I did. A couple of years ago (and again, three years ago), I said the economy would be getting worse and that getting out of debt, curtailing unnecessary expenditures (especially credit card “purchases”), doing all essential maintenance on properties–and person–and other such sensible things made, urm, sense in light of what we were facing at the time.
Makes even more sense nowadays, what with unemployment still growing, the Fed deliberately increasing costs to citizens for ALL goods and services by continuing to devalue the dollar, and a debt load increase in the last year on every man, woman and child in these (dis)United States of $10,000 ladled on by a spendthrift Congress that’s wasted every (borrowed–stolen from future generations!) “stimulus” dollar it’s thrown down the toilet–in just the last year alone.
Hold on folks, because the ride’s just going to keep getting bumpier before things turn around (said hopefully).
Again: get out of debt, make sure your “stuff” is in good shape (so you don’t have to buy new “stuff” or fix a hole in your roof or whatever when things are even worse off), buy what you need and stockpile essentials–paying cash.
Heck, if worse comes to even worse, that (well-guarded) stockpile of toilet paper could be worth far more than its weight in gold… *heh*