How to Survive, Making Your Life Better

This book of help focuses on practical suggestions and strategies that can be used to enable a person to survive well on a small or limited income. The underlying idea is to stretch the power of that money to two or three times its face value so it goes a lot further than it normally would. Then all sorts of personal life changes that must be made and the effect of same on a person's ego and mind are discussed. The book focuses on the coping process and the reprogramming of one's mind to be able to cope; in escaping from otherwise downward spiral life change. The importance of exercise and establishing a regular daily routine is included. Diet, nutrition, eating (based on the Nathan Pritikin model); shopping; holidaying; being entertained; gaining materialism and looking after oneself are discussed in detail. Situations that land people on low income for example, illness, disability, unemployment, retrenchment; career change; retirement and pension are featured throughout. The effect of cumulatively living on low income on the ego and psyche is also highlighted. Changing relationships in circles and with friends is included, as are basic budgeting and money management techniques.

The author uses expert money management techniques acquired from ladies that lived through the effects of the second world war (and thrived) procuring for themselves everything that they needed. Some of same ladies became so thrifty that they gave themselves tax problems. Then it moves towards taking the reader on to a new emergent lifestyle and suggests ways that their limited amount of money can be used as a base to progress into small business ventures to hence, over a period of time, get them off various forms of welfare that can have the cumulative effect of depression, prospective suicide, and/or death. Conditions such as illness; disability; age retirement (pension); work related illness; unemployment and retrenchment are highlighted throughout. The book is illustrated with simple black line cartoon drawings that feature a cat, an ant and mice (inspired by Elizabeth's pet cat) that illustrate the therapeutic value of pets and the comedy in some life situations that can be prevalent during such times of stress and basic survival.