What Have You Stopped Doing Since The Economy Got Really Bad?

At this time of year my horse comes in so to speak. I spent on Building a new PC, HDTV, Furniture. I did this knowing that it will all be worthless to have some cash laying around if things get as bad as we all expect it can in the near future.


We did stop going out to eat at restaurants every friday. I do not buy coffee every morning. We use one vehicle instead of two. We also cut way back on Christmas spending this year. My wife also curtailed her grocery shopping.

Basically we spent when the time was right for some really good deals on high end items. Our furniture was falling apart, literally. The TV was loosing color in one corner on the way out . Most of our home appliances were 10 year old or older. This year just happened to coincide with some great deals.

[edit on 15-1-2009 by IntelRetard]

[edit on 15-1-2009 by IntelRetard]

I guess I am one of the luckier ones. My wife doesn't work and hasn't for many years. We have always gotten along ok. We are frugal (my wife especially) moreso than most. We don't have a car payment. We pay for everything in cash. My wife is a great cook, and she knows how to stretch a dollar. We eat out maybe once every two weeks at a decent place. We don't eat fast food, ever. We buy our beef by the side.

Even though the company I work for made a new policy last month that we can only work 40 hours a week, ( which severely cuts my pay) we will be ok because we are used to living frugally. I got a 5 grand bonus this year, which I wasn't expecting because of the economy. We banked most of it and bought a wii and several games.

To be honest, I think a lot of people have been living high on the hog for too long racking up thousands on credit cards and now they are paying the price.

Then there are others, who have been poor from the get go. There's at least two types of poor---those who have to stop buying books, magazines, manicures, expensive hair cuts, etc...and those who are truely poor, who could never afford those luxeries to begin with. These are the folks I feel for.

Originally posted by David9176

I still have internet though. It will be a sad day if i have to give it up.

I know how you feel. We've had no Christmas for two years now, not even for the kids. Our Christmas consisted of celebrating that the electric and water were still on.

But I will not let my net service go lightly. But then, I only have to pay $7.94 a month for unlimited use (long time customer reward).

What have I stopped doing? Nothing. My dad doesn't work, my mom makes about 30k a year (more than the 12k a year she used to make!), and we get something between 1.5k and 2k a month from renting parts of our house. Thankfully, my mom still has her job and hasn't experienced any pay cuts. Unlike most people I know, we don't buy things we don't need with credit, and pay off our debts before the interest becomes overwhelming.

And to save money...eat lots of eggs! Great for you, and really cheap. Two or three of them with toast is a perfect dinner. To add to my starving college student diet, peanut butter and preserves is better than it's been since fourth grade, and minestrone soup is surprisingly good after living on college crap. Real oatmeal is good and cheap too.

Stop buying cereals (by weight that stuff has got to be more expensive than gold), frozen foods, and beef every night. It'll go a long way.

Oh, and I don't drive.


reply to post by ravenshadow13


I noticed you're talking about paying for college and stuff since I'm sort of in the thick of things (between my first and second semester of college, taking a classical mythology course in Manhattan, etc.). 42k a year, Christ! Where are you trying to go? And for what? I'm in a good position to give suggestions, but it's mainly curiosity.

I'm going to Stony Brook right now, which I did more to save money than anything (but academically it's very, very good), though I might be transferring at some point. Somewhere that will make me graduate with 100k in student loans instead of way under 5k, but it could be worth it. We'll see.

And you said your mom commutes to NYC? From where? That usually means NJ near Bergen County, Westchester, CT, or Long Island (where I am). My damn commute from southern Nassau is $14.75 a day, round trip peak/off peak (I don't go to class in the morning). They want to raise fares now for both the bus service and train, which hurts a lot. And end weekend service for the West Hempstead LIRR line, making it harder for me to visit home on the weekends when I'm away.

The fact that Patterson, known affectionately among my friends and myself as "that blind son of a bitch" or "that blind #" is cutting the budgets for everything I use (state universties/tuition, transportation, etc.) doesn't help.

[edit on 16-1-2009 by Johnmike]

[edit on 16-1-2009 by Johnmike]

reply to post by ravenshadow13

"What have you stopped doing"

I stopped worrying as much as I usually do. I like the struggle, not much to begin with. To see so many in a struggle is somewhat cohesive. I feel for the wealthy and the stock players, however.

