How are those employed doing in this economy ?

[old&slow]

My life style is about the same maybe a little less....

I'm retired , so my benefit check is the same ,,, My Savings have taken a big hit ,, not quite as bad

as the hit I took around 1999 - 2002 when the market and the company I worked for took a major hit...

( stock went from $80 + a share to $1.50 ,, the company closed & had to retire)

I figure the market will come back ,,, ( I hope,, I hope ,, I hope)

I worry more about my kids and their jobs,, I'm not in a position I can help them as much as I use to be..

But,, Things are going to be different now ,,,, we have the Democrats in there ,,,,( Yea,, Right !!) :dribble:

 

[chrisflock]

I'm going with slightly less. My wife and I have always been cheap, and the only differences that the current economic situation makes to us are:

1) Retirement accounts losing money

B) Everything costs more.

Groceries have gotten a bit more expensive, and although we've cut back a little in that department, we've always bought mostly essentials. The gas and electric bill has gone up a little, I dropped the temperature in the house by a degree on the 'warm' times and 2 degrees at night. Property and income taxes were harsh, but anticipated.

 

[rhody]

2/28/09

Thanks for you opinions, I was a bit surprised to see that almost 27% of those who are working are putting more away (myself included). These numbers were higher than I had would have guessed.

As a follow up to the original poll, if things got better, would you change your spending habits ? I am really interested in those who answered slightly or significantly more to the original poll question. I appreciate your honest responses in addition to taking the poll, they were an interesting read.

In my case, I think I would still be spending a bit less. I come from "Yankee" upbringing, not wanting or needing to have everything "right now", and have alway enjoyed life with less. My 05 ABS FJR is a luxury that has brought great moments of peace/fear/exhilaration/joy. I enjoy riding, and this forum.

Rhody...

 

[SilverHound]

In response to your follow-up question, I don't think I would change my weekly or monthly spending habits but I would be more inclined to spend money on bigger ticket items. For instance I have about a year left on my only car loan and I would pay that off. We also could use some new carpet and replacement windows in the house but I have been holding off on those. I just figure if I spend $10-$15,000 now and something bad happens with my job, I don't want to face the prospect of realizing that my new carpet, windows or paid off car might have been the difference between sustaining my regular monthly expenses for a little longer. Perhaps I am being too cautious but then again if I were not cautious to begin with I could have been one of those who were over their head in debt and under water on their mortgage.

BTW as a reference we are a single income family with two kids living at home. The biggest hit I have taken is with my kids 529 college accounts which have both lost about 30% of their value. Fortunately I moved all my 401K money into bonds over a year ago which haven't been losing money as bad as stock funds. At the same time I cut my contributions in half and have been putting that same money in savings which at 2.5% interest isn't the best return but at least I'm not losing anything. :blink:

 

[zip]

B) Everything costs more.

I agree. You knew that this would happen back when gasoline was $4.50 and oil was at $140 a barrel. They had to pass on the additional cost of transportation. But as you might expect, prices have not rolled backwards with the cost reduced by 60%.

This may all change, though, as purchasing power, consumer confidence and the use of credit continues to decline. We're now faced with the specter of either deflation because of those factors, or high inflation because of the declining dollar. It's an economic tightrope we're walking right now.

Gas is going to go back up again, in my opinion, though, for any number of reasons. Reduced demand means that oil companies are throttling back refinery projects that might have been profitable with prices as they were, but aren't with prices as low as they are.

You can get some amazing deals right now, though, on almost anything considered "discretionary."

 

[zip]

I have always been a frugal person. I do most everything for myself rather than pay for a mechanic or plumber or whatever. I don't expect my salary to increase much this year, and my retirement investments have taken a beating, but my checking and savings accounts are about the same as before and my spending habits haven't changed.
Now that frugal is becoming the norm I don't feel special anymore. :cryingsmiley:

Actually, you should feel more special! You have lessons to teach those of us who haven't been as frugal, and valuable experience with getting things done on your own. Most Americans have never taken the time to learn a damned thing that might make them self-sufficient. The old, independent ways are dead.

