Not meaning to tempt fate, but we’re doing well. Our court hasn’t had a COLA in a few years but adopted a new salary plan three years ago under which I got a BIG raise. My stock portfolio is doing pretty well and I’m regularly salting away money for retirement and our sons’ college plans. My job is essentially recession-proof, and the city’s budget is in good shape, despite the economic problems of the broader region. Our house and two cars are paid up, we don’t travel all that much, we’re able to pay all our bills on time, and only rarely do we have to dip into savings.
We’re doing just fine. My husband works for a medical insurance company and just got his yearly performance review, raise (woo hoo - 3.5%), and bonus. Last summer, he got a promotion and nearly 10% raise on merit alone. His bosses (and their bosses) like him and appreciate the work he does. I’m at home with our two boys full time right now, and so far we haven’t missed my paltry paychecks at all. We’re not big spenders, we pay extra on our mortgage every month, the cars are paid off, and the bills are under control. So while we aren’t renovating our kitchen or anything, we also aren’t cancelling the DSL and TiVo.
I’m doing well now, but when Obama gets elected I’m probably going to lose my job, unless our scope shifts from nuclear weapons to energy. I’m voting for him anyway.
We’re not in high cotton, but we’re doing better financially then we have in years, mostly because my husband finished school, so we’re both working full-time again. We’re trying to live on one salary and sock away the rest for some much needed home improvements and a newer car for me when my old beater finally dies. We’ve always deliberately lived below our means, which helps.
I’m all set for the time being, recession or not. Although the portfolio has taken a beating lately, I won’t be needed the money for another 8 or 9 years. Somebody remind me to diversify when all this over though.
There’s are going well for me. I’m making more than I ever have, I have more money in savings than ever (I’m just about at that 6 months expenses in savings line), I can easily afford the things I need and want and my career prospects are better than ever.
If this is a bad economy, I can’t wait to see what my financial life will look like when it’s good.
I don’t have any stocks and my home (bought in 2005 for slightly too much) is a place to live, not an investment, so I am doing well I think. Gas prices don’t affect me directly because I work at home but it does affect the price of food, which sucks, but I just buy less.
I have one money market account that’s not doing too well, but I have more loans to which I pay interest than accounts from which I gain interest, so lower interest rates are a boon to me right now. That’s a 180 from someone like my dad who has no loans and hopes to make all of his money on interest paying accounts.
My company does surprisingly well, and since I own it with 1 other person there’s no real chance of me losing my job. We’re definitely not strapped for work and if there’s work I get paid. Could be that we’re in the business of building applications that somehow trickle down into allowing our clients to trim their workforce a bit, but that’s a seriously high level of looking at it.
I’m not swimming in cash and I definitely don’t have anything fancy to “show” for my work, but I’m not in any debt I can’t manage, and have several extremely realistic financial goals that are being met, albeit slowly, and that’s what I have to “show” for my work I suppose.
I’m doing good. I’ve been at my job for 11 years now and I don’t think I’ll be laid off any time soon. I work for a financial printing company, we print Annual Reports, notice & proxies, prospectuses, all the fun stuff the SEC says that public companies have to mail to stockholders by law. Even though they changed it so companies can send you reports electronically by e-mail, and even if the economy is slowing down, I am up to my eyeballs in work right now. I will be working a lot of overtime in the next few months since it’s our busy season. Later on in the year might be another story.
My 401K may suffer a little, but I’m not retiring for another 15 years, plenty of time for the economy to pick up again, so it looks like I’m in good shape. I’m renting my apartment from my father and he gives me a nice break on the rent. I will inherit 1/4 of this house someday. In the meantime if I lose my job I won’t have to worry about being thrown out in the street.
I live 2 miles from work, so I save on gas too.
My son just turned 19 and his child support (that I’m paying to his Dad) will end this summer. His Dad asked him to start looking for a job. If he belonged to the SDMB he’d be posting in the other thread.
No big complaints here. My portfolio has dropped more than $50K in the last couple months but I don’t plan on touching it for many years and am confident it will bounce back. Although we have laid-off some admin/entry level folks recently I’m confident my job isn’t going anywhere and if it does I can probably find something better quite quickly.
Worst case scenario I can liquidate everything and live reasonably well for almost a couple decades. I’ve always firmly believed in living below your means and frankly don’t have sympathy for folks who’ve overextending and don’t save for a rainy day. Of course I’m referring to folks that can and purchase $500K homes instead of $300K not people who have always been struggling to make ends meet.
Edit: Oddly all the advertisements shown for me are atheism related and nothing to do with finance.
I’m doing fine. I bought my house probably not at the lowest price, but it wasn’t stupid and I got a good deal, two and a half years ago. I have a good job with health insurance. I’m trying to get a better one that pays more, but I can live on this one. I’m a little worried about my boyfriend, who has a young business and is trying to start another one right now, but on the whole I’m doing fine.
After a few months of interviewing, I finally have landed a position that will take me out of my contractor situation and provide me with full benefits and stuff like a 401(k). So yeah, I’m not hurting at all right now.
Now if only the housing price drop will keep going around here so that buying a place in this ridiculously overpriced area would actually be possible.
That’s pretty much what I was going to say. I doubt it will be very bad over the next year or so, at least compared to a couple of episodes like in the 70’s and 80’s.
For those who are currently living on the razor edge of financial diaster it may well be a good bit more of a problem. But fuck’m. Poor decision making should be punished.
I’m neutral. So technically not feeling doomed by the economy, but not very optimistic either. I work for an engineering firm with municipal clients; we are at the whim of the economy.
I graduated in the mid '70s, and by the end of the decade things were very tight; I felt lucky to have kept my job. I’m no economist, but I thought of the runaway inflation as paying the piper for the cost of the Vietnam War. People were cutting back on everything. There was a gas shortage. There was a meat shortage. Cities and towns didn’t want to look like spendthrifts, even though infrastructure was starting to decay. Today we have Gulf War II to pay for.
Then things got better until the housing meltdown in the late '80s. Cities and towns in Massachusetts base their budgets on real estate values, which were plummeting. Not unlike today.
It’s going to be tough few years for the industry. Personally, I’m doing okay. My last raise didn’t even begin to offset inflation, but I can still pay bills. My mortgage is less than most people pay for rent. I’m not a big spender, and I’ve managed to save enough for a small setback. Still, stimulus package or not, I’m putting that check in savings - just in case.
I don’t feel doomed by the economy. The recession and sub prime mortgage dealie have had little effect on me. I’d feel just as doomed if the economy were booming.
Good point, I’m only 41 so when the market dips, I just think of it as my 401k is buying shares cheaper. When I get close to 60, I will become a lot more conservative in my investments. Out stock all reinvest, so same deal as the 401k.
I suppose I’m doing all right. My company does not seem to be in any turmoil and is hiring right now due to growth. In fact, I just had to move my office into offices that haven’t been occupied in many years, in order to accommodate this growth. So, I expect to keep my job. Whether or not this will impact my raise is, I suppose, yet to be seen - though from what I understand sales are doing well.
I don’t own a home. I plan to buy in the next few years and if anything the lower prices will be a boon for me.
I don’t own property, I don’t own a car, I live in shared, rented accommodation, I have no shares/pension scheme etc, so no, I don’t feel doomed really.
I’m just hoping that by the time the bubble gets itself back together, I can afford property, a car, shares etc.
