You merely adopted poverty. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see a credit score until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!

Man, I’ve been multidimensional poor.

Homeless as a kid in the States. Decade or so later, lived in a mud hut in the Sahel for 3 years and carried my water from the well. Raised my own livestock.

Looking forward to teaching people how to make a bidet from a water bottle so you only have to use leaves for faster drying ;)

Basically how I felt ever since people started talking about the cost of living crisis.

Most of the people I know who survived the fall of USSR will offer you these tips:

• Grow, forage and preserve as much of your own food as you can. Food systems are vulnerable to inflation and supply shocks, especially due to tariffs between countries that used to trade freely.

• Learn to fix clothes, do home, furniture and machinery repairs when possible. Small construction work is expensive and good workers wouldn’t take them. The ones who do tend to do shoddy work.

• Become friends with your neighbours. They may have access to things money can no longer pay for in times of crisis. During a period of empty stores we were all still clothed and fed because we knew the right people.

• Don’t throw still useful things away. Trade them, sell them, take them apart for spare parts and materials, repurpose stuff as much as possible. Also, don’t buy things that won’t last, such as fast fashion (although even those can be used for cleaning rags).