What have I stopped doing? I was an assistant manager at Circuit City in Erie, PA just 2 months ago. Now I'm laid off and not guaranteed a return date. I'm collecting unemployment right now until I find the job I really want. This area isn't as bad as the rest of the country, but I definitely have made some cutbacks.

- Don't eat out as much
- Collect internet coupons
- Don't travel as much, etc. etc.

I'm what you called middle-class (if that exists anymore)

being canadian I have a bit more time to get ready before our SHTF in this whole financial BS. We haven't been buying as much but we have bumped up our payments on our only two credit cards, and pretty much stopped using them. We're also making sure we are caught up on all other debts as well. Including in-bank over drafts...

The whole credit system is collapsing here PDQ and it's scary. We were hoping to qualify for a mortgage with a small downpayment...that's pretty much out the window now and regardless of good credit the option may not be there for the next few years. cash only for us at this point.

I was going to invest in a GIC and even that seems too risky right now. So were sitting on whatever we have...work work work save save save.

We haven't eaten out in months anyway and don't buy much except computer related stuff

We have scaled back on the small nickel and dime type purchases. No more Starbucks, outings to the full price movies, or nights out at a bar.
We are eating out once every two weeks at most and my husband is taking his lunch to work with him several times a week now.

We also scaled back Christmas a lot this year, we still got lots for my son, but we shopped smart and didn't get him big ticket items.

I am buying more groceries now, so we aren't trimming anything in that regard but I am trying to stock up on the basics each trip so we have more on hand just in case it becomes hard to find or afford them.

We also switched the dogs food to one that is still high quality but made with chicken instead of buffalo and salmon.

No Driving, Eating out, Shopping at retail outlets, Drinking Booze, Dating Hot well to do Beatches, Spending money on expensive mind or mood altering substances. Dropped my cable, took up POOL, and got 2 pets, a cat and a dog.

Things I've stopped doing since the falling economy?

Hmmmm, not sure. Oh wait, I stopped caring.

What have I stopped since the economy went bad?

I stopped working.

Not by my own accord, I might add.

Hi

The truth is, by cutting back you are all contributing to the downturn and recession, it works like this.

1. Rumours trickle out that there appears to be some financial issues.

2. Media picks up on this and starts negative runs

3. A newspaper prints the word downturn/recession.

4. Mr/Mrs X decide that things might not be good in the future and do not buy their luxury item, instead they save the money.

5. Shops do not order more items, as sales are dropping.

6. You have a RECESSION.

If we all stopped and thought about the true state of the economies, you would see that life goes on, people still eat, drive, go to hospital, etc etc etc.

You just believed what they were telling you and so stopped spending.

Speak to any old person 60+ and they will tell you to keep spending, its that simple.

We have no debt, no mortgage, no kids, no pets no cars.

But we didn't have that before the doom and gloom, by choice.

We walk where we need to go. We buy with cash what we want to buy. We rent a small but very cozy flat. We enjoy each other's company immensley and don't feel the need to bring any children into this world at the moment, frankly my life is pretty good.

We both work, he works in the gaming industry and has more contracts that he could possibly fulfill. I work in finance one of the effected sectors, but I if lose my job tomorrow it wouldn't make a huge impact on our lives, I'd go wait tables if I had to.

The thing is, if you don't have a lot, you don't lose a lot.

Stuff just isn't that important!

We live in a society where self worth is measured too much by the stuff you have. I'm 35 years old, I've never had a mortgage and I never want one - My work collegues are shocked and regularly insinuate that there is something wrong with that.

I hope that the people who are trapped in a cycle of debt and feeling like they have to have "stuff" to feel good about themselves will use this opportunity to scale down their lives and remember what IS important.

reply to post by amari


I agree that the proposed spending by Obama to "rescue the nation" will put us into a depression finally, like you said we are not going to find a lot of nations out there that will be willing to keep buying our debt, but as you know now US is to target the rich oil Arab nations for our everyday needs, so if this is to happen do not expect any technology backed government programs to take a big turn in the future, we have to keep our lenders happy.

I am not trying to be pessimistic for the symptoms for our nations economic woes and the cure proposes doesn't make any sense to me.

reply to post by ravenshadow13


You should be able to.

I live in the UK, and on a housing estate. The ground here is pretty much clay.
But a small patch can yield enough to supplement our food consumption quite a bit.
At the moment I've only sown carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, and a couple of small fruits. I'm working on a few ideas to grow several variations to allow for a longer harvest period.

