How to be poor?

This titular question comes from plain ignorance. It doesn't come from malice or joking. I'm genuinely curious because, due to the vaccine mandates by the pudding eating Commander in Thief, this may be more reality than mental exercise in the near future... the very, very near future.


Background: I've done the poor thing before (well, I think so at least?) but I was single, fresh out of the Army, and my VA/Army retirement was able to pay for a very crappy studio apt ($500/mo at the time), basic food (maybe $200/mo), and I could do odd jobs when and how I wanted; in short, I was poor but not in a state of manic desperation. I didn't have to do food kitchens or contemplate crime. I somehow lived joyfully and very simply on something around <20k a year in the higher cost of living location of Colorado Springs. I even paid off a vehicle by scrimping and saving. I'd randomly force myself to go to bed hungry sometimes to "practice" in case it got worse, though I thought worse meant bad and at the time I thought I had it pretty darn good (which I did, compared to many). But I have no idea how to be that level of poor with kids, a 2021 mortgage, or in an environment that's not permissive to a rapidly unpopular mode of thinking with very little upward or even lateral mobility. It was a different time.


So tell me... if you have been, are, or are intimately connected with assisting or interacting with poor folks in the context of family and much higher cost of living: how do you, or they, do it? I want honest answers. If you are embarrassed by the reality, please PM me.


Tips?


Tricks?


What sort of things were lines in the sand for you and how did you mitigate those perceived needs and the need for crossing the line?


Does the current environment change how you might approach things?


Feel free to add to things I might not have asked.


Thanks.

I don't think I have any real advice like your looking for. That said, we can talk about something to get the conversation started until others chime in.

I suppose in preparation of being poor, it's important to get rid of a much debt as possible. Knowing how to fix things will be important. Home cooking and meal planning will be pivotal as well. I used to hate thrift stores (because I didn't grow up needing them and thought they were depressing), but now I find all kinds of good stuff there, especially when I shop at ones adjacent to well off neighborhoods.

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Originally Posted by Irving

I don't think I have any real advice like your looking for. That said, we can talk about something to get the conversation started until others chime in.

I suppose in preparation of being poor, it's important to get rid of a much debt as possible. Knowing how to fix things will be important. Home cooking and meal planning will be pivotal as well. I used to hate thrift stores (because I didn't grow up needing them and thought they were depressing), but now I find all kinds of good stuff there, especially when I shop at ones adjacent to well off neighborhoods.

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No debt, currently (aside from soon to end lease and an impending mortgage).

I can generally fix things or know those who can.

I agree on meal planning and food prep.

Thrift stores are good, but one has to be careful of getting themselves into a bunch of money-depleting deals. I can "save" us right into my wife glaring at me. :D

(Spending > income ) = POOR+ in debt
(Spending = income) = Poor
Spending < Income) = NOT a pay check to pay check poor
((Spending < Income) + Investment + Interest) = accumulation of Cash/wealth


Then we have a cost side (accounting) we can do too.

Semi related. When I watch some of those tiny home people on YouTube it always impresses me how happy most of them seem. While I?m sure some of us have become accustomed to luxuries like cell phones, cable or satellite tv, owning multiple vehicles, or having a house with multiple bathrooms, the ability to live and be happy without those things is real.

I think a simplistic lifestyle (i.e.- poor) is totally sustainable but likely easier to accomplish as a single individual or perhaps with a very like minded partner.

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Originally Posted by CS1983

No debt, currently (aside from soon to end lease and an impending mortgage).

I can generally fix things or know those who can.

I agree on meal planning and food prep.

Thrift stores are good, but one has to be careful of getting themselves into a bunch of money-depleting deals. I can "save" us right into my wife glaring at me. :D

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No debt. Buy in bulk, well stocked with provisions. If and when possible, buy in to a 1/4 - whole livestock. Per pound averages out much lower, for better quality, product

Pay off credit cards , when used, on time.
Live within, not beyond your means.

Learn how to barter , as well as know your way around tools. A simple plumbing issue can coat $100's unless you can diy . NETWORK.

AND hope you die before your savings run out.

