Apparently some families affected by the recession are too poor for others to identify with

In the weekend the Fairfax magazine "Your Weekend" featured a story of a person who was cutting down on her expenses due to the recession. It was called "Just saying no - one woman's answer to the recession".

It was a good article, but she was spending thousands every week on various things and she called it cutting down. She was proud of spending "just" $1200 in discretionary spending each month (that's not including food,power, mortgage and other essential bills) and just $200 a week on food.

When I pointed out to the editor that many families - for example ours - don't have the money to spend $1200 a month on discretionary spending he said that readers would not be able to identify with that experience. Therefore he would not publish an article on how to drop discretionary spending to less than $1200 a month or how to cut down your credit card bill to $2500 a month. Y`know, like living in a recession, but affected by it as well.

Because being affected by recession is "just saying no" because of necessity, not because you can spend your way out of a refusal to say no on occasions. Being affected by recession is not about buying fewer coffees or going on less holidays - it's living on less income. In order to have an answer to the recession you have to have an answer that people affected by a recession - particularly those who have lost their jobs - are able to identify with.

That article was not it.