I don't understand why more people don't grow their own. It makes sense. It takes only a couple of hours a week to manage it, and it produces a lot considering the increasing costs of food.

Things I have not done or cut back on here in the UK are:

1. I used to goto a chinese restaurant once or twice a month and I don't do that anymore. (I don't eat out anywhere now)

2. I used to buy some movies on dvd and download some on BitTorrent now I just download them all.

3. I used to goto the cinema 2 times a month, now I don't go at all.

4. I cut about 30% off my grocery bill buy cutting back on junk food or not buying any at all, I only buy fruit, raw ingredients and canned food.

5. I don't goto bars anymore, I can buy 5 beers in the store for the price of one in a bar.

6. I have canceled my Sky tv subscription and just download the tv shows for free or just watch free view.

7. I used to buy electronic gadgets but I don't do that anymore, I only buy things that are usefull.

[edit on 16-1-2009 by NeoSpace]

reply to post by ravenshadow13


I haven't changed a thing.
I live a very simple life and it is the same as it was last year.
I don't do the bar thing and don't go to movies or shopping malls.So there is nothing to cut back on there.
The guys I play music with started to feel the pinch though.
One guy lives 20 mins out of town in one direction and the other is 25 mins in the other direction.
When the gas prices went up we had to cut back on our practices as it cost them money to get there and back.
For me the only thing that has changed is I refuse to keep any money in a bank.
Other then that I am not affected.

I've been thinking about this for awhile now....okay, lets think about this..really really think about it...

First, it was the gas crisis, prices were to high, so high that my 3 monthly trips to my mother's (who lives an hour and a half away) stopped, and Instead I went there once every other month, and she came to my house on the other months. I didn't go anywhere, or rather, we, my family didn't go anywhere, luckily my daughter's school and activities are all next door, or a block away, so we began walking. then the gas crisis got worse, and some places even ran out of gas, so we really couldn't go anywhere. Then the economy tanked, so much so that stores had 24 hour sales AFTER christmas to try and bring up sales. follow me here......my husband owns his own business, and unfortunately for others, we actually do better when the economy is doing bad, people with no credit or who have just had a car taken due to money problems, come to us...because we sells cars without credit, however, we're still being careful, I used to go to walmart at least every other day for this or that, food shopping, etc, now I plan it, and go once every other week, and buy items on sale. What am I doing in my other time? I'm on here..sad? yes! but my daughter is in school until 3, and my house is clean, so what is there for me to do? this....and how about people at work? who are now taking they're lunch instead of going out? ...where am I going with this? well...the other day I did all my grocery shopping online for the very first time, and I liked it...whats that mean? well, as the economy tanks, and gas becomes more and more of a problem..what will people do? sit at home, ...and do what? play on the computer...your tv can even act as a computer now..but what about shopping? hmmmmm oh..I can use the computer! but wait..what do I pay with? oh...my nice little number off my card...ooooh...now for convience we all get nice little numbers that recongnize us immediately on our computers....and as technology gets further along...we can even have computers that recognize our fingerprints, and that fingerprint will bring up all our info..oh wait...they already have those!...oh, and to reduce fraud, here is your nice biochip! oh, and for terrorist sake...we need to monitor it! my point? welcome to the new world order, where the governments have made it real easy to stay home, and live in la la land.

The only impact I've seen around here is a few businesses close here and there, but we also have a bunch of new ones opening so it seems pretty normal. We are about to have our second child literally any day now and I got a sweet deal on a new minivan.

My family hasn't done anything different, although we have always been good with credit. We bought a house we could afford, we didn't do any stupid zero down or 120% loans, have very small credit card debt, and live within our means.

If it wasn't for the news going crazy telling me there is an economic crisis I wouldn't know.

I stopped nothing

lmfao

It was ALL CREATED (oh know, the normal conservative believes in a theory!!!!)

if you recall

like 2 weeks before an election

we had a "financial meltdown" which translates roughly into, "we tanked the Dow Jones for a couple weeks and had the Drive Bys insight fear"

I believe that was all created so Obama would win.

If you remember, McCain and Obama both supported the bail out because McCain wasn't running the race to win he was running to lose. Hence, why a Republican Maverick supported a socialistic government rescue plan.

In a REAL, NON-FAKE, Arena, the MAVERICK REPUBLICAN goes AGAINST SOCIALISTIC BAIL OUTS so as to DIFFERENTIATE himself with the LIBERAL.