A substance addiction will keep you poor and without motivation to become unpoor.

When I got out of the service, I went back to school at CU.
GI Bill then was $135 per month flat - From that came tuition, books, housing, food, and any extras.
Saving factors were I was young, healthy, motivated, and sure that the future was going to get better.
Some months were lean. One month after paying tuition and books, I didn't have much left.
I bought a 50 lb bag of pinto beans and that was the staple of the month. It also was corn ripening season, and I managed to find a few edible ears here and there.
I had learned to pan for gold when I was a kid in Sacramento, so I did some of that up in the Colorado creeks and found a jeweler in Boulder that bottled the dust for sale to the tourist trade.
He paid higher than the fixed $35/oz of the time.
Odd jobs through the University's bulletin board for day labor and eventually permanent part-time jobs with both the University and NOAA.
I think the lesson I learned was to persevere and keep looking for ways to improve my situation.
I am not sure that people that think they have no choices or opportunities, or are disabled, can see ways to change their lives.
There was a radio show in the 2008-2010 time period in the rural areas where the host encouraged people to get out of debt as fast as possible.
He would highlight different ways of achieving that for people who seemed to be stuck.
One example he described was a single mother, who had no job or education, started cleaning houses for neighbors and off bulletin board announcements.
She did a good job and soon had a regular client base that got her out of her circumstance.
Horatio Alger type stories.
Everyone has a different set of experiences and influences, and each circumstance and perceived situation is unique to them.

Most money I ever made easily, was Ebay. Buy stuff cheap from yard sales, thrift stores etc. Sell it on Ebay for whatever the market will bear. I would also sell items for other people for a good percentage. I specialized in military items, uniforms, boots & gear. Hardest part is the shipping. Other venue is Craigslist. Made easy money there, too.

Converted a lot of income to silver bullion. Banks don't pay shit in interest. For the right exchange rate, I would trade all the silver for gold. I heat the house with wood in the winter. Cool it with swamp cooler in the summer. Small house I paid for in cash. The down side is it is a lot of work. Maintain my 1 acre and all the vehicles means I am busy all the time.

Fortunately, you/we are still employed and may be able to aggregate some things before the hammer drops. This opens up the discussion a bit.

A single 100w solar panel can easily power a pretty large deep freezer. A house solar panel is average 300w and good stuff can be had for about a $1/watt. I've literally seen homeless camps with solar panels.

Taking a wet wipe shower in lieu of a regular shower isn't nearly as bad as it seems. I spent 3 weeks in Arizona, sweating my ass off, and had exactly 4 regular showers the entire time.

Meat is meat, and the list of animals that can't be eaten could probably be counted on one hand, as opposed to plants where the vast majority are not fit for consumption. Meat handling and preparation is the most important part of taste. As a hunter, you already know this. Picking up some books about foraging before the poor hits might be pretty valuable.

Learning a simple back stitch will allow you to hand sew/repair all kinds of things if needed.

Water filters.

Home made laundry soap and learn to tie a tight guy line for hanging tarps or laundry lines. Truckers Hitch or some variation.

May have to move somewhere that aligns with your views. more than likely very rural and probably not in CO
I don’t know your abilities but manual labor jobs are always available

Mitigation of expenses is the key, and being able to teach yourself skills is the lock. Many of these things you should do even if you are a millionaire. Elimination of revolving expenses is of great assistance -

Car payment: Pay it off or trade for something you won't have a payment on. Keep it maintained. Insurance then becomes liability only, also cutting expenses.

TV: Stop paying for cable or any other service already. Share a netflix login from someone else if needed and subsist off of youtube or whatever. Less is good for you anyway.
**There may be ways to watch new movies etc. for free too, but you're taking money out of the pockets of woke actors and producers, so it's very wong.

Internet: Look at ubiquiti wireless antennas, make a bridge to someone willing to share internet with you.

Restaurants: Stop eating out, cook or eat cheap fast food when time is limited.

Groceries: Kroger >>> Walmart, stock up on "buy 5 or more, get five off" sales in their rotation.

