Anyone else really worried about the Economy?

[pauletoy]

I know this topic has been beaten to death. Let me apologize in advance

So I was watching the news last night (I know big mistake), they were talking about the expected increase in gas prices over the summer. The price of everything, when you get right to it, is driven by the price of oil. I just heard a few minutes ago that food prices have increased the largest amount in 18 years.

My husband and I were discussing the changes that we have made in our house including lowering our consumption of oil. I rarely drive outside a 10 mile radius. My husband drives only back and forth to work. We have also been cutting consumption of consumer goods and shopping at the local thrift shop. We wonder how much more we can cut out to meet our budget with the rising costs.

How in the world is a family with a modest income suppose to survive? What are you doing to plan for even harder economic times?

How much longer can the U.S. continue down the path of excessive consumption?

Sorry for the rant.

[stretchmark]

I am worried AND I try to live in an abundance mindset. It's not easy though. We loaded up on bulk food, are expanding our garden, getting goats, helping with the local 2 acre community garden, and hoping to God we have the means to get through it.

[crazyeight]

i know what you mean. i watched the news for the first time in a while last week and it immidiatly made me jumpy and worried. to much hype!

i don't know how we will survive. i have wondered if i should get a smaller more gas efficient car...but the fact is that unless you can afford a new hybrid that is getting 40+ MPG its almost a moot point to try and trade in a rebuy for the 5-10 mpg that it would save. not to mention that i only use 2 tanks of gas/month. ($100 or less).

as for food....well i don't know. i bought lots of fresh fruits and veggies (kind of a raw diet for weight loss) but didn't buy many meats that i would usually buy. although i bought alot and actually filled my cart it cost me $170 or so when i usually spend $130 or so. so buying "pure" foods isn't always the best for the pocket book. although we aren't the healthiest we could do alot worse...also with a picky ds (who often goes hungry) its hard to find the balance between him eating NOTHING (and getting listless which has happened) and giving him nutritious meals that he does like (of which there are really no MEALS).

we are fortunate to not have high medical payments or copays so that is a blessing. i do worry and wonder what my lifetime will see. what can i do to protect our family? should we consider living in another country for a while that at least has a more stable but higher cost of living or higher taxes? so many questions!!!

[Peony]

I've been having to really watch what we buy at the store, which honestly I've never had to do before. I now meal plan, buy mostly sale items. I still drive quite a bit, it's impossible not to do when you live out of town. Both DH and I drive newer more fuel efficient cars/vans. I've heard about the economy for months now, watched the food prices rise, etc... but it wasn't until very recently that DH and I felt it personally. DH is self employed, he owns an IT consulting company, business never really slows down, but now it has. He has a wide range of clients, real estate companies, medical offices, oil and gas companies, banks.... many of them are starting to really hurt. The banks are firing workers left and right, the train here is way behind on their bills to us and can't pay, it goes on and on. We'll be fine, DH has enough clients that aren't struggling, but we've started laying off some employees, and will be tightening our belts. It is scary.

[applejuice]

I am worried, but then, I was worried in the 1970s also, when I finished college, married, bought a house and started a family. Life goes on. Just be sensible and everything works out.

I also used to talk to my older relatives about living through the Depression.

[mareleigh]

the economy scares me a whole lot! There rising prices are WAY out of hand in my opinion, we have had a blessing of coming across Dave Ramesy and doing th total money make over. That has helped me learn to budget so much better, but I really think that the big R word is not that far off, and who knows if we will really be prepared for that.

[HopelessPoet]

I think we've been in recession for a long time now and that we're headed toward the next 'Great Depression'. I've been saying this for at least 2 years now.

As for my family, we do what we can. It's getting scary. Our electric bill is past due and is set to be shut off May 7th. I'm due with my first child on May 3rd and quite honestly it scares the living daylights out of me. Our only luxury is the internet. A pp says that life goes on.... life does go on but for my family life might end up being in a box.

[SusanInItaly]

The dramatic increases in the cost of food is what is scaring me. The cost of milk, bread, veggies, rice,etc.

[Denvergirlie]

I seem to be bucking the trend here, as I'm not really worried at all.