An interesting economic sign, though, is one meme that's circulating more widely these days, "Gardening is the new golf." Many of the families in our neighborhood have planted some sort of victory garden. Economically somewhat pointless, but I think it's great nevertheless. (And we got some great lettuce and spices out of ours last year!)

 

[Risley - FJR 08]

Broke like a bad joke! Thankful for the simple things in my life, not to be taken for granted. I can still get out of bed every day and breath fresh air with my own two lungs. Take my wife for rides thru the N GA mountains and tuck my kids in bed at night.

Life is good, with or with out.

 

[jekirby]

I am self employed and my wife works for a bank that has been bought, but not gone through the layoff yet. She thinks that it may take a year or so before the downsizing starts which if the economy is improving by then may never come. My business, custom cabinet making, is just in its third year and I have purposly put everything back into the business. I don't owe anybody anything. We did take out a 10 year arm on the house we built and was going to have it payed off in 11 years, but since I struck out on my own, that plan has not quite been followed as we should have. I guess that with the decision to work for myself and a pretty good savings to start with, we are really doing ok. I have enough work on the books to pay al my expenses for 09 and my actually draw my first paycheck third or fouth quarter. We are in a unique position where we decided to put ourselves in the position many of you are in right now, so we just didn't know any differnent when it all hit the fan.

 

[SecuLaw]

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I got a promotion and make about $30 grand more now than this time last year. The chances of losing my job are zero, zip, nada. If anything, I'm up for another promotion.

 

[zip]

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I got a promotion and make about $30 grand more now than this time last year. The chances of losing my job are zero, zip, nada. If anything, I'm up for another promotion.

Not insensitive, just the facts. But I'm sure others are as curious as I am: in what field? By your moniker, I've got to think it's something security related?

Folks, if you're working in areas that rely on discretionary spending, you may consider a switch.

 

[SecuLaw]

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I got a promotion and make about $30 grand more now than this time last year. The chances of losing my job are zero, zip, nada. If anything, I'm up for another promotion.

Not insensitive, just the facts. But I'm sure others are as curious as I am: in what field? By your moniker, I've got to think it's something security related?

Folks, if you're working in areas that rely on discretionary spending, you may consider a switch.

Securities law which right now is hopping.

 

[Tenchi]

As a follow up to the original poll, if things got better, would you change your spending habits?

My spending habits wouldn't change. I'd be inclined to put more into the 401k though, for reasons listed previously.

 

[FJRBluesman]

If I get anymore frugal, we'll be living in a cardboard box on the side of the road.... :dribble:

I'm in the Aerospace industry. We have been down sizing ever since I got there. I have had 25 years of thinking, will I loose my job.

 

[pinhead]

Folks, if you're working in areas that rely on discretionary spending, you may consider a switch.

Yup, that's me alright. :angry: I've worked at a destination ski resort for the last 15 years and things are tough in the industry right now. Our business is down 20% over last year and things are much worse at some of the other Colorado resorts. While we've been able to avoid layoffs so far, we've only done it by being very efficient with our labor costs. What that means is that all salaried employees, including me, are working 6 or 7 days per week in various areas of the resort (with no extra pay) while hourly employees are working fewer hours/days. The choice to volunteer for these alternative duties was made was made quite easy when the owners told us to step up or take a hike.

I'm not thrilled about having to come in and bus tables, check tickets, or do housekeeping on my "days off", but I'm extremely grateful to still have a good job when so many other are really taking it on the chin. Unfortunately, things don't look good for next season either.

 

[mdisher]

Yeah, we're treading water in the tech/software ALM space.

We're going to cut a couple people today. Honestly it could be a LOT worse than it is.

