Our current economic crisis has varying affects on people across the country.  In my household, the only thing it has caused is a few less customers at the diner my mom works at.  This may be because my mom is a fantastic financial strategist, or it may be because the full force of the crisis has yet to hit my family. 

It wasn’t quite that hard for me to find a job this summer, and no one I know has really lost a job yet either.  However, even knowing these things, I am still not at all unconcerned by the crisis itself.  There are people, a lot of people, who are losing everything and who are at risk of losing everything in this country.  Knowing this, one can only try to plan ahead, in order to keep his or herself safe from the same fate.

Like many of my peers, I plan on going to college after I graduate.  I know that there is no way my parents will be able to send me to the school I plan to attend without the help of financial aid.  So, I’m doing everything I possibly can to get that aid, and also plan to save as much money as I can this summer with my new job.  Summer programs, AP classes, straight A’s; all these things are in preparation for college and attaining money to go there. 

I may be leaving the bills to my financial master of a mother, but I do not plan to suck her dry when I leave for college.  I’m doing as much as I can to help, just like many of my classmates are.

Even against anyone’s best efforts the future can take unexpected turns.  Surely, every Americans future will be laced with this detour and fallouts.  I may never make it to college and if that were to happen, it most certainly won’t be the only dream that is crushed during these hard times.  All we can do is to start preparing for what we think may happen, and pray that those precautions will be enough to secure our future.