Sure groceries have gone up, but I'm a much savvier shopper these days. I started to stockpile a year ago and now just buy things when they are on sale, so those rising costs dont'really affect my food budget. In fact I've cut my food budget of late and still have lots left over.

Gas has gone up, but I don't drive that much that it's caused anything more than sticker shock when the tank is full.

Personally I'm fine with the real estate market falling as it was and still is way over priced.

How much of everyone's discomfort in relation to the news constantly telling you how bad things are?

[Alkenny]

I'm not as worried about costs of food/gasoline going up as I am the loss/lack of jobs in our area. Not just good paying ones, but ANY. And this has been going on for quite awhile now in my area.

[nadia105]

I haven't been watching the news lately, but I'm still very worried about the economy. Our money not going as far as it used to. When we bought our house in 2001, our monthly budget for gas and electric was $100 -- it is now $175. For gas for our cars, it used to be $75-100/month and is now $200. I don't remember what the food budget was then, but it is certainly up now.

Our house's value has also dropped significantly ($30K or so, still up about $20 k from where we bought it) and we were not in an area that was remarkably overpriced. I don't believe we have seen the bottom of the housing drop, in our area the foreclosures are still rolling in in high numbers (3-5 full pages in the local paper) and those will continue to drive down the prices. We were hoping to move, but won't be able to get enough out of our house to make that possible.

[superstella]

I see it. I don't watch the news lately, so the hype has little to do with my perception (although I know my mother at least is very susceptible to such hype and I can hear it in my conversations with her). My xh got laid off last week, from a factory job he's worked at for the past ten years. He was a supervisor there, and had many below him on the seniority chain. He was very surprised, and I don't know what someone like him will do now -- he's worked in factories his entire life since high school -- what else is out there for him? Of course, this affects my income because my child support just went kapoot, but we'll still be okay. I've seen the price of food creeping up and I can't believe that the bread I prefer now costs $1.89/loaf.

What kills us is the gas that dh spends getting to work. He has a one way commute of about 50-60 miles, so 100 miles/day, plus weekend out of town excursions usually. He easily puts 800 miles/wk on our van, which already has 175k miles on it. This scares me. Assuming our van gets 25mi/gal (maybe?), that's 32gal/wk of gas, at the current rate (locally) of ~$3.20/gal that's $102.40/wk in gas. Over $400/month. Ouch.

[Benji'sMom]

I'm not really worried, I don't think it's anything like the Great Depression. I think anyone who actually lived through the Great Depression most probably would not even compare then with now, it's not even close. There have been many recessions, but only one Great Depression. Just because we go through a recession doesn't mean it's anywhere near a depression. There will always be areas of the country where people are more economically depressed, but I mean the country as a whole is not that bad.

[Dillpicklechip]

Yeah, I'm worried about it. While I agree that this is nowhere near the Great Depression (read The Grapes of Wrath if you want to learn about that!), the fact that the prices of so many things are rising at the same time does concern me.

We live in a blue collar city where there have been thousands upon thousands of layoffs. My husband hasn't had steady work in years because it literally doesn't exist here anymore. We know so many people in the same situation. Most of the people who are working in the factories here were laid off and then hired back as "temporary" workers at HALF the previous wages.

We have had to see a steady reduction in our income over the years. And it's possible to learn to get along with less, but--this is SO HARD when the prices of everything are going up at the same time your income is going down! You can only stretch your money so far when EVERYTHING, even basic staples like flour, are rising so quickly. And there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.

We look back on the "good old days" when we were young and had a decent income and food was so cheap, and we think we were idiots to not have saved more!

Now my dh is going back to school, so we will be living off of nothing more than student loans and government benefits for the next three years! I am very, very concerned that we are going to have problems feeding ourselves and our three kids. I think we may have to at least move closer to the college so my dh can ride his bike there and not use gas.

[henhao]

I think the media is partly to blame for the economy. They put the fear into everyone. People freak and stop spending and that helps cause a recession.

On the other hand, the bright side is that reducing consumption is good for the environment.

Over time, we can hope that the market gets corrected and that this time causes change for the good of all.

