How are you coping with this economy?

[jyates82]

I live in Raleigh, NC and the economy has just started to get a little bit worse here. The high education and growth levels in this area have made it one of the last major areas in America to start to see home prices fall, but it is starting to happen. Now I know there will be layoffs and less money going around. How are you coping with the economy in your area?

[pisceanmomma]

Hi- I also live in Raleigh! My husband and I have our own business and so far so good (knock on wood) but we are a bit nervous. One good thing about working for yourself- you can't get laid off!

[NicoleCS]

We live in Northern Michigan and our area has been hit hard by the declining economy. I know many families with which one parent works down state or out-of-state and many families that have or are in the midst of losing their homes. It is a very sad and hard time here. There simply are not enough jobs available in our area. My dh is a builder and we have been most fortunate the past couple of years with work. I only work 30 hr/wk, though that is by choice. We are doing fine, though we have alot of things going for us.

1. We live simply and well within our means
2. We have no credit card debt or loans, other then our mortgage
3. We only buy what we have cash for

We watch in horror as our retirement funds and college funds spin out of control, but we keep funding them. We keep the heat a little lower and put a sweatshirt on. We don't have cable (this is a really good one to give up) I work really hard every week planning our dinners and my grocery list. We pick and choose the extras, and sometimes give up one activity for another. We enjoy family time and just hanging on our little farm. My dd loves skiing down our hill and walks it back up, over and over again.

Enjoy the simple things in life and don't get caught up on addresses, car makes and models and clothing labels. That's what we do!

[annettemarie]

Moving to Frugality.

[Contrariety]

I live in Utah, which so far has been fairly well padded against the failing economy, but it's starting to creep in. Lots of folks losing homes, I hear. I only know one person IRL who has lost their home because of the economy, but he bought it for speculation and knew it was a gamble...

They have had a few layoffs at DH's work, which has me biting nails, especially since we had to drain our emergency fund to pay for DH's tuition at the last minute. I'm just patiently waiting for my tax return to come so I can finish paying his tuition, re-boot my EF, and hopefully get the CC paid off. After that, the only debt we have is student loan debt, which we've never asked for any hardship assistance with, so if we fall on hard times, we should be okay... in theory. IN the mean time, I'm planning to save, save, save!

My job, which provides our housing, looks pretty stable so far, thankfully. I've been trying to maintain a very full pantry, but it's tricky when we're also scrambling to get DH's tuition covered.

Ugh.

[philomom]

We just completed our major home renovation as things start to look bleak for folks. Sigh, bad timing. Now my house is done but the overages are maxing out the credit card. I've never had so much credit card debt before.

But, we eat in. Dh starting to brown bag it. I can pay extra on the card this month because we skip a mortgage payment when moving construction loan to a permanent loan. I got a rebate or two for the "energy efficient" home renovations. I got my world points check from the credit card. I've got my taxes together and should be able to file and get a goodly return soon.

If the cars and kids can all hold themselves together, I'll be better off by mid July.

I am looking into selling some old gold jewelry and a painting we don't like anymore. Every little bit helps.

Dh's job pays well. I've just got to get the debt paid off. It makes me nervous. If any of you have transferred your balances to a no-interest card...... let me know which one. I think this would make a big difference, too.

Take care all.

[Denvergirlie]

I don't know anyone IRL here in my area that is having problems.

My company did lay some people off in Nov, but that wasn't an economy thing, it was our company being overstaffed for what size we really are and none of them were in this state.

All is pretty normal for us, sure my 401K took a hit, but I've only lost earnings, not the actual money I put in.

We greatly reduced our expenses and got on a budget a few years back as we saw all this coming, so no realy changes in our household. (Although we do love the cheap gas these days!)

[Dragonfly]

I live in an area (metro DC) that doesn't usually get hit hard by economic decline - at least not initially. Everyone I know here is doing fine, though certainly tightening the pursestrings, just in case. Some people I know in other areas are not doing so well.

I'm so thankful for my stabile (knocking on wood here) government job since I'm the only adult in my household and it's all on me - very glad right now that I didn't make the leap to the private sector when I was thinking about it a year or so ago.

[MommytoTwo]

My husband was laid off on December 11.

[Sonnenwende]

Just chuggin along, thankful for my job that pays the bills and puts food on our table. Business is still doing well for my company. No talk of cutbacks or layoffs at all. My husband is a full-time student.

Our only debt is a consolidated student loan. The student loan can easily be deferred or reduced to interest payments in times of trouble and has such a low rate of interest that I hardly stress out about it. We have no mortgage, no car payment, no credit card debt, no contracts (like cell phone, cable, etc).

