The economy stinks here...

[Sugar Sand Farm]

Things are just as bad on this side of the country. MY DH got let go last year after twenty years with the same company. Think its hard finding a job try looking when your 60 years old They say no age discrimmination but thats alot of bull. He was over qualified for alot of the jobs but never called back. He had to take a job a Wally world when his unemployment benefits ran out Some thing is better than nothing. We started a garden and plan to raise our own broilers this year, but the cost of feed doesnt make that a much better deal.

 

[chicknmania]

Hencackle, boy are you ever right about the Insurance! Ohio law mandates that we maintain liablility insurance. We have been in business 15 years, and even though we have never had a claim, our rates keep going up too. Our employees are all laid off right now, but the insurance company still tried to raise our rates, cause they were still on payroll! AND speaking of gas prices; the most ridiculous thing HERE was when someone filled up their HUMMER, then drove off iwthout paying for the gas. We are very busy right now working on new marketing and it actually does look a little better than it did a few months ago, but it still gets discouraging. The news media gloom and doom reports sure don't help anything, either.

 

[Rosalind]

It depends on your field. When it comes to green energy, I know a lot of businesses hiring. Got 3 notifications from my professional society today about new green energy jobs--biodiesel, ethanol, solar, wind, etc.

Ever read about Peak Oil Theory? Some folks say we are already close to peaking--and those are the oil companies!

I work in biotech drug discovery. We're laying off too, but others are hiring. I know tradespeople are suffering, the contractor bids we got to have electricity put in the barn were insanely low. I never thought I'd get my whole barn re-wired with a new switchbox and light fixtures for $200.

We also had to insist that a regular 30-year fixed mortgage was what we wanted, no balloons, no adjustments, no penalties for early payments. My bank tried to give me a huge line of malarkey about how I could afford a zillion-dollar house with this new 5-to-1 ARM... Uh, no.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

My dh was released from his high-paying job year and a half ago. Formed his own company with two partners doing film editing, location sound, post sound. They did okay until the writer's strike hit, and work for the smaller companies dried up. Our income went from "not quite enough" to "nothing". i was panic stricken. Only logical choice was to relocate to an area with a lower cost of living. LA County is brutal - our electric and water/sewer/garbage bill runs $600-800 every two months.

So we are moving from SoCal to NorCal.

Our Los Angeles house is now in escrow (fingers crossed to get through all the home inspections without any major repairs needed). In negotiations to purchase a smaller house in Fair Oaks, in Sacramento County, with almost half an acre (.39 acres, to be exact). This will be big enough for our chickens, a garden, and some fruit trees (and our mortgage payments will be half what they are here). Hoping to create the dream of living off the land. My dh was super lucky to get a nice job up there, managing a training center for developmentally disabled adults.

But i tell you, i have been white-knuckling it for the past three months, worried our house would not sell in this crazy market, watching our credit card debt go higher and higher. Never thought i would be in this scary position in my mid-fifties. But i won't relax an inch until this escrow closes, our new escrow closes, and we are safely in our new home. And even then, we need to live very small, because you just never know. Micki is right, there is big time age discrimination going on. Rare to find a company who will take on an older, very well qualified individual, over a youngster who will accept less salary.

Something has to change in this country. Can we please help the folks here first, before we try to change the rest of the world?

 

[ratlummountain]

dang, i'm so sorry to hear about everyone's situation.

i have to admit though i'm doing all right ... so far.
i work with horses and cater to a mostly wealthy clientele, after all most people who keep their horses in barns where the board is $600 - $1,200 / month aren't really destitute. so far my schedule book is looking solid through May at this point.
gas prices are definitely killing me though, average around here is $3.25/gallon.

my husband however is a union electrician and his job security is tied tightly to the economy. last recession he lost his job for 2 years.

i'm keeping an eagle eye on our checkbook and in the last few months i've done a lot to cut costs. shopped around for new insurance, bundled phone/cable/internet, etc.
we still spend money, because after all that IS what keeps the economy going, but we are more frugal about our spending.

i plan on starting a garden this year too.

wishing everyone the best!

 

[speckledhen]

Our problem is that we can't cut any more corners, really. We live on my husband's small Air Force retirement. He was substitute teaching, but the standing all day was extremely hard with his degenerative disc disease. We have no debts but our small house pymt of about $435/mo. We are trying to sell part of our acreage, which I really don't want to do, to pay off our mortage of 60K.
We drive two vehicles that are over 12 years old and long paid for, one with only liability ins on it. We grow a garden every year to put away food. We rarely ever go out to eat, maybe go to a movie once a year, dont smoke or drink, so no money spent there. We live up on our hill with our chickens with a leaking porch roof, a well tank that needs replacing, I need new glasses, so many things need doing and have to wait. Heaven forbid a car breaks down or it will have to be parked. They keep trying to take away any military benefit we have, which really is non-existent, thank you Uncle Sam for going back on your word with your one-way contracts and promises of free health care. So, I sell hatching eggs from time to time to help pay for feed for my girls.
So, where can I cut corners? Gasoline is about $3.20/gal. so we can't even drive to look at scenery for entertainment or to go see our elderly parents who live a couple of hours away. Yep, it's bad and getting worse, and we're backed into a corner.

Forgot to add: We do not use our central heatpump-we heat with wood from our own property and we open the windows and doors and use ceiling fans in the summer. And our bill still keeps going up!