I am the primary/sole breadwinner in my family so we've made some adjustments. We are almost debt free though so that helps quite a bit.

On the flip-side, nobody's going to bail us out of anything which kind of blows.

 

[Jagermeister]

I've been in the Healthcare field for a few years, now. Business is booming, and should continue to grow.

Healthcare isn't recession proof, but very recession resistant. But, it'll be government-run (even more than now) in a few years, when I'll probably long for a less stable job.

 

[HotRodZilla]

Our bank accounts are fine, as neither one of us has taken a hit job-wise. My wife and I are actually both pretty lucky to have jobs that are not affected by this economy. What did suck was the fact that the equity on our house took a 40k hit when the market tanked. The only saving grace is that because of the crappy housing market and economy in general, lots of home builders and contracters are closing up or moving out. When the flow of new houses stops, our equity will rebound some, but I'm not sure how much.

As far as spending, we carry very little debt. We save for most things and don't carry credit cards with balances. All of our cars are paid off and the FJR is almost done. Like someone else said, if the economy was different, our spending habits probably wouldn't change, but we would spend more on big ticket items. We would have bought a new house this year; however, with the hit to our equity, were not selling any time soon.

 

[airboss]

Guess I'm luckier than most, all a lay off would mean to me would be early retirement. Guess that won't happen, they already asked me to stay on as part time two - three days a week.

 

[Zorlac]

FWIW, I've noticed that a few here have mentioned fairly sizable hits to retirement accounts and thought I'd mention a newsletter/financial adviser that I subscribe to that has taken me years to reach a comfort level with after realizing that I can't do this myself.

The guys name is Dan Sullivan and he has been investing for 40yrs.

He writes two newsletters one for individual stocks and one for mutual funds in which he manages a real portfolio of his own money and documents every trade (Almost unheard of in the newsletter business!). He doesn't swing for the fences and make willynilly trades in the mutual fund letter that I subscribe to, and by following his advice I've been spared the pain of big losses. He will also manage your portfolio for you if you prefer that approach.

Everyone likes big investment returns, but IMO, risk adjusted return is more important than absolute return when we are going through times like these.

This is from his latest newsletter published 3/5

For the year-to-date, our Actual Cash Account has gained $1026, +0.12%, while over the same period the benchmark S&P 500 with dividends has lost -24.87%. Over the last 52 weeks, the Actual Cash Account has lost $5091, -0.59%, versus a loss by the S&P 500 w/div of -49.29%. Since our last major buy signal on April 8, 2003, our Actual Cash Account has gained $434,461, +101.25%, while the S&P 500 w/div has lost -13.48%.

About The actual cash account.

The Mutual Fund/ETF Actual Cash Account was established on August 29, 1988 with an

initial $100,000. As of December 31, 2008 it had grown to $862,550. We moved our clients into an approximate 80% cash position on January 16, 2008. On August 4, 2008 we advised investors to sell the remaining ETFs and move to a 100% cash position. The result was a decline of only 5.4% for our Actual Cash Account in 2008. In comparison the S&P 500 lost 38.5%, its biggest decrease since a 38.6% plunge in 1937.

 

[SouthernCruizer]

Well, the oilfield industry here in south Louisiana is finally starting to feel the effects of the tanking economy. Rig counts are down, and service companies like the one that I work for are having to cut their bids, and of course, some of the smaller ones will be forced out of the business. Luckily, we have operations in Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. We find that the oilfield movement has been moving north for the last couple of years so our Arkansas and Oklahoma operations are helping take up the slack from down on the Gulf.

Personally, my 401K fund is down damn near 45% from last year, so I am just glad that I still have 10+ years to gain back before I need it. As luck would have it, I just finished paying off my home and I have no auto/bike/boat/airplane notes and dont carry credit card balances, so its all good on that end. Guess I'll be hunkering down till the **** storm passes, like most of you will be too.

Good luck to all...keep saving your pennies!