So how has the economy affected you?

[tth2]

We are expecting our first baby in a month, so I've had to look at all of our expenses and reprioritize them. Plus there will be additional expenses (life insurance, health care for the baby, diapers ) that need to come out of the family budget.

Hey, congratulations George! Great news!

[innocuous]

The doom and gloom thread yay!. I'll play.

 

A huge portion of my cash savings is gone...to my sister (out of work) and my nieces. My comic money is down about 50% because I get it all from the websites I manage on the side. And, I just bought new tires for my car. Oh yeah, I just started researching new software to outsource at my regular job, making me irrelevant in about 6 months.

[ernster]

My wife is an auditor with the goverment so her job is safe. We're kind of lucky because the economy hasn't affected us at all, actually I've made more money this year than anytime in my career.

[greggy]

My wife is an auditor with the goverment so her job is safe. We're kind of lucky because the economy hasn't affected us at all, actually I've made more money this year than anytime in my career.

Fluke

[Delvie]

Let's see...

Between November & December, my already laughable portfolio took a $4k sucker punch. Pulled remaining $3k out.

December - Laid off

Knew unemployment wouldn't cover bills. Supplemented w/ remaining cash.

Bills are 2k a month.

By end of January, suddenly single.

March trip to Iceland cancelled.

March, back to work.

Made some bad choices. <---- I excell @ those.

July - Still haven't recovered enough to warrant a trip planned for 2yrs w/ friend to stay w/ mutual friend in the UK.

Dec 2009 - Uncle Eric will NOT be the one spending the usual 3-4K on Xmas for the 3 brothers & 9 nephews & nieces this year. On the other hand, stock in Dollar store might go up, this xmas.

 

No real regrets, though, aside from choosing to spend 129k in 2.5yrs trying to keep a prior gf happy, even though I knew it was doomed w/in 1st 3mnths. That has nothing to do what-so-ever w/ economy aside from the fact that, I could have traveled the world during my layoff instead stressing.

 

Over all, I'm happy & still see the world w/ a sense of humor. After all, for years I've said that I live a cartoon life & I'm the joke.

[dupont2005]

i lost my job i had been at for the past 3 years. lost my health insurance and had to cash out my pension, which i was just 2 years away from being fully vested in. this was just recently though. before that i had been working reduced hours for about a year. right now i am using my pension to try to start a business. hopefully if it doesn't work out it at least keeps me going until the economy picks back up and i can get back to doing what i love

 

 

i'm not too upset though. due to health issues i would have lost my job and had to look for a new career anyway. at least now i have time to get it worked out so i can legally go back to my old profession, which my doctor thinks is possible to do in a short period of time

[ernster]

My wife is an auditor with the goverment so her job is safe. We're kind of lucky because the economy hasn't affected us at all, actually I've made more money this year than anytime in my career.

Fluke

 

Your probably right.

[Delvie]

Plus we had our 1st baby.

 

We are expecting our first baby in a month

 

Congratulations to you both!

[bill977]

took a 20 percent paycut may 08. was a delivery driver for circuit city for 12 yrs. then suffered sudden cardiac death at work,and was dead for 4 minutes.co-worker kept doing cpr on me until the squad arrived. had an icd unit placed to help with heart problems as open heart was not feasible at that time due to head injury caused by fall at work. then circuit city went out of business and i lost my long term disability,which would have paid me 70 percent of my pay until i reached retirement age.then i had open heart surgery june 09 and am still waiting on social sercurity disability. so one can see why i dont get involved with issues on the boards,as i already have plenty!

[TupennyConan]

Diagnosed with hypertension this year as business expands due to private competition selling out to me.

 

Diagnosed with hypertension this year as business contracts due to government competition forcing me to sue government(s) for breach of contract(s) & specific performance.

[comicdonna]

The logging industry took a major hit about a year or so ago. Unfortunately, log prices are still very low. Also, a big part of my business is selling tractor trailer loads of log length firewood to homeowners and wood dealers. I figure I supply about 10% of the firewood market in Albany county, NY. Last year at this time, I was about 4 months behind in my orders. This year, I have had to advertise in 4 papers and am barely getting enough orders to match production.

 

My wife is a self-employed real estate broker, sells modular homes and does Brokers Price Opinions for a large firm. She has had a reasonable amount of real estate transactions. The modular home business has been extremely poor. She has been flooded with BPO's and has been putting in about 80 hours per week. Unfortunately, I believe many of the BPO's are based on forclosures.

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

took a 20 percent paycut may 08. was a delivery driver for circuit city for 12 yrs. then suffered sudden cardiac death at work,and was dead for 4 minutes.co-worker kept doing cpr on me until the squad arrived. had an icd unit placed to help with heart problems as open heart was not feasible at that time due to head injury caused by fall at work. then circuit city went out of business and i lost my long term disability,which would have paid me 70 percent of my pay until i reached retirement age.then i had open heart surgery june 09 and am still waiting on social sercurity disability. so one can see why i dont get involved with issues on the boards,as i already have plenty!