 

[birdnutz]

Douglas is booming with oil and coal jobs.Now they're hiring experienced people to build,install and maintaine wind turbines 30 miles north of us. House prices keep going up. No place for people to rent and what is for rent is thru the roof expensive. We're still feeling the crunch like everyone else though. The way I understand is that just because we drill the oil doesn't mean it stays here. Oil companies put it on the open market to be bid on.No breaks for the U.S.A. We're having to bid against the world for our own oil. Plus not having enough refineries,we ship alot out to foriegn countries to be refined which doesn't help that cost.Something had to give sooner or later. Unfortunately it is the middle income people. High mortgage payment,high debt load,lost income and high taxes. But Bush to the rescue with his incentive program!

 

[SpottedCrow]

That really sucks on the house, banter!!!WTH gave them the right to go in in the first place??

I hearya Specks...all the folks on fixed incomes are hurting. The food pantries are going empty because they can't afford to pay for extra.

We don't go the movies
We don't eat out
We make our own coffee
We don't drink
We don't smoke
Our heat is set at 67 during the day and 65 at night

We don't have anywhere else to cut!

The housing mess is caused by greed! Some people who couldn't afford a house got one with no down payment, an adjustable mortgage and they're screwed because the interest went up. It looks good to the bank to have all these mortgages and to the real estate people to have houses sold, but dammit common sense says that people who make minimum wage have no business buying a $500K house! Interest only loans, forget it! If you can't afford a regular loan, then you shouldn't be looking! I hate ot be mean, but jeeze, what ever happened to starter homes...you don't have to move right into the Taj Mahal from mama's house.

We spent 117,900 on our house in 92. It's a 3 bedroom Cape that was built in 46. I went online the other day and the house is only worth $106K, but the LAND is worth $173K...We couldn't afford to buy our house! Thank the Gods that she's paid off. DH made double payments so the 30 year mortgage was paid off in less than 15...

And if ticks me off that us working folks are gonna have to pay for this fiasco.

It may make more sense for me to stay at home and not work, but then I'll have an $8K lump of steel sitting in the driveway...

I'm definitely doing a garden this year and I might put more stuff into it, so we don't have to buy a ton of produce...

Oh Heck yes, micki, there's age discrimination. They don't and can't say that, so they say that you're overqualified...I'm 43 and they'll hire a teenybopper over me.

I can't imagine how much it costs to live in LaLa Land, airheart...

 

[K&H Chicken Farm]

Me and my husband both have new to us cars. He has a truck and I have a van. After a lot of looking we found them for $1000 and $1100. They both run great and we keep the oil changed.

We do not have cable TV and our only Toys are a tent ,camping eq and a canoe.

I am a stay at home mom and my husband works as a city buss driver and only makes $8.75 a hour with insurance that would cost us $600 a month if we took it. So we have no heath insurance. We are trying to fight for more but the city tells us that its all they can pay.

We no longer eat out and movies are a ever other month treat. If we ever do go out to eat we have dinner first then just order desserts.

I am so sick of people saying they can not make it and they have a garage full of quads, boats and other big toys and are paying for them. If folks would down size and just relax insted of trying to do more then the Johnes everything would be better.

Sorry rant came out.

 

[TheMartianChick]

My area of NY fared a bit better in the mortgage crisis only because our home prices are some of the most undervalued in America. We still have foreclosures, but alot of the homes within our city limits are only valued between $35k and 85K. The good thing is that if you can afford to pay rent, then you can also afford to buy a home here. The downside is that it has been publicized that our properties are undervalued so all of the real estate investors from out-of-state have been buying up the foreclosures so that they can be long distance landlords.

As you can imagine this is a special recipe for disaster and neighborhood decline. Don't get me wrong... We also have rental properties but we take good care of them and they actually are nicer than the home that we live in! Our home was a starter home that is located in a city neighborhood that isn't as nice as we would like.


Central NY's problem is the job market. My city used to be a hub for manufacturing, but most of that has died out and really hasn't been replaced by anything else. We have several hospitals and colleges, but nothing more. Most of our area employers are smaller businesses that employ 50 or fewer people and the wages are not that great.

For my family, things are a bit tense because we would like to move out of state next year. We will have two kids in college here in NY at that time. We've been planning this for years. We'd like to develop our business idea and would work from our home/farm. In order to do this, we would need to get a mortgage for the new property, as though it were a vacation home and then make the move. If I could make the move right now, I would because I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I work for a nonprofit agency that relies on grants to stay open. My hubby works for one of the last few manufacturers in the area. He doesn't make a lot of money but if he were to be laid off, he would have to start over at the age of 50 and wouldn't make as much money. We would have to stay in NY for a few more years and try to re-establish a good work history in order to qualify for a mortgage and we probably wouldn't be able to afford as much with a diminished income.

The rental properties that we have are a help, but we are relying on those to help to put our children through college. Besides its not as though we are real estate tycoons like Donald Trump, or anything. We just have a few apartments that don't rent for a lot of money. Because of the foreclosures on the market, we wouldn't really make much if we sold them so we plan to have a property management company keep them rented for us.

I know that there are others who have already lost so much due to the current economy. You just don't realize how bad things can get until it is your own dreams that are in danger of falling apart.

Whew! This was a lot longer than I thought it would be. It's kind of funny... Sometimes you don't realize the depth of your feelings and fears until you put it in writing.