Do the initials FHB mean anything to you? They contain the secret of how to behave economically in the coming months.

FHB stands for "Family Hold Back". It was a code phrase my mother used when we were entertaining people at the house and there was a danger of the food running low. When FHB was invoked, my dad, my brother and I would either load our plates with less food or simply have none, depending on how far B. we had to H.

I'm hoping you're not familiar with the concept, otherwise the whole point of the code would be rather lost, wouldn't it? Not that my Mum suddenly shouted "FHB!" It was whispered among us at a time when none of our guests was near.

So you can imagine my surprise when I heard the term for the first time in, oh, 40 years. It was uttered during a conversation by a Bermudian friend, 20 years my junior. He was talking about techniques his family used when food supplies ran low. Clearly, FHB is an international concept.

I need to digress briefly before continuing. In his newspaper column last week, Alvin Williams asked what he and a white Bermudian might have in common, suggesting that the answer was nothing (I'm paraphrasing). It wasn't a very smart question. Mr. Williams and a white Bermudian might have grown up together. They certainly inhabit the same tiny island in the middle of nowhere. Like passengers sharing a lifeboat, Mr. Williams and his white counterpart might not have much in common culturally, but their survival is intimately tied together, as indeed might be their presents and pasts.

I mention this because the person who uttered "FHB" to me recently could not have been much more different from me. I'm black, he's white. No, wait. I'm white; he's black. I'm old; he's young. I'm foreign; he's Bermudian. I'm middle-class and bourgeois; he, I suspect, wasn't either of those, although he probably is now both. We couldn't be much more different, but we share so much. Mr. Williams: yours is an out-dated philosophy that does no one any good, most of all you.

So: FHB. It's pretty much all you need to know to get you through what's coming, economically. You probably already understand that what you need to do is to HB. One less this, one fewer that. Reuse; recycle; re-whatever the third thing is. Ah, I know. Reinsurance.

The thing is to take charge of your situation. Don't hide in the garden shed, quaking in fear. Face it full on. It's not the end of the world, even if you lose your job. There, I've said it. Losing your job in Bermuda isn't as bad as it would be almost anywhere else. For one thing, there are always jobs around here. For another, every time you lose a job, you put yourself in a position to land another. Maybe the new one will be better.

A little optimism isn't a bad idea at this time. A lot of realism is even better. So you can't afford that cruise this year? Well, there'll be another cruise another year. Life goes on, and so must you. HB a little; that's all it takes when there's not enough to go round.

* * *

My comments on the legally enforced lack of French grocery bags last week brought some mail. One reader wrote to ask if one may bring one's own bags to grocery stores in France. I believe one may, but I didn't see many people doing that. My experience was at a hypermarket, where people seem to buy lifetime supplies of everything, so almost everyone I saw had giant quantities of groceries loose in their carts.

Another reader approached the issue from a different angle. He wrote: "I am glad to see from last week's article that I am not the only one who seems to consider this anti-bagging to be a snare and a delusion," he wrote. "Let me see if I understand it:

"1. No more free bags from the grocery stores. So the store saves money.

"2. Buy 'green' bags from the grocery store. So the store makes money.

"3. Buy trash bags from the grocery store. So the store makes money."

End result: Grocery stores make money, consumers spend money, landfill now contains purchased trash bags, not free grocery bags."

That's all he wrote. It sounds about right. Odd, isn't it, how green we all are until money is involved, and then a different kind of green thinking takes over.