Tetris — Building with the Straight Pieces

Last week I made a comparison between the game of tetris and dealing with your personal finances.  To understand the further use of this metaphor check out the previous post

When playing tetris it is always nice to have an abundance of straight pieces.  These pieces make building and completing lines very easy.  These pieces represent the times of abundance we experience in our lives.

So when you hit a time of abundance that is the time to start living small.  That's right you have to zig when everyone else is zagging.  The person who can reverse the times are good live large philosophy to the times are bad live large philosophy will come out ahead time and time again.  Just look at what is happening around you.  The world appears to be headed toward a global recession.  This means that demand for goods is going to go down.  Demand drops because most people are not planning for the future they are living for today.  So now that problems are happening people are being forced to cut back from living extravagantly and outside their means.

So the person that has planned for this bad time is now ready to strike.  Instead of taking that long driving vacation during this past summer you can take it over Christmas and save over on dollar per gallon of gasoline.  The cruise industry is having problems getting people to take a cruise so prices are dropping.  Restaurants are cutting prices because they cannot get patrons through the doors.  The stock market had dropped dramatically so you can buy stocks at lows that we haven't seen since the 50's.  Homes are going into foreclosure so you can buy a larger house on a steal.  The list can go on and on.

As you can see people who have planned for these economic slow downs are ready to take a bargain.  Just look at all the stock that Warren Buffet is buying up right now.  He's been purchasing companies for pennies on the dollar.  

I hope for those who are having to tighten their belts in these times a great lesson can be learned.  Get out of debt, save up an emergency fund, and live beneath your means during the good times so when the hard times come for the population as a whole you are going to be living it up on the cheap.