So how has the economy affected you?

[JohnT]

This has been an eye opening thread, to say the least. I feel for all of you who have lost jobs, or huge parts of your livelihood.

 

Personally, I suppose I'm lucky in that I've only had a 5% pay cut, and because I work for a public library system we have a chance of rebounding completely if we can pass a levy in 2010. I've made modest cutbacks in spending but am thankful to be fairly secure, and to be honest I feel it is part of my duty as a citizen of this country to keep spending to support the economy!

 

I also consult on the side for an excutive management training business, and we lost our biggest contract when the airliner we were working with darn near went under this summer. One day we were meeting with managers, the next day their CEO resigned and we never saw them again. Pretty serious stuff.

 

Anyway, hang in there everyone!

[etanick]

this will turn ugly and political but it is more than just Managed Health care that is a problem.

 

While what you said is true about shareholders and the need for profits to please them, don't leave out the drug companies and medical equipment companies that constantly rape and pillage the system also. They do need to please their shareholders and the only way to do so is sell, sell, and sell. Hospitals and doctors will buy and buy and buy. I hate sale reps from every companies that my wife's dental practice deal with daily to a point that I declared "no more sale rep is welcome" and forbid all of them to visit the practice or talk to the staff.

 

what is the benefit since then? we generated $50k more in revenue so far this year compared to last year while spending $25k less in supplies----> More money in our pocket($75k), and no extra cost to pass it on to the patients.

 

Every piece of equipments that they wanted us to purchase need to be pay one way or another and saying no is important.

[dover]

I have to do twice the work cause half our staff was laid off.

 

I hear you. we laid off 5 people (only had 18 to begin with) and closed our European office; same amount of work to do, however. We obvisously had some amount of spare personel, but the lack of any down time is starting to show.

[G.A.tor]

my wife got a full time job teaching at 2 of our kids school this year.... first time she has "had" to work in 10+ years....

 

my business is down approx 72% this year (presumably due to both economy and the cyclical nature of collectibles)... I have considered also searching for a "normal" job, but have yet to be motivated to do such... however, I am not opposed to it if need be

[Ares]

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.

 

Its all depends on Sector your in

I moved into new position at work

I got a huge raise and my savings are climbing

 

People will allways need Telphones and TV and intenet it seems

[Primetime]

I'm in my 3rd year as a teacher and prior to that worked 9 years in corporate health and wellness---so, needless to say, I've always worked through recessions

[Currin Comics]

Well, needless to say, my Contractors License isn't worth the paper it's printed on right now, so sat for the private home inspectors license, but still building up my clientel, my father has to downsize his real estate holdings to avoid getting ripped a new one when the new tax laws come into play, so my sister and I will own 50% each of the property in question, which is a mobile home sub-division. I already had some rental property there which takes care of the mortage and a few other bills. Since I am a builder and built our house-we are not under water, as our home is still worth more than we owe. There was a subdivision going up that I was a prefered builder in, but 90% of the investors backed out and the infrastructure was not finished, so all the contracts I had to build went out with everything else in the sub-division. I have been moving some books, as the hoarding of WBN 32 and TOD 10 was not such a bad idea in retrospect. Mrs. CC makes a little bit of coin as a Jazzercise instructor, which helps with the odds and ends. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to taking over the mobile home sub-division next year, the downside is having to sale the home we love and leave the coast to move back to Wake County, but taking care of my family is priority one. I went from making mid 6 figures to just under 40K a year as of now, but with home inspector gig warming up and the property take over looming we breathe a little easier, but the 6 figure days are a thing of the past for awhile at least. We have recouped 10K of our 401K after seeing 46K vanish.....so just keep clawing and digging and climbing our way back up.......hang in there everybody-Peace CC.

[thehumantorch]

I'm a plumber and beleive it or not it has affected us. Do it yourselfers and what not.

 

 

My job hasn't changed much in 30 years although my employer is removing benefits one contract at a time. Next contract we will probably lose our sick time benefits.

 

I am worried about my wife's job as a nurse. Lots of rumours of cuts to the health care budget and replacing nurses with lower skilled, lower paid employees.

 

I think R. nurses in the SF bay area are still in plenty demand. They probably make more than I do.

 

Nurses do very well. About $80,000 per year plus great benefits.

[thehumantorch]

my wife got a full time job teaching at 2 of our kids school this year.... first time she has "had" to work in 10+ years....

 

my business is down approx 72% this year (presumably due to both economy and the cyclical nature of collectibles)... I have considered also searching for a "normal" job, but have yet to be motivated to do such... however, I am not opposed to it if need be

 

Your comic business is down 72%? Good gravy.

[G.A.tor]

my wife got a full time job teaching at 2 of our kids school this year.... first time she has "had" to work in 10+ years....

 

my business is down approx 72% this year (presumably due to both economy and the cyclical nature of collectibles)... I have considered also searching for a "normal" job, but have yet to be motivated to do such... however, I am not opposed to it if need be

 

Your comic business is down 72%? Good gravy.

not comics, but my action figure business...our niche is "sci fi"... Star Trek, Star Wars, etc... just not a lot being produced and Playmates just cancelled wave 2 of the movie Trek (cost me a few hundred K in sales)...

 

our comic sub business has actually grown 20% this year, but new comics only represented about 5% of our sales, so it is nice...

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

my wife got a full time job teaching at 2 of our kids school this year.... first time she has "had" to work in 10+ years....

