How has the recession personally affected you? - Page 2

[~Boudicca~]

I waitress in fine dining and I can tell you right now that my tips each week have been cut by about 2/3 because business is slower than poo sliding down a wall. How's that for imagery. No one is out buying $50 steaks right now. I am supposed to be scheduled 3 days a week but they can only give me 2 because we just don't need many people right now but then I usually get called off for one of those shifts so I am technically down to one day a week.

DH's work put a cap on how much overtime they can pick up (down to 5 hours a week). His overtime was really helping things out for a while.

My FIL may be having his hours cut from 6 days a week down to 4 and if that is the case then my MIL will have to get a job which brings up the possibility of her not being able to watch the kids anymore when I work.

Things are very, very, tight right now. For a while there things were really looking good because we had a little breathing room and didn't feel so strapped, things were getting paid off and we could do cool stuff once in a while, but now I feel like we've been set back about 2 years.

[Liquesce]

Zero impact. Praying it stays that way.

[flowers]

The recession has impacted us in very positive ways.

It is highlighting all the very important things like family, health and living simply. Our extended family is suggesting things like making next Christmas a homemade Christmas which I think is a beautiful idea. It is making our community stop to reaccess our local economics and emphasizing how important it is to put your money into local money markets instead of glabal giants. It is a reminder to live within your means. It is also causing dh and I to get really creative and see opportunity in all of this. What kind of businesses will thrive in times like these? What can we offer our community that will be valuable? What important lessons can we learn from this and how can we pass these lessons on in an empowering way for our children?



Change is the only constant and I was very unhappy with the way our world was anyways, so for me I see this as the first step in changing towards a more sustainable and ethically just global community.

We are simple folk and for some reason we have more money now and feel more inclined to share our money with local businesses.

[Purple Sage]

No impact here, either. We're low-income, we rent, have no 401k, no investments, nothing to lose. The two small, locally-owned restaurants dh works at are doing well - it seems people still have money to go out for gingerbread pancakes and tempeh enchiladas.

[Purple Sage]

Originally Posted by flowers

the recession has impacted us in very positive ways.

It is highlighting all the very important things like family, health and living simply. Our extended family is suggesting things like making next christmas a homemade christmas which i think is a beautiful idea. It is making our community stop to reaccess our local economics and emphasizing how important it is to put your money into local money markets instead of glabal giants. It is a reminder to live within your means. It is also causing dh and i to get really creative and see opportunity in all of this. What kind of businesses will thrive in times like these? What can we offer our community that will be valuable? What important lessons can we learn from this and how can we pass these lessons on in an empowering way for our children?



Change is the only constant and i was very unhappy with the way our world was anyways, so for me i see this as the first step in changing towards a more sustainable and ethically just global community.

We are simple folk and for some reason we have more money now and feel more inclined to share our money with local businesses.

yes!

[freespirited]

Neither dh nor I ever invested in a 401k but I did invest in some precious metals last spring and lost my shirt. Technically I haven't "lost" anything since I haven't sold but I can't even bear to log onto my account and see single digits where there was once double.

Also, dh had been picking up a ton of OT in the past months but they suddenly put an end to that and now they have it organized to where they work the existing workers to the bone, literally to the burn-out point, rather than have to pay anyone OT or hire more people. At least dh has a business trip coming up that should net us an extra wad of cash to pay off some of our smaller debts, and if I get the job I am applying for, it is another couple grand during the course of the summer. Not much but I will take it!

Hugs to all you who have been so affected by this. It's so disheartening to hear of so many jobs and homes lost. If we had sold our house we were going to move in with my parents which is apparently becoming quite common.

[2cutiekitties]

Let us see. DH has had four pay decreases. We are stuck in a house that is in a toxic neighborhood and part of town. Both have gained tons of weight because we hate the outdoors so much. Nothing like driving over an hour just to do something simple like taking a walk. We are still going to see about moving though.

Basically just a general buzz kill on life and dreams.

[Seasons]

The recession's major effect on me has been emotional.

Financially, my retirement funds have tanked - but luckily I have a few decades before retirement to re-earn and re-save all that money. My house has decreased a little in value, but banks are practically giving loans away now so I was able to re-fi at a great rate (4.5%). We haven't changed our spending at all - we were never living outside our means, so there's nothing to change.

But I worry that last year's salary freeze will become a salary cut or layoff; boss has already told us layoffs are inevitable this year.

And I am enraged that only some investments are bailed out. Lose value in your car? Nobody bats an eyelash. Lose value in my retirement funds? Congress won't bail me out. Yet people who lost value in their homes are getting super-generous re-fis, and banks are even authorized to reduce loan balance! Similarly, only some industries are bailed out. Automakers and bankers, Congress loves you. My own profession? We're SOL.

And most of all I cry (well, not literally) that my daughter and her peers will have to pay the bill for all this bailout nonsense. Goodbye personal responsibility, hello, make your children pay for your neighbor's - not even your own - bailouts. :

[A&A]

A promised bonus has, not surprisingly, evaporated.

And my BIL got laid off.

