using candles you might need to light a camp stove or hibachi.

Stocking up all at once? Ask the supermarket manager for a discount on buying cases of canned goods, especially the store brand.

Remember how challenging it can be to build and maintain a cash emergency fund? Think of emergency preparedness the same way: It can take some doing, but it’s as essential as financial preparedness.

Get started right now, by taking pen and paper throughout your home to look at what you already have. Then make a list of what you still need, and make creative, frugal plans to get those items. Don’t wait until after an emergency happens to start looking for your flashlight. Or your can opener.

[mikemortgage]

Millennials are old news — now it’s Gen Z’s turn to kill industries

Millennials have been accused of killing so many products and industries — taxis, landlines, snail mail — that it’s become a media trope. But millennials are old news. Today, businesses and marketers are desperately anticipating the murderous whims of Gen Z, the demographic born after 1996.

Sometimes called “post-millennials” or “iGen,” Gen Z makes up more than one-fifth of the U.S. population and is the most racially and ethnically diverse group in the nation’s history. They’re true digital natives who report being online “almost constantly,” according to a 2018 study by Pew Research Center. (Psychologists have said their technology use has produced a national mental health crisis.)

More than 70 per cent of Gen Zers influence their family’s spending, according to a 2017 report from International Business Machines Corp. and the National Retail Federation. With that kind of sway and billions of dollars in spending power, they have businesses scrambling to understand their desires.

Indians are falling out of love with gold — and millennials are partly to blame

Millennials are waking up to the grim financial future left to them by baby boomers — and they’re angry

Forget Millennials, Aldo chain is seeking a foothold in emerging Gen Z market

Their relationship to money, it turns out, has been shaped by the Great Recession, one expert said.

“Their expectations are lower, they’re not as confident,” said Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University who has studied the generation. “They’re not viewing the world through rose-colored glasses.”

They are less optimistic about economic opportunity and student debt. As a result, Gen Z likes to play it safe. “They are more risk-averse than previous generations in terms of both attitudes and behaviour,” Twenge said, pointing to a study she authored that found today’s teens are less likely to have sex or drink. Still, they also prioritize wealth and material goods. “In psychological terms, it’s a shift toward extrinsic values — money, fame and riches — rather than toward intrinsic values, like relationships and community feeling,” Twenge said.

The generation already wields a deadly combination of economic power and social media clout. A disparaging tweet from Kylie Jenner earlier this year about teen-dominated app Snapchat wiped out US$1.3 billion in Snap Inc.’s market value. But businesses have been declared “dead” before. Millennials, after all, were supposed to kill off wine corks, dating, beer, cereal and bars of soap, but those things are still alive.

Still, if a tweet has the capacity to move that kind of capital, how else will this generation move markets and shape industries?

Malls

Given their love of digital life, the first expected victim of teen spending preferences is brick-and-mortar retail. America’s malls have been closing at a record pace as e-commerce becomes the preferred mode of shopping for millennials and Gen Zers. More than two-thirds of U.S. malls saw a decrease in national retailers in 2018, according to a report from property research firm Green Street Advisors LLC.

Retailers are grappling with young Americans’ demand for personalized, digitally augmented shopping experiences. An astounding 93 per cent of Gen Zers prefer to shop without the help of a sales associate, according to a 2017 survey by Adyen NV, a global payments processor. But only 19 per cent of retailers can provide such an experience, according to the IBM survey of Gen Zers.

The apparel industry at large is already dying. In 1977, clothing accounted for 6.2 per cent of U.S. household spending. Today, that number has halved to 3.1 per cent, according to government data. Even fast-fashion stores, which have made clothing cheaper, are seeing slower growth. Hennes & Mauritz AB is opening fewer H&M stores and struggling to sell unwanted products in the stores it currently operates as young customers increasingly purchase clothing online.

Brands that have historically marketed to teens, which include Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and Urban Outfitters Inc., have seen a 32 per cent drop in the number of store locations in North America since 2016, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Retailers Aeropostale, Pacific Sunwear and American Apparel all filed for bankruptcy in the last two years, and more are expected this year.

Print Magazines

Print magazines of all kinds are seeing newsstand sales decline. But teen magazines have struggled more than others to reach their intended audiences. Just last November, Condé Nast closed the quarterly (once monthly) print edition of Teen Vogue. Meanwhile, Hearst Communications Inc.’s Seventeen magazine, a 73-year-old print publication, slashed frequency from 10 magazines to six in 2016. The company also eliminated CosmoGirl in 2008.

Though print may perish, magazines geared toward young women are bolstering their digital and social channels to spur new forms of online engagement. And it turns out, America’s youth are fired up by online political content.

Teen Vogue was one of the first titles to draw attention for successfully reaching young women on digital platforms during the 2016 election when an opinion piece, “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America,” dominated the news cycle with more than 1.4 million unique views. This year, the brand has seen increased digital engagement, particularly with content on sexual health, reproductive rights and gun reform.

“Teen girls are so much smarter than anyone gives them credit for,” said Phillip Picardi, Teen Vogue’s digital editorial director. “We’ve seen an immense resonance of political coverage with our audience.”

Football

The National Football League has come under scrutiny in recent years over the link between head injuries and degenerative brain disease. Participation in high school football dropped roughly 3.5 per cent in the five years between the 2011-12 and 2016-17 seasons, according to the National Association of State High School Federations (NASHSF).

A Boston University School of Medicine study found that athletes who participate in youth football before the age of 12 have more behavioural and cognitive issues than those who begin playing later. In response to mounting research concerning the risks, California State Assembly members introduced a bill to bar tackle programs before high school — and similar legislation has popped up in other states.

Across the country, there’s been a net loss of almost 150 boys’ high school tackle-football programs in the last five years, as school athletic departments encourage students to pursue alternatives like soccer, baseball and lacrosse, according to NASHSF data.

With fewer teens playing — and watching — football, the pipeline to recruit talented players may be compromised, said Tom Farrey, the executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports and Society Program.

Cash

American teens are four times less likely to use cash than the general public and only use cash for 6 per cent of their transactions, according to data from teen debit-card company Current. Younger generations are also more likely to say they’d like cashless and cardless options at restaurants. And the majority of people under 30 prefer to use cards over cash, even for transactions under US$5.

Unsurprisingly, money-transferring apps — such as Venmo, Google Pay and Apple Wallet — are seeing continued growth.

Venmo, which blends social media and payment processing, has become a favourite among teens. The company said it facilitated more than US$40 billion of payments in the last 12 months and total payment volume grew 50 per cent in the first quarter.

“This generation has grown up with a mobile device that is also a payment device,” said Stuart Sopp, chief executive officer of Current. “They are going to accelerate the adoption of the digital economy because digital payment is native to them.”

Retailers are also moving toward cashless payments. And Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Singapore have made various efforts to move toward a digital economy — pledging to eliminate cheque usage and slash cash withdrawals from ATMs.

“There (are) many reasons why businesses want to see a shift away from cash,” Sopp said. “Now they finally have a demographic cohort that is ready for it to happen. They won’t resist it, they will push for it.”

But forsaking cash altogether could pose a challenge to those who don’t have a bank account — as is the case with many teens. Amazon.com Inc., always looking for ways to drive more spending on its platform, has a plan to make pseudo debit cards called Amazon Cash to tap into Gen Z’s spending habits before they are of age to manage their own accounts. If successful, Amazon could lock in lifelong, digital-centric customers.

Of course, predicting the future is difficult. The NFL and your local mall may escape the Gen Z purge. There’s only one thing we know today’s teens will kill with 100 per cent certainty: articles about millennials killing industries.

Bloomberg.com

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