Home improvements, vehicle improvements: Don't pay people. Anything you need to learn you can figure out online in a flash. Have confidence to try EVERYTHING. Embrace the phrase "champagne on a beer budget" and tremendous things can happen. Borrow or lease tools when needed, and find out that harbor freight actually has some decent shit.

**DONT BE MATERIALISTIC
Being a pro at juggling debt can also help a lot.
If it gets really bad, beans, rice, and pasta are stupid cheap. You can actually eat pretty inexpensively at home if you need to, and it's not bad.

Learned long, long ago... I still embrace most of them today.

For home projects, but tools off Craigslist at used prices, use them for project, sell at same prices.

King Soopers and Safeway deli have a 2-piece dark meal for under $4. It's better than fast food and way cheaper.

Burgerking app, super great deals.

2 meals for 8$

2 bacon burger meal for 4$. Various other offers are cheap! Half price usually.

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Originally Posted by Irving

For home projects, but tools off Craigslist at used prices, use them for project, sell at same prices.

King Soopers and Safeway deli have a 2-piece dark meal for under $4. It's better than fast food and way cheaper.

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Good reminder. Now facebook marketplace is starting to become more popular than Craigslist. Casually browse it when in the john or whatever and you can find amazing deals on stuff you need if you're patient.

all good ideas; and some I have to remember -
When I go over my budget - for a small amount of time - no big thing - however, if I splurge too much; I cut back pretty much on all things for an extended period to get back into the savings swing.

You can even decide to start cutting your own hair - assuming you don't mind a simple hair cut. Get a Whal's cutter kit, adopt a "guard" for the hair style you want and go from there.

So on sale at CostCo I have seen the delux version run between 19.xx on sale to about 28.00.

Cooking at home versus going out can be a real big money saver.

Simple foods like beans and rice work well to extend food.

I have seen folks go with the solar panel setup; convert their lighting to LED along with fans. A few bought a garage setup; upgraded the construction to 2x6, insulated it, put up sheet rock and lived on spot of land. This style of living is common in the south while the prime house was being built. Now take that garage and put it on a pad, cover the whole thing with a poll shed to keep direct weather off and it was quite livable.

This setup was not that far from what I had lived in when working on the farm when the farm house was being rented. We had a old house that was about 1/2 burned out. We covered it up, and made it safe. No running water, a pump outside to for water for the toilet. For a "bath" we when down to the lake and swam.

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Originally Posted by BushMasterBoy

Most money I ever made easily, was Ebay. Buy stuff cheap from yard sales, thrift stores etc. Sell it on Ebay for whatever the market will bear. I would also sell items for other people for a good percentage. I specialized in military items, uniforms, boots & gear. Hardest part is the shipping. Other venue is Craigslist. Made easy money there, too.

Converted a lot of income to silver bullion. Banks don't pay shit in interest. For the right exchange rate, I would trade all the silver for gold. I heat the house with wood in the winter. Cool it with swamp cooler in the summer. Small house I paid for in cash. The down side is it is a lot of work. Maintain my 1 acre and all the vehicles means I am busy all the time.

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same. Reselling is getting more difficult nowadays, but I started by selling my personal items. Then I start selling 5.11 on arbitrage, and sell many safariland holster.

Now I evolve to selling many but mainly sporting goods.

I sell over 8 platforms and 4 are mainly local listings.

Heck, we have members here that only post in the for sale forum.

The hints above are good for starting a thought process but scratch the surface.

Figure out the bare minimum your family can live on. If you have children the need for technology and access to the web will be important even if you personally can live without.

When I was at a similar point in life I prioritized in this order.
Mind I was a single male so it will be different for families

Transportation to get to any work I could find. Easier to live in a car than drive a house
Food. High calorie high fat and cheap. I purchased on a meal by meal basis use the grocery store for keeping things fresh
Gym memberships are cheap, offer showers WiFi and climate control
5x10 or 10x10 storage unit. Place to keep stuff like clothes etc clandestine place to sleep during temperate months

With the above I was able to make it work for 600 bucks a month in income.