The other thing is that the US is a cheap place to visit. The Europeans will start coming and spending money here. US exports will also cost less.

My family lived through the Depression. I think it's irresponsible for the media to predict a Depression. If you say it for years, maybe yeah, it'll happen becuase it was going to anyway.

The Depression has affected my life for my whole life. You know what though? During the Depression, people really helped each other out. They shared. Not everyone owned their own lawn mower. They shared. Not everyone had food. They shared. A lot of bad stuff happened then but so did a lot of good.

[steffanie3]

If there is another Great Depression I think it will be a terrible blow because of people not being at all self-sustaining. In the 20s and 30s more people had gardens and animals to provide food for themselves.

[llamalluv]

I find it amusing how many people said they never worried about what they spent before. (Not the funny ha-ha amusing, but the interesting odd kind....)

I have always been concerned with what I spend. In my teens and just before my family was ripped apart by divorce, and my mother, sister(s), and I spent some time homeless. (Across a span of 10 years, probably 2 of it was spent homeless, in several month chunks).

The most miserable years for me were the Clinton administration. (The most time spent homeless). My life has made huge financial gains since 2001. I do not attribute ANY of this to Reagan, Bush, Clinton, or the current president. It was just life circumstances brought on by BAD CHOICES made by my parents, and then better choices made by me.

My husband and I have been making what we feel are very good choices. He choose to take a job (public works) that is not his dream job (farming) because of the benefits and security and transferability. He can do his job in any municipality that offers water systems or street maintenance to its citizens. He gets paid very well (most positions start at $20/hour, even in small towns). He can also do small engine repair (like lawnmowers), and diesel engine repair (tractors and semis).

We've chosen to aggressively pay off our debt, even the low interest, deductable student loan debt, before purchasing a home. We are choosing to save up a significant down payment and purchase a smaller home than what we "can" qualify for, and smaller than what most of our friends feel they need (i.e. one bedroom per child, living room AND family room, a dining room they never use, etc). We are personally hoping that the real estate market continues to contract, because we are looking for a deal when we are ready to buy, and it's going to take us another 2 years.

[Norasmomma]

I also think that the media is making a huge hype about things, but it does also slow our ever increasing consumption, which in turn is a good thing. I do worry a bit, but much of the worry is about how high things will jump to. I live in an area where we are all pretty dependent on tourists and 2nd home owners, but the building is still happening and the company my DH works for is booked for the year. He also drives a company vehicle, so no gas except for my little car, plus I go to town rarely(20 mile round-trip). One thing for me is we had to tighten our spending before this started happening, we had our DD, I had to quit my job to be a SAHM, and we had to tighten down. I was a spender before, now I(well, we) are trying to become savers, it's been a tough transition and really doesn't have to do with a recession or not. I have learned to be a much better shopper, I did go spend $80 today, but that $80 spent saved us probably close to $40 on groceries because I bought a case of Muir Glen organic tomatoes for $1.99 for the big can, I saved $24 alone on those tomatoes. Burger was on a one day sale, extra lean $1.98 a lb, that's over a 1 off a lb, so I stocked up and got 5 packs. Our freezer is stocked, our pantry keeps getting filled, I pretty much only buy food on sale, today some treats were on sale, soda, chips, so I stocked up.

There are other things that I am trying to do, modifying our mortgage to get a better rate is one, I am in the process of haggling that one, I need to drop a car to save on insurance, I've thought about switching, but I like what we have(plus I think in some ways you get what you pay for). All in all while yes we are in a slumping economy part of me feels richer than we ever have been before, my DH and I have always struggled, but things for us are better than ever. I guess it's just a relative to how you react to an ever changing world.

[spring978]

The whole mess scares me to death. We are barely making it and every week things get tighter and tighter. We dont buy extras or take vacations we buy used we cook from scratch. My Dh graduates in June but a entry level job in his field isnt going to be enough to repay his student loans and housing. We are facing the real possibility of becoming homeless in the next 90 days.

[kijip]

I am concerned for everyone as a whole and mindful of being frugal and storing food but I am not really worried because we live frugally, grow and preserve some of our own food, and have very, very secure employment.