We're getting a good refund from the government and it will fund fully the 5-6 month emergency fund. I also have a good amount of money in my HSA. We are lucky to be very healthy and haven't had any need to use it.

I decided to put a game plan in place of what I would do if I lost my job so that I wouldn't panic or be out on the street. Knowing exactly what you have to do in times of crisis is comforting.

[CarrieMF]

I'm in Canada & things are not as bad as in the US. I'm also in an area that is still going strong. Some things have slowed down, hours are being cut at oilfields, housing has dropped slightly(though still high).

There are no talks of cutbacks or anything at dh's work. He works for a semi parts company so as long as there are semis on the road he'll have a job. He has seniority over almost everyone in his department. I think there is 1 person who has been there longer. He just got his annual raise, on a per hour level it isn't much but it's $200-$300/month before taxes so it's a typical wage. The 1 thing I will be watching more is thier bonus'. They've changed how they work so I'll just watch to see if he's getting more or less. I have our budget set to the minimum he gets without bonus.

I'm sitting back observing what's going on, not making any drastic moves or anything like that.

[Tangled Hill]

Hubby and I both work (or worked - I just quit my job this week) in retail, and things are getting bad. Both our companies stopped matching 401(K), and both have wage and bonus freezes in place. His company just laid off over 100 of the corporate (not store) workers. It's looking pretty bad....

Anyway, we're budgeting and using the envelope system, and these things help us save about 15% of our net income every month. We stay home a lot and find free things to do. The trouble is, we were already extremely frugal to begin with, so there's just not a lot we can cut out. You can read about how frugal we are on an old blog post of mine: 50 Small Steps Toward Frugality. There's just not a whole lot more we can do, really, without either (1.) moving or (2.) having to spend money in order to save money.

I try to look on the good side. This, too, shall pass and all that. And, I try not to read too many gloomy economy forecasts.

[sweetjasmine]

Here in Texas it's not as bad but we have been feeling the pinch lately, some foreclosures and layoffs. A friend of mine IRL here in the DFW area just got laid off from her job at a mortgage company and her husband, who quit a full time job to start his own construction company a couple of years ago, is having a hard time lately finding anyone to do business with anymore. Hubby and I work for a construction materials testing lab and we're nervous as commercial construction is slowing here, too. Our environmental and geotechnical departments has seen work drop off tremendously.

All we have is a car loan that I've been doubling up on the payments since last summer. I had alot of credit card debt a couple years ago which I paid off by cashing out my 401k when I changed jobs. I thought long and hard before doing so but the bank crooks were bleeding me dry with incessant fees and rate hikes even though I was paying on time. I was never going to be able to pay it off otherwise. It's criminal that they can raise your rates because you were late one time on a utility bill or whatever. A friend at the last company where I worked has said that his 401k took a hit of 30%. : I feel such a relief getting out from under that mountain of debt!

One thing I am working on is our grocery bill. Most of the time it's only hubby and I but we have his kids every other weekend. Sometimes 2, sometimes 3, depending on what the 16 year old has going on. I spend way too much and have been doing things like buying store brands, watching the sale ads in the flyers, using coupons, etc. It has helped a great deal but I need to do some more tweaking.

[CanidFL]

Wow it seems like most of you are not affected too bad by the economy.

Here in Florida it is BAD!!! Tons and tons of layoffs. I personally know 2 people who went into foreclosure and 1 that is now bankrupt. Many of my friends have been laid off and a few had to move into their parents house with DH and kids in tow. There is a house on every corner with a foreclosure sign on it.

It’s just bad here right now. No one is safe from layoffs.

My 401K is down -31% according to my last statement and I lost almost all my money but I keep investing into it knowing the economy will bounce back someday. Luckily DH and I are holding on but we will be in trouble if I get laid off (which is bound to happen soon).

I hope it gets better soon.

[Norasmomma]

I live in N. Eastern Wa and honestly things have stayed relatively the same for us. This area has been always a bit economically depressed, the median income for a family of 4 is 32,000 so it is staying pretty much the same. My DH is an electrician and he still is working on the multi-million dollar second homes that people build here *sigh*. On one hand that is great, on another it drove up our land/home taxes and that is lame. Local businesses always depend on the locals in the winter except for the few scattered holidays that we have in the winter.

Home prices are going down, and there are many more homes for sale, but honestly in our area that had to happen-home prices were severely bloated and pricing any one who wanted to actually live here out of a home, and the ones that were for sale were having bidding wars over them-it was a pretty big mess there for awhile.