A huge booster in emotional health was to treat myself once a week to something like a six pack of beer or a happy hour appetizer and soda at a chain restaurant

We've been doing keto out here while working, and it's amazing how little calories I've been able to live off of when it's just fat and protein. A few days I've been around 500 calories all day, and definitely under 1,000. That's doing multiple inspections, carrying around a ladder, walking on roofs, sweating through my clothes 3 times a day, and not having A/C in my car to seek shelter in. Usually I'm ready to punch a nun and pass out from exhaustion by 10am of I haven't eaten. Instead I've been able to feel fine on hot bottled until well after noon. Best part, I haven't spent a dime on food beyond the $100 at the beginning of the week.
I don't know what happens when I run out of fat though.

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Originally Posted by Irving

We've been doing keto out here while working, and it's amazing how little calories I've been able to live off of when it's just fat and protein. A few days I've been around 500 calories all day, and definitely under 1,000. That's doing multiple inspections, carrying around a ladder, walking on roofs, sweating through my clothes 3 times a day, and not having A/C in my car to seek shelter in. Usually I'm ready to punch a nun and pass out from exhaustion by 10am of I haven't eaten. Instead I've been able to feel fine on hot bottled until well after noon. Best part, I haven't spent a dime on food beyond the $100 at the beginning of the week.
I don't know what happens when I run out of fat though.

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Probably gas station sushi. That's when the real trouble starts... ;-p

Sent from somewhere

I'm certainly not poor, by any stretch.

The last few years of my marriage I made good money, ex made great money...$165k per year our last full year. If I wanted something, I bought it without even thinking about it for the last several years of our marriage. But, that all changed...

After the divorce, I didn't want to go back to work. That's how I wound up in OK. Cheap housing.

For the last year and a half I've lived off of 60% VA disability...$1131 month. Of course, I made sure all my debt was paid and I certainly don't live extravagantly. But I do live very comfortably. It's amazing how little one actually NEEDS in order to live a decent life. I don't know how old you are but my other advantage is I've had 60 years to accumulate things I've wanted and/or needed...tools, guns, ammo, etc. When I start collecting social security next year it'll be like winning the lottery!

The point is, you actually will need far less than you think if you prepare now. You may not have all you want but you'll have all you need. And if you prepare now, while you're younger, you'll be very comfortable in your later years.

If I didn't have 4 dogs to care for I'd be living like a king here. But then I wouldn't be nearly as happy.

A big expense not mentioned was healthcare. Kids are always getting hurt or sick. so even if you think things with you will be fine, make sure you have some form of insurance.

Living poor really depends on how you have set yourself up and what poor is to you. If your house payment is very low or paid off, well it?s easier to live off less. And how poor are you talking? Federal poverty level? 40k/year?

Public services are always there for those willing to seek them. The problem is that the working poor don?t qualify for much. But should qualify for some, like some food banks often will still provide food if you just show up.


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I think the jist of the thread is that the US might fundamentally change for people who are not vaccinated. There won't be government assistance for the unwashed lepers.

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Originally Posted by Irving

I think the jist of the thread is that the US might fundamentally change for people who are not vaccinated. There won't be government assistance for the unwashed lepers.

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Yes.

I have some specific ideas on the sort of information I’m looking for but didn’t want to immediately box in the discussion.

Most of what was said so far is what we do anyway.

Personally, I’m wondering about money saving/extending techniques, tips, tricks.

For example one might know that Asian markets have better deals on rice than Walmart, but their produce or meat might be more expensive. So “buy rice in bulk” is a good idea, but “buy rice in bulk from the Asian market and you’ll save $3/per 50lb bag vs elsewhere.” Is something one wouldn’t know unless they know. I dunno if the example is true.

Mexican markets can have super cheap food as well, but it can be an eat it today or it goes bad thing. Certain products are better and cheaper, some are more expensive and worse. Same with the stores. My SIL drives from Aurora to Thornton to shop Mexican markets because the ones in Aurora are terrible, according to her.

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Originally Posted by crays

Probably gas station sushi. That's when the real trouble starts... ;-p

Sent from somewhere

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Gas Station sushi will have a net of negative calorie intake by diarrhea or throwing up.

There is a saying that being poor is expensive. And from those I know that are actual poor, that's true.

