How is your PERSONAL economy?

[disneysteve]

I hear and read an endless stream of stories about our struggling economy, rising prices for gas, food and everything else, the housing crisis, the credit crunch, healthcare costs and more.

But I realize that not everyone is equally affected by all of those things. For example, the bursting real estate bubble hasn't touched us at all. We own our home with a 25-year fixed rate mortgage with a good rate. We have no plans to sell it. We also have no plans to borrow any money anytime soon, so the credit crunch has had no impact on us. We carry no other debt, no car loans, no credit cards, so no issues there either.

Of course, rising prices do affect us. We're paying more for gas and food just like everyone else.

Despite that, we are still maintaining our "pay ourselves first" of investing 18% of my gross income and 50% of DW's gross. A bit more of our discretionary income is going into the gas tank and the refrigerator, so I suppose we have cut back on some other discretionary spending, but honestly, I couldn't tell you where. Perhaps we've been eating out less and trying to be more careful with the grocery shopping and food waste.

Other than that, we really haven't had to make any major adjustments yet due to economic forces. I'm curious how others are feeling (or not feeling) the effects of all we keep hearing about and how it has impacted your spending and saving.

[Ima saver]

There is no work here for anyone in the construction business. My husband gets calls all day long. We know many people laid off, and others with no work. It is kind of scary. My husband is really a good builder, so he is busy. Other than spending more on gasoline, we are still saving money and socking it away.

[aevans1206]

For the first time in six years, things are looking financially very good for us. This is due to my husband and my choice in careers that are recession proof--education. We have a load of debt, but we are doing well in paying it off and managing our money. Groceries are expensive, but not bad enough to break us. We could certainly stand to cut down our costs. Gas is a needle in the side every time we fill up--it's at almost $4.50 here in Chicago, highest in the nation. Overall, we're doing fine! (Should I knock on wood before I post this?)

[maat55]

The Tulsa area is doing OK, our economy has a large oil base. Unfortunatly, we have a large apartment-townhouse complex being built in my backyard. Forcing us to plant trees for a sheild. My business is noticably slower, but moving along.

[SnoopyCool]

We're doing better now than ever - partly due to changing our habits and outlook on finances. We've been blessed, and I'm thankful that we're not in financial turmoil like so many others.

[AmbitiousSaver]

I don't really feel it affecting us so much... I know our incomes will either stay the same or rise, our mortgage is fixed, and the only area the housing market hurts us is it limits what I can charge on our rental to make it turn a profit OR be willing to sell it at a loss. But I'm not exactly hurting in that aspect since we can still save for retirement, are paying down our debts, and our stupid financial decisions haven't hurt us TOO badly. But bad enough I know I seriously need to work on our spending habits and get on a good budget so we are more efficient with our money.

Healthcare, we're good... the only place the economy really affects us is rising prices on food & gas. But even then its not TOO bad. If things get really bad we can cut back on saving, cut back on my son's preschool, adjust DH's withholding more... we still have a lot of wiggle room. But really, I notice more that I have to work on my personal finance skills vs anything to do with the economy.

[tripods68]

I think with all the negative news about the "economy" with high fuel cost and food prices going up and up, and not to mention the "credit crunch" makes it more bad. We live in one of the highest foreclosure area in the country and so all my coworkers, friends, and neighbors talks about who's next meaning who will foreclose on their house next. For example, my next door neighbor bought their house a year half ago for $480K. They couldn't get out their existing contract, so they put the house for $380K. Now they realized they couldn't sell it and decided to remain. Instead their grown children moved in with them to help absorb their mortgage payment. The other house across from our backyard was on the market for a year. It sold few months ago for less than $260K. The original owner paid somewhere low $400K. We definitely feel the squeezed around here. Our neighborhood has changed especially in the beginning of the year when there are more people and cars around; where it used to be very quite and less cars parked on the street. Now its full of cars everywhere.

The only thing I would say, my family loves driving around especially at night. Believe or not, my kids are difficult to put to bed. So we drive 3 or 4 nights a week anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes depends on how quickly they fall asleep. We're hoping this would be a short trend habit. But something more developed through this, we find its the only time my DW and I could really talk or chit chat about everything else what's going on her work, my work, friends and relatives or whatever the latest news. Its kind of therapeutic approach for us to communicate better. I admit, I sometimes lose track what my DW want or need sometimes. So having the quality time together really helps me understand her a lot more or vice versa. So it's all good. Sorry I digressed.