 

Wow...amazing that you are still with us. I suddenly have no complaints whatsoever about anything....

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

Diagnosed with hypertension this year as business expands due to private competition selling out to me.

 

Diagnosed with hypertension this year as business contracts due to government competition forcing me to sue government(s) for breach of contract(s) & specific performance.

 

Here's hoping for a less stressful 2010 for the CFP's resident funny man and all around great guy.

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

I wanted to thank everyone for sharing....I think during the week of Thanksgiving especially, its important to get some perspective on how things really are for folks out there. I honestly had no idea things had gotten so bad for so many fellow Boardies. The concept of having to take double digit paycuts or face termination? I guess its better than not having a job at all, but wow, I'm speechless.

 

I think this Thursday, I will hug my wife a little more, and count our blessings for a minute or two longer then usual.

[bill977]

thanks,the experience makes alot of things very small indeed.

[etanick]

so far not all all, if anything better than ever based on some changes we made 3 years ago

 

I am lucky that both the wifey and I are real simple people to start. I am an ex portfolio manager/stock analysis that left Wall Street back in 2000 because I felt it is nothing but a rat hole. So I started my own consulting/expert witness firm specializes in forensic accounting. Let me put it this way, if the SEC hired me to investigate Madoff, he won't be able to con me. I am probably the leading 3 experts in this country when it comes to this unique business. I don't have business card or website and I work strictly thru referrals and I have been hired over 2000 times since 2000. Since I got married and now is a father of a 2.5 toddler, I cut back 75% of my work because I no longer care to fly around the country for the work and appearing in arbitrations or courts. I rather take care of my son and read comic books (thumbs u

 

My wife is dentist with a slow/dying practice 4 years ago and luckily with my economic/financial background, I was able to convince her to make changes such as taking on PPO insurance, stop selling expensive $5000 to $10k treatment plan to people that can't afford because the 2nd worse depression is coming. She needs to start to treat people that can only afford little and fix what is hurting, not trying to make everyone pay up for a movie star smile....and she reluctantly made those changes. Today she is doing better than ever.

 

Staying ahead of the curve have help us avoid the meltdown...we will keep living simple. Hell, she is driving a 2002 Honda Accord. I have an old station wagon to drive the boy around. Lastly, we lived in the worse looking house compared to the rest of the dentists in town. Hell, most of the staff working for me and my wife live in nicer and more expensive homes.

 

I avoid debt since the day I washed dishes in college to pay for my tuition so I started early in living and spending within my means. I love to cook so we eat out once/twice a week, and even less with a toddler.

 

 

 

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

Just realized you are in Sarasota...hope to meet you at MegaCon next year.

[etanick]

sure, if I can go. I went to the show in Tampa recently with the wifey but we only had one hour so I did recognize a few members in the crowd but I didn't have a chance to shake hands and said Hi.

 

We are gearing toward Comicon in SD. I have been wanting to go for 20 years and for whatever reasons, I couldn't go but next year, the wife blocked off all business plan so all 3 will head out to Comicon...yippee! I can't wait.

[WEBHEAD]

After reading many of these posts I guess I don't feel back and sorta feel very lucky.

 

 

After working for 34 years for a major Fortune 500 company which caught itself up in the sub-prime meltdown I was laid off in '08 (just a name on the list, my team suffered for 2 months trying to keep up with everything I did for them). Fortunaltly I was old enough and had enough service to qualify for an early retirement with pension/benifits. However I had to move out of my condo, sell lots of my collection, and move in with my folks (both in their 80's) to help them out and have a roof over my head.

 

Worries about bills that had to ba paid, a daughter in college, and benifit payments starting to sky rocket keeps me busy for sure.

 

I haven't started looking for a fill in job just yet but I can see that it looms in my future.

 

 

WEBHEAD

 

 

[jordanscott]

took a 20 percent paycut may 08. was a delivery driver for circuit city for 12 yrs. then suffered sudden cardiac death at work,and was dead for 4 minutes.co-worker kept doing cpr on me until the squad arrived. had an icd unit placed to help with heart problems as open heart was not feasible at that time due to head injury caused by fall at work. then circuit city went out of business and i lost my long term disability,which would have paid me 70 percent of my pay until i reached retirement age.then i had open heart surgery june 09 and am still waiting on social sercurity disability. so one can see why i dont get involved with issues on the boards,as i already have plenty!

 

wow, there's a perspective maker.

 

Circuit City huh...your big bad didn't happen last Nov when they closed HQ was it?