Food is more expensive, because when you don't have a kitchen, everything is take out, or premade food that gets microwaved but that isn't that cheap either.. at best they might have a minifridge and a hotplate, so there's no bulk buying.

They don't have enough income to show 3x the cost of rent, so they can't get an apartment. Only option is long term stay motels which are even more expensive. Hell, my tenant is a social worker for the county, has great credit, guaranteed income, all that great stuff. But because she's a social worker, her income isn't high enough for her to get an apartment that isn't a shithole anywhere around. So that's why she rents from me.

The lucky poor are so poor they get medicaid. I think the cutoff for eligibility for an adult is below what they'd get paid working fast food. Even getting a job makes them worse off unless they work so few hours it's barely worth it.

The ones that were in long term hotel tended to lose most of their possessions over and over because they'd have a sudden mandatory expense, which meant they couldn't pay rent that week. Out the door with just a few suitcases meant all the other stuff they had invested in lost it all.

Good insight Chad.

Best way to be poor, is to be born poor. There is also "Broke", "Poor" and "Destitute". No single term can encapsulate it. If you have traveled the world (and parts of the US), you have likely seen all 3. We are talking about "tightening our belt", or budgeting, not being poor. I believe everyone should should live at or below their means, but I don't wish poor on anyone. I see more money wasted on automobiles in this country than anything. I think everyone should start there. If you cannot buy your car outright, can you really afford it? If you loose your job (or income), you loose your vehicle. If you loose your vehicle, you loose your ability to travel work. If you loose that, you are physically isolated. If there is no work by you, well...

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Originally Posted by CS1983

Asian markets have better deals on rice than Walmart, but their produce or meat might be more expensive.

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Their produce is cheaper, meat is comparable or more. Mexican and Middle Eastern markets have cheap meat. Eat more produce and staples, less meat. Meat is a luxury.

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Originally Posted by Irving

My SIL drives from Aurora to Thornton to shop Mexican markets because the ones in Aurora are terrible, according to her.

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She doing it wrong, and wasting time, money and gas driving. I think she is going to the "fancy" Mexican grocery up north.

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Originally Posted by kidicarus13

Good insight Chad.

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Agreed

SIL wastes a lot of time doing unnecessary driving. I try to tell her, but it falls on deaf ears.

I lived paycheck to paycheck most of my adult life, while not poor I definitely knew how to live the best I could as cheap as I could.

If you can find and afford at least a long term rental then it is entirely possible to eat well cheaply, I used to work in the restaurant biz and you can usually make really good food from scratch for less than premade stuff.. For instance a 24oz jar of shitty Prego sauce is roughly $5 and if you go by the label has 5 servings at 1/2 cup a serving. A basic authentic Italian red sauce or what they call a "weekday sauce" or "Weekday gravy" consists of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and basil and that's it. You can typically get a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes for under $1 at any grocery store, you get a pot and you plant a couple basil seeds in it and keep it in your kitchen window or some window in your apartment so that plant will feed you forever for about a $.35 investment, garlic you can get a bulb for $1.50 or so and can be used for multiple batches of sauce and other things. Put some oil in a pot, put in two or 3 garlic cloves and heat up, once oil is heated and garlic has been infusing the oil for a bit add two of the 28oz cans of tomatoes and bring to a low simmer, allow to cook for 20-30 minutes, add about 5 chopped up basil leaves, remove the garlic and you are done. You now have a real Italian weekday sauce in the manner that they make it in Italy. Portion the sauce out in to a number of cheap plastic ziploc containers at 1/2 cup per container and you now have pasta sauce for 14 dinners for roughly $3. When you make your noodles follow the box guidelines, if the box says there are 8 servings in it then divide the contents in to 8 servings before you cook any of it so that you are not eating any more than you need to and you are getting the most out of that box of pasta. Fresh veggies are Safeway or KS are cheap, stay away from the farmers markets or places like whole foods where you are paying a premium for an experience.

