How has the recession affected your family?

WE'RE POOR!

Haha, no we have been very lucky. DH is military and we have a very secure job, with great benefits. Money is tight though, and we don't always get to buy/do what we want.

We've had a few "emergencies" where we have had to use our entire savings (thoughit's not a big savings--ever) but we haven't hit rock bottom like some of the people in our area. For that I am grateful.

Like Starlite we keeping track of every penny that comes in and goes out... STRESSFUL.

Our retirement accounts took a HUGE hit, but other than that we are fine. I am SO VERY THANKFUL that dh has a secure job with excellent health insurance.

In our day to day lives there is no difference. We live just as we did before. The only difference we see is on paper also. We had money invested that has taken a HUGE hit. It does bother me some because some of that money was invested for my children's college and my DD has just started college, but we can't pull the money out for it because the investment return is so low now. So we're just going along and hoping it comes up in a year or so.

DH and I both work for a State University. We've not been hit very hard, but the University is starting to prepare. It makes me nervous, because I'm pregnant with our first child. I've seen it hit others harder, but we still are trying to watch our spending and pay down debt.

I was laid off from my job in Nov. and even prior to that, my hours were reduced. I've since started working again and I had severence pay for the entire time I was off of work, for which I was very thankful. My dh's job is with a company that provides remodeling materials for construction projects, so his company is not doing well at all. They've had 2-3 rounds of lay-offs. He's still employed, but worried.

We cut our spending big time and paid off as much debt as we could. No more credit card debt and no other debt other than car loans and student loans. So, ironically, we've had more spending money than before since we don't need to spend 500-600 per month on debt repayment and our savings account is larger than it's ever been. We weren't serious about all of this until my lay off and his job insecurity, so that's been one good thing about this recession - at least for us anyway.

Hmmm, let's see. This week hubby is home playing house-husband because he is on a mandatory week off without pay. They can't even take vacation pay this week. Yesterday we signed him up for unemployment on-line. Of course, unemployment doesn't pay for the first week but if the company does a mandatory shut down again later in the year he'll get an unemployment check.

Hubby's company also decided to switch him from salary to hourly. They played the numbers with how they calculated his pay rate and the end result is he is getting a 25% cut if all he works is straight 40 hours. Thankfully he works a lot more than that so he'll get time and a half for his over-time. Last week alone he worked 70 hours. He submitted his timecard and is just waiting to hear their response to all that overtime.

While hubby is being house husband, I'm working two part-time jobs - one at DD's school and my census job. I'm taking all the jobs I can at the census job but they only 'hire' you for 2-month periods at a time so it is always touch and go how much you can work. Of course my school job will be ending soon, too.

I'm not sure what we'll do with DD this summer. I don't want to spend a lot of money on summer programs for her but I also need time to work. We haven't quite figured that out yet.

The selling price on our house has dropped which is unfortunate because we were hoping to sell and move. Since hubby is now seriously considering getting another job (the 25% pay cut has him peeved), being able to sell the house would be good.

I don't know why people are complaining about restaurants having a hard time. It seems like I barely have time to cook at home anymore - or even buy groceries. We're always grabbing food on the run. I'd like to see that stop.

Almost everyone I talk to now is comparing notes on how to save money. Maybe being frugal is the 'new cool' or maybe it is just the wonderful group of friends I have.

We have chipped away at our fixed expenses and have been paying off or re-negotiating our debt. We never use cc's. It is just too dangerous to be tempted to add to the debt.

Our investment accounts? If I didn't laugh (and know better), I'd be crying. Our net worth has been cut in half in the last year.

well dh was given a 10% pay cut then they said they were not giving them one. now they are giving them one in the forms of days off unpaid. so we are in pinch mode. we have money in the bank but I don't want to use it if I don't have to. we are taking a vacation but its all paid for we booked before they gave the 10% paycut back. We are lucky we don't really need anything right now. we plan on having a very frugal summer just like last year.

DH's pay was cut by 10%, and all overtime was also cut. It wouldn't have affected us so much except we have a ton of medical bills from our 2nd son's birth, ER visit at 7 weeks and treatment for positional clubfeet.

DH was laid off but, truthfully, I think that was more a problem on the management part than the recession but the real problem was there were no comparable jobs where we live. So replacing that job has been impossible.

Other than that ... I don't know, maybe I'm smarter about our money.