My brother owns his own business with seven employees. He worries about having to lay them off.

[Amys1st]

Like a few others pp, We lost over 60K in the investments of our retirement acct. With contributions etc, it should recover in 3-4 years and we have another 30 years before retirement. We are feeling positive and are just glad we already were putting $ away and not worrying about debt.

When the gas went up last summer, it affected pricing of everything else so that was a short term hit on our expenses and we were able to work around that, but again it hurt there for a while.

As for DH's business, physical therapy- people still get hurt or need treatment. Some are choosing to come in twice a week since the co pay is harder to swing 3 times a week. So they still do their appts, just over a longer span of time. Also, they are listening to him, wanting to get healthy again. Imagine that! As for the patient who does not have benefits, we may have a person get treated on the side and we would barter something since not many will let DH treat them for free.

We have lived a pretty simple, natural, and frugal lifestyle for quite some time now but we are putting more $ in the education funds for the girls, building up the emergency money fund too.


Also, its very hard to see people in my community stuggling to make ends meet. Some people lived on the high hog but others may already had had it rough and now its even harder.

[lizziebits]

It hasn't actually affected us in any concrete ways. DH is a teacher, with a fairly secure job, and I'm in nursing school. DH also does landscaping in the summer and other odd jobs. Despite the hiring freezes at many hospitals, I'm fairly confident I'll be able to get a job once I graduate. Even if it takes a while, we've disciplined ourselves to live only on DH's teacher salary, and that won't change anytime soon.

Phsychologically, it has definitely affected me. I worry about people who aren't as secure as us, and I worry about major economic problems. I've redoubled my efforts to live frugally, and really want to build a better stockpile of food.

I tend towards anxiety anyway, and am trying to pray for peace about it.

[MangoMommy]

For my own family, we are ok. But I worry about mom, my sisters, my brother and SIL,etc. ALL of them have been negatively affected by loss of jobs, or threats of layoffs,etc. In my family we are the only ones not having problems. And none of my family lived high on the hog, we are talking they have $130K homes,etc.

[annethcz]

Originally Posted by Denvergirlie

It hasn't other than increased anxiety about the collaspe of the dollar and the always looming possibility of a job loss.

But day to day? No effect. (knock on wood)

This is pretty much us too. DH still has a great (and apparently stable) job. We've been able to maintain our standard of living without trouble.

We do feel like we're "stuck" in our current home, as are most other people we know. But we can afford our house, so it's not a big deal. We've also been told that DH's employer isn't planning to give annual raises in 2010, so we're planning for that.

Overall, we're feeling more financially conservative.

[staceychev]

DH laid off in November.

[rootzdawta]

Mainly, I've had to become very cautious about how I spend money. Organic food has been cut out and some of the convenience foods I can't buy anymore. More than anything, the recession has had a impact on me emotionally and psychologically. I worry about what the future holds.

[mandib50]

our investments were hit so hard. dh has started working overtime shifts so we can pay down our bills more quickly (we were going to use investments to pay off our bills). other than that, we have been very fortunate and our lives are pretty the same.

[Azuralea]

...

Edited by Azuralea - 11/24/10 at 9:26pm

[p1gg1e]

Good and bad.

Dh is on pay freeze and the bonus is not a sure thing still its about 1/6 of his pay so we really need it

We right now are doing better but I think we paid our dues this summer LOL

[dsaucone]

Most of what we've done is prepare. We haven't seen many changes. I guess that's what you get for living near the poverty line in an area with a somewhat reasonable housing market.

JOBS
DH has been with the company longer than 1/2 the people working there. However, that won't help if Home Depot closes that location. My job is pretty secure, however raises look bleak because my pay comes from state funding and health care seems to be the first place they cut (1.6 million from our facility alone this year).

DEBT
This has forced us to pay off our debt so that if jobs are lost we have less in the way of expenses. We were looking at getting a second vehicle which would require a loan, but I'm staying away from that right now. If we get a second car it will be and older model and paid in full with cash.

LIFESTYLE
I'm trying to cut back on expenses, but we're pretty close to the poverty line as it is.

HOUSING
The housing market was pretty crappy in Rochester, NY to begin with. People have been leaving this area for years. I haven't seen a huge dip in housing prices as of yet, but I've seen houses on the market for over a year now. Makes it better for us, we're looking to buy our first house this year!

[shayinme]

My husband is a freelance editor/writer and his second largest client reduced their work with him which means a huge drop in monthly income.

While I recently took a job, I was still consulting and grant-writing on the side and both my stable clients (non-profits) can no longer afford to use me on a regular basis. I got the news right after the holidays

So just when we were financially getting back on track after me having lost my job in 2007, once again we are without insurance (could not afford the premiums and my job has no benefits) and really stretching to make ends meet.

The one bright spot is that my FIL who is pretty comfortable and had always planned to leave my husband a chunk of cash upon his death realized that we could use help now so he paid off our mortgage. : That means that despite having less income we are actually making ends meet which if we had the mortgage would not be possible. Since taxes and insurance are doable now without the actual mortgage.

I definitely can say I am feeling the financial downturn.