Another thing to consider is that if you can't afford to do things outside of work you might as well work. Get a job as a server in a higher end restaurant working evenings and weekends, you will make more in tips than many people make at a regular job, at the right place it's entirely possible to bring in $40k or more a year as a server or bartender. You will also get food discounts as a server. Get another weekday daytime job that also allows you to make some money and maybe get discounts for things you need on a daily basis. Get a job as an apartment complex maintenance guy, usually you will get options for reduced rent for these positions.

There are a ton of other things you can do, if you have the right eye you can buy furniture at Goodwill and other thrift stores and sometimes just flip it or refinish and flip it on craigslist and facebook marketplace, I know people that make a few hundred bucks a week on the side doing this kind of stuff. One girl I know that lives in Chicago and knows clothes is constantly buying stuff at thrift stores that she knows is a bargain and later resells on ebay for 3 to 4 times what she paid. Get creative and run multiple hustles.

If it goes bad there is always "van life" as well. Skip the rent and live out of your van, get a $15/month gym membership at Crunch fitness so that you can shower and cleanup every day.

Here is your new anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i64V...l=AurelioPerez

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Originally Posted by def90

I lived paycheck to paycheck most of my adult life, while not poor I definitely knew how to live the best I could as cheap as I could.

If you can find and afford at least a long term rental then it is entirely possible to eat well cheaply, I used to work in the restaurant biz and you can usually make really good food from scratch for less than premade stuff.. For instance a 24oz jar of shitty Prego sauce is roughly $5 and if you go by the label has 5 servings at 1/2 cup a serving. A basic authentic Italian red sauce or what they call a "weekday sauce" or "Weekday gravy" consists of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and basil and that's it. You can typically get a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes for under $1 at any grocery store, you get a pot and you plant a couple basil seeds in it and keep it in your kitchen window or some window in your apartment so that plant will feed you forever for about a $.35 investment, garlic you can get a bulb for $1.50 or so and can be used for multiple batches of sauce and other things. Put some oil in a pot, put in two or 3 garlic cloves and heat up, once oil is heated and garlic has been infusing the oil for a bit add two of the 28oz cans of tomatoes and bring to a low simmer, allow to cook for 20-30 minutes, add about 5 chopped up basil leaves, remove the garlic and you are done. You now have a real Italian weekday sauce in the manner that they make it in Italy. Portion the sauce out in to a number of cheap plastic ziploc containers at 1/2 cup per container and you now have pasta sauce for 14 dinners for roughly $3. When you make your noodles follow the box guidelines, if the box says there are 8 servings in it then divide the contents in to 8 servings before you cook any of it so that you are not eating any more than you need to and you are getting the most out of that box of pasta. Fresh veggies are Safeway or KS are cheap, stay away from the farmers markets or places like whole foods where you are paying a premium for an experience.

Another thing to consider is that if you can't afford to do things outside of work you might as well work. Get a job as a server in a higher end restaurant working evenings and weekends, you will make more in tips than many people make at a regular job, at the right place it's entirely possible to bring in $40k or more a year as a server or bartender. You will also get food discounts as a server. Get another weekday daytime job that also allows you to make some money and maybe get discounts for things you need on a daily basis. Get a job as an apartment complex maintenance guy, usually you will get options for reduced rent for these positions.

There are a ton of other things you can do, if you have the right eye you can buy furniture at Goodwill and other thrift stores and sometimes just flip it or refinish and flip it on craigslist and facebook marketplace, I know people that make a few hundred bucks a week on the side doing this kind of stuff. One girl I know that lives in Chicago and knows clothes is constantly buying stuff at thrift stores that she knows is a bargain and later resells on ebay for 3 to 4 times what she paid. Get creative and run multiple hustles.

If it goes bad there is always "van life" as well. Skip the rent and live out of your van, get a $15/month gym membership at Crunch fitness so that you can shower and cleanup every day.

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it use to be 8-10x average until stupid Goodwill Colorado Springs corp merged with Goodwill Denver about 3-4 years ago. Now I have to pay up, and it is about 6x avg. Thanks to many managers of Goodwill stores told me about the merger 3-4 years ago that I started allocating more$ to return pallets.

Not to mention youtubers who glorified reselling. I saw 3 guys at arc already scanning entire book shelves.

