HEY! HAVE YOU HEARD?

Well what do you know? Seems they've come up with a new name for doing just what we've been talking about on our blogs - blogs like Down to Earth, Redneck Mother, Beauty that Moves, and Eyes of Wonder - for some time now. It's called "insourcing." I'm thinking there must be a whole lot more people jumping on board than we realized, if they had to coin a special phrase for it.

According to Ylan Q. Mui at the Washington Post, the economic downturn is forcing America's households to learn a tough lesson: how to fend for themselves. Wal-Mart is reporting a 30% increase in sales of starter sewing kits, and Proctor & Gamble has had many more people calling their hotline, wanting to know how to dye their hair at home. Fears about being able to make mortgage payments have triggered such a dramatic change in behavior, that "marketers and businesses have coined a name for it. They call it 'insourcing': doing yourself what you once gladly paid others to do for you."

Paco Underhill, author of Why We Buy (every retail merchandiser's bible), says "There are many of us that have been spending money that we can't afford to spend and have taken on habits that we had no business taking on." These time-based trade-offs, such as pet services and yard maintenance, are some of the easiest forms of economizing that a person can do. Underhill predicts that this newfound self-sufficiency will last even after the recession is a distant memory, for "Americans have always taken some pride in doing things for themselves." I hope he's right about that.

John Kelso, popular columnist for the Austin American-Statesman, says insourcing is when you decide that, since you're being taken to the cleaners by the economic downturn, you will stop going to the cleaners. He has no plans to attempt removing his own appendix with a pocketknife, but he has begun to toss his Yorkie in the bathtub, even though Ziggy gives him a dirty look as if to say, "If I were a Doberman, I'd kill you." If you have your own insourcing techniques and skills that you enjoy, such as making your own soap, candles, brie, or moonshine, Kelso wants to hear about it. Just send your insourcing tips to jkelso@statesman.com, and he'll share them to help others save a few bucks.