With that habit comes with a price. So this month alone, we spent on gas about $415. A record for us. That's really high when we usually spend under $300 before. But we really haven't changed anything elsewhere. We still spend the same amount on food every month.

[irmanator]

upstate ny, i dont see more forclosures, the price of gas is up to 3.99-4.09 i am buying a bycycle, since i am fairly close to work. groceries are up a little, but i still use my price book and buy only the cheapest ones. overall i am ok i have been at my job 5 years and they are hiring more and more so i am feeling fairly secure there.

[Ima saver]

Thanks goodness we have no mortgage and no debt except one car payment. (you all know why we have that) A year and a half ago, we sold our last spec house for $400,000 and I put that money in CD's to earn interest. we have enough building to last about a year.

[Caoineag]

Our personal economy... well, husband is a loan processor with an in house mortgage company. He's survived quite a few layoffs and received promotions during all this but we don't count on that lasting forever. Our debt is still getting paid off rapidly in the meantime though I could definitely cut back even more, we just don't want to. At some point, you need to enjoy the journey instead of just worrying about the destination.

We don't own a car so the only place we really feel the difference is grocery shopping but it hasn't been that bad. We did up the budget there but only by a little bit.

Since we will be house shopping within a year, the foreclosures have only helped but we are still debating whether to do it this winter or next summer.

[Broken Arrow]

All things considered, my personal economy is well. It's moving along at cruising altitude. Of course, I realize that could change at any time, so I'm using this time to get as far ahead in terms of saving and investing as I possibly can.

[poundcakes]

My husband is a physician. Business is booming.I have a career in nursing that I can go back to if need be. Our home is paid for, as are both vehicles. We live well below our means. Our financial outlook is positive.

[stressedmama]

Our personal economy is doing quite well at the moment. DH and I have the same jobs, still saving the same amounts, etc. Food and gas prices in our area are up, but we've been okay.

We actually just received our govt refund check and made the last payment on our car today. YEAH!! The only debt we now have is our house loan.

[Reldon]

My personal economy seems to be doing quite well. The only thing that has hurt has been that I am not able to contribute more to my taxable mutual fund accounts because some of that money has to go to paying for gas. Other than that, I am still contributing the same amount to my retirement accounts.

[cicy33]

We were just discussing this the other day. Our business is doing well, we are okay and we were discussing how other people in our area aren't and we agree we are really lucky. we aren't getting rich but we aren't in the poorhouse either.

[FrugalFish]

We're hanging in there okay and trying to keep things in perspective. We've definitely changed some habits and have less expendable income. Time will tell if we can continue to save as much as we were before- we are attempting just that by cutting back some. We haven't bought much more than necessities for the past couple of months, and it's been weeks since we've had dinner out; that's the part that gets old for me, I love to dine out and hate cooking 7 nights a week. Not eating out, I'm losing weight- but I can't afford to lose all that much Oh well, from what I've heard, restaurant portions are getting smaller, so maybe eating out wouldn't help me maintain my weight so much anymore!

So yes, it's affecting us, but we have everything we NEED and hopefully a little extra here and there.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Poorly in some ways. Definitely less than we started working a few years ago. The raises haven't kept up. But we still have jobs, so I'm not complaining about it!

And are we cutting stuff? Not really. But we will soon.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

It appears our income will not increase as much as the cost of living this year. We've always been careful with money, so we can hang in there just fine. Frugal as we are, we are also well situated to be able to cut back if need be. For example, we could go car free.

[aida2003]

Knock, knock on the wood, we're doing fine.
We just need to continue hoping that we have our jobs (they're safe, but you never know about an 'out of the blue') and I hope our baby will be well and I'll be able to go back to work (it's more like for brain challenge than money ).
Like everyone we noticed that we're spending more for gas and food, but other than that everything is going fine. I decided to reduce our taxable income by increasing my 401k contributions. We also increased our taxable investments. And if everything goes fine, we'll chop our savings step by step and pay off our mortgage. Since CD rates are awfull this year we'd rather pay off our mortgage.

[MonkeyMama]

Knock on wood, indeed.

This year has been a pretty good year for us. A lot of our bills have been going down. (Cable went down just because. City switched to metered water and our bill has gone down considerably, etc.).

Our child graduates preschool in a month and will