I know a dude who visits Arc for books and he does $219k just on books. imagine books are $1-5 at thrift stores.
He has arrangement with ~ 7 arc stores to arrange and organize all the newly arrived books in return of him scanning all fresh inventory exclusive to him.

I recently picked up some cook books, a pretty large sewing manual, and some other books for $1/ea. I was surprised both at the variety, and the repeats I saw. In honing to find some good foraging and western plant identification books there, which works right into this thread.

Shouldn't this be, how NOT to be poor?

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Originally Posted by arbol

Shouldn't this be, how NOT to be poor?

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In a month or two that might include such exciting answers as violate deeply held principles, bow to tyranny, and remove the mirrors so they won’t show the coward staring back.

You are a father, with a couple of extra units, so what you say counts.

I'd suggest being vocal, among your peers.

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Originally Posted by CS1983

In a month or two that might include such exciting answers as violate deeply held principles, bow to tyranny, and remove the mirrors so they won?t show the coward staring back.

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Were you able to opt out of the vaccine mandates when in the military?


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Good timing on this thread.

My employer (Space/Defense) has recently made the move to mandatory "Jab" (they aren't vaccines), or DAILY testing/Mask when in the office, so we will see how long my job lasts. The international travel portion of my job is pretty much shot given that lots of foreign countries are requiring a jab to get in now. Thankfully I am mostly WFH, with a little HQ time, and my boss appears to be willing to work with me to transition to a less travel, more HQ/Home based role on the team. But, I am not hopeful that my career at this company will extend past the next 6-24 months. I will play their mask/testing game as long as I can be 80%+ WFH, and continue to collect my check/benefits/etc, and then peace the hell out when it gets past the point I am willing to tolerate.

My wife and I were talking about our finances and future plans in regard to all of this just last night. I am the majority income for our DINK household, and it would suck to lose my salary, but we are actually pretty well positioned if that happened.

We have no major debt beyond our house. The couple small debts that are still tagging along are going to get paid off in the next 30-90 days.
We have an anniversary trip planned for this fall that we are going to take.
We have a couple projects around the house in work that are consuming our expendable income right now (all DIY to save on labor, but spending some of the savings on nicer/better parts pieces)

Once our anniversary trip is done, and the projects are wrapped up, we will be "battening down the hatches" for a while, and see where this all goes.

As for tightening the proverbial belt:
Stop eating out - We actually eat out a lot right now, but we are both capable of cooking and happy to eat left overs. Meal plan, make large batches and eat it for 2-3 days, or freeze and reheat later.
Sell the extra car - We have 3 cars and my motorcycle right now. We are selling the 3rd car. The bike doesn't cost enough to insure/drive to be worth selling, but registering/insuring/maintaining 3 cars adds up.
Sell the extra stuff - Everyone has too much stuff anymore. Sell the excess that you don't need or use.
Cut out extra expenses - Add on subscriptions to HBO, ESPN, etc... We have and use Netflix and Prime. We currently have Hulu (promo for a year at $1/mo), but will cancel it when that runs out. Similar deal with Disney+. Talking to a buddy of mine, he spends $250/mo on streaming with add on packages (HBO, Starz, etc). Youtube is free. Netflix is cheap etc...
Stop watering the grass - If things really do get tight for folks, stop watering the grass. Water bills are expensive, and green grass is generally a waste. Water a garden instead (less water, and you get a return on that investment). If you have an HOA, well, then you have to deal with those asshats, but you bought there...
Look through your recurring auto-charges - Seriously. Look at what gets auto-charged each month to a card. What of that can be cancelled?

The list goes on and on.

Something that Irving touched on, but I went a little further with, is solar. Offgrid solar systems to power critical infrastructure (fridge, freezer, furnace, etc). Doesn't have to be a massive system, but I shaved $40-50/mo off my electric bill and I don't have to worry about power outages and a freezer full of expensive meat. Most grid tie systems (Sunrun, Namaste, etc) won't run power anything without the grid being present, and are overpriced.

Edited to add:

On the sell extra stuff one, if you have a storage unit that you are paying to store stuff... Why? What is in there that you can't get rid of and save that $50-500/mo?