Today's Ypulse Youth Advisory Board post is one part of a multimedia response to the YAB Question of the Week, a new feature we've been trying out on the Ypulse YouTube channel sponsored by Flip. This week I asked our members, who range in age from 14 to 23, how the recession has affected them and heard back from both ends of the spectrum. While some of our older members answered via vlog (check out their responses here), Nina L., a high school freshman from Washington state, opted to share a slightly more in-depth account of how the situation has had an impact on her family, friends and school. If you have a "Question of the Week" for the Youth Advisory Board you can email them at youthadvisoryboard at ypulse.com…or just leave it in comments.

YAB Question Of The Week: How Has The Recession Affected You?

Even before the recession hit the country, my family had been living on a tight budget and buying only the necessities. I've learned personally to only spend when I feel that what I'm buying will be very useful to me. From living frugally for the past few years though, I've learned it isn’t as hard as I thought.

Because of our particular situation, the recession actually had the opposite effect on my family. My dad, who had been struggling with self-employment for about a year and a half, was fortunate to get a job just around the time the recession started. Still, my family has come to rely on Costco chickens as a dinner staple. My mom even uses the carcass to make chicken stock for casseroles. Like most families around here, we haven’t done the usual ski vacation this winter, and aren't planning on any trips this summer.

I go to a public school in a wealthy community where money has never been a problem until now. For the 2009-2010 school year, they may have to drop up to 17 teachers throughout the district. And even though many of my friends are not going right out and saying it, I know that it has been affecting them, too. Over the past couple of months my lunch table has converted from hot lunches to bag lunches. Also, as a group, we have opted for low-cost activities, such as wagon racing, watching old movies at home, and perfecting that classic teenage-skill of loitering. Last year when my girlfriends and I went to the mall, we bought junk like lip gloss, cheap earrings, an ugly hat that we'd never actually wear. Now when we go, we just look, or go to Nordstrom and try on wedding dresses.

About Nina L.

Nina is a freshman in high school in Washington state. She plays the flute in the school band. Even though she's not as writing inclined as the other board members, Nina is the youngest of the group and may share an opinion with a younger audience. Nina is very interested in fashion, new technology and teen culture. Having three and a half sisters (an exchange sister for the year) she knows a lot about how teenage girls interact with each other and their parents. Nina ‘s biggest love is music, either classical or contemporary, it doesn’t matter. She cares about all of it.

Categorized under: Teens, Youth Advisory Board

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