 

my business is down approx 72% this year (presumably due to both economy and the cyclical nature of collectibles)... I have considered also searching for a "normal" job, but have yet to be motivated to do such... however, I am not opposed to it if need be

 

Your comic business is down 72%? Good gravy.

not comics, but my action figure business...our niche is "sci fi"... Star Trek, Star Wars, etc... just not a lot being produced and Playmates just cancelled wave 2 of the movie Trek (cost me a few hundred K in sales)...

 

our comic sub business has actually grown 20% this year, but new comics only represented about 5% of our sales, so it is nice...

 

Rick, any chance you'd move more into vintage books on a full time basis?

[G.A.tor]

my wife got a full time job teaching at 2 of our kids school this year.... first time she has "had" to work in 10+ years....

 

my business is down approx 72% this year (presumably due to both economy and the cyclical nature of collectibles)... I have considered also searching for a "normal" job, but have yet to be motivated to do such... however, I am not opposed to it if need be

 

Your comic business is down 72%? Good gravy.

not comics, but my action figure business...our niche is "sci fi"... Star Trek, Star Wars, etc... just not a lot being produced and Playmates just cancelled wave 2 of the movie Trek (cost me a few hundred K in sales)...

 

our comic sub business has actually grown 20% this year, but new comics only represented about 5% of our sales, so it is nice...

 

Rick, any chance you'd move more into vintage books on a full time basis?

would be a logical progression

[BucOne-migration]

 

 

The real money is in auction sites, like pedigree or Heritage. In 2010, would love to see some new auction sites that don't charge a 20% BP like Heritage.

[G.A.tor]

 

The real money is in auction sites, like pedigree or Heritage. In 2010, would love to see some new auction sites that don't charge a 20% BP like Heritage.

we already have comic link and comic connect and quality comix, etc... that charge no buyers premium... I doubt we will see any new entrants

[Excelsior!-migration]

 

The real money is in auction sites, like pedigree or Heritage. In 2010, would love to see some new auction sites that don't charge a 20% BP like Heritage.

we already have comic link and comic connect and quality comix, etc... that charge no buyers premium... I doubt we will see any new entrants

 

 

 

 

ComicLink charges 3% buyers premium if you pay by CC. Found this out this weekend.

[40sJohn]

Due to the serous downturn in the economy last year, the plant that I was employed at was shutdown earlier this year. Company offered a similiar position to my previous job at another facility 2 hours away. I am now commuting, daily, nearly 2 hours each way so that my kids can stay in same school and wife keeps her job that she loves.

 

Other than the cell phone, XM radio and a mp3 player are my best companions,

 

Anyone know of any good comic podcasts that I could download?

 

 

[the blob]

My guess is between me and my wife we've lost $30-$40K in our 401Ks at this point. Given that we have at least another 20 years before we can touch them, this is just a "paper loss", so I don't lose too much sleep over this.

 

Believe it or not, I'm probably about break even on my home give or take 5% (mainly the broker's commission if I sold). I sold and bought at about 85-90% of the top of the market, it went up another 10-15% and then went down 10-15%.

 

I have (or will), however, lost/lose about $--8K of scheduled raises at my job, as scheduled COLA increases for 2009 and 2010 were rescinded. I was looking forward to those raises as they would provide a little bit more of a cushion with monthly bills, but I guess my actual COLA hasn't gone up over the last year or two with gas prices back under $3 gallon, etc. Of course, even if the COLA's come back, it's not like they were ever retroactively tack the lost ones on, so I'll always be behind.

 

Other than that, not much. Both my wife and I are in pretty "safe" jobs, but nothing is immune I suppose.

[Delvie]

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!

 

Glad you're still w/ us, Bill. I know your money situation is still F'd up, but how's your health? Better?

[JuliusSeizure]

stopped buying lunch at restaurants. was spending about 10-12 a day.

 

switched from directv to AT&T Uverse for tv/internet. Bundled it and then with my work discount, will pay less for 200 more channels and 2x as fast interent.

 

carpool with the wife to save on gas.

 

went back to DCBS for new books.

 

putting extra money into house repairs/updates. doind most by ourself.

 

How did "the economy" do anything to any of this? Why is "the economy" to blame for you trying to save more? You should be proud that you aren't your money away anymore, but "the economy" has nothing to do with it.

 

Well, indirectly I think it does. Personally, my company has also stopped giving raises and bonuses, but I started a side business crunching data sets and doing light programming, so I'll actually have made more $$ this year than in any prior working year. Even so, my family's been cutting back dramatically because a) no prospect of even COL raises in the foreseeable future, b) 5 rounds of layoffs at my company in 2 years, I'm smart and work hard but still the 'new guy' there, c) our home has probably lost 15-25% of its value in the two years since we've bought it, meaning the HELOC's not going to be there for the inevitable large-scale maintenance projects, so we'd better save and pray, and d) here in NJ, because of budget issues, we lost out on the annual property tax rebate that we - I won't say 'counted on', but really looked forward to to help offset some expenses.

 

There's an e) too, which is a large set of expenses peculiar to our situation - that has nothing to do with "the economy", but I'd feel better thinking I could count on an extra 10% in raises or bonuses each year.

 

But, the family is healthy and we're getting by, so we have a lot to be thankful for, for sure. Hope 2010 brings renewed prosperity for us all!

[batman_fan]

I myself have not been affected by the recession yet. I have actually been in a position to hire six more people to work for me in the last six months which feels pretty good. All that said, I am always nervous since you never know what could happen. Our family has tightened up on our spending. Not thanksgiving trip or Christmas vacation