We have been striving to become debt free(except mortgage), and are working on my one high balance CC. We have no other debt than the house-which we're thinking of trying to refi after our necessary remodel projects are done.

I think that living in a small community has helped in the scheme of things-we all have to be interdependent on each other.

[amyamanda]

)

Eh. Here in the VT/MA area: DH just got laid off, my dad got laid off, my BIL got laid off. So far most of my friends still have their jobs and all of them still have their homes. Thankfully I can work some hours for a friend (variable though) and DH gets unemployment (woohoo!) and he thinks he can get contract work to do from home. We are optimistic that we can hang onto our home and continue to pay down our debt and work toward our goals.

I am feeling that my move toward greater frugality over the past few years was a sort of dress rehearsal for THIS reality. Though I'm not a pessimistic person by nature, I don't expect it to get easier. I think it will get harder and I'm preparing myself and my family for that the best I can.

About five years ago I started really feeling an urgent sense that it was time develop some self-sufficiency skills and strategies and to amass the tools that I'd need for living more self-sufficiently. At the time I had no clue why I felt that way, but it was a great foresight in our life. It seemed a little silly that I was thinking of canning tomatoes when we can buy them so cheaply, but I definitely think my canning skills and equipment (not to mention my gardening) will be helpful this year.

Now is the time to use those skills and know they are not just for practice. Frugality is no longer a choice, it's the only option, and I'm glad I'm at least somewhat experienced with it.

Unfortunately part of our long-term plan was to sell our house and use the profit to buy land. I don't see any profit coming from the house anymore. But we are still hoping we can get land somehow. Gotta stay optimistic.

[mightymoo]

We are doing fine, other than the fact that our investments tanked (but they were long term anyway, nothing we need now), my husband recently got promoted. It looks like the company is going to put off any merit raises (which are normally in March) until July, but still plans to pay bonuses. So long as he doesn't lose his job, which I have no reason to believe he will, we are fine. He works in healthcare software and his company is privately owned (no stock market worries) and in the business of saving health insurance companies money, so I feel we are positioned well. They seem to be very happy with him (i.e. recent promotion). We have made sure we have a good emergency fund and if needs be I can return to work.

[armychicmkm]

Other than the fact that I'm not making enough money to cover the bills but I'm over the income limit for state aid - we're not doing too badly in our little corner of the world. The SW corner of Oklahoma isn't hit too too badly.

Family back home in Michigan are doing horribly though. My dad's plant was shut down. My mom had most of her hours cut and can't find a second job. My brother was only able to find a job washing windows. FIL has had most of his hours cut. At least the IL's had been saving money though.

[Mama2Bug]

I'm actually in Raleigh as well. We have been feeling the pinch all year, despite DH's job being stable at the moment. *knock wood*

The biggest issues have been gas (though that has gone down again) and groceries. Things that used to be easy for us to purchase are now something we really have to think about. We get half of what we used to when we go shopping, not out of frugality, but because it is all we can afford.

DH works for one of the major companies in RTP. They have laid off a LOT of people. DH is sometimes the person who has to tell them. He really, really hates that. His job is secure for now, but I worry every day that that will change. He used to work a lot of overtime. So much, actually, that his overtime pay became a regular and expected part of his salary. He had been working the same 60 hours a week for over five years. They told him in August that no more overtime would be permitted. It was like a huge pay cut to us.

What we have done:

*We stay home most of the time. That way we don't use up gas or eat out.
*I buy most of our groceries at places like Compare, Walmart and Big Lots. I used to buy them at Harris Teeter and Whole Foods. We still occasionally find good deals at Trader Joe's.
*We buy all of our clothes and many of our household goods at thrift stores.
*We go to the library more often, rather than buy books. This has saved us quite a bit of money, especially on homeschool supplies. I get workbooks from the library and have DH make copies of the pages I want at work.
*I mend things like holey socks and ripped jeans, instead of buying new.
*We've become very diligent about things like turning off lights, unplugging appliances when they aren't in use and keeping the heat as low as we can stand.
*I make all of our laundry detergent and household cleaners.
*I am learning to knit more difficult items and have been trying to learn to sew. Hopefully this will cushion us against at least some future clothing costs.

[Belleweather]

We're doing OK for now, but we're battening hatches and planning as if my job were way less secure than it presently is -- really trying to bank as much as we can, focusing a lot on building our pantries and stockpiling clothes and personal items, buying things that we need to last, just in case. It'd be really nice if DH were employed, though. Knowing that we're depending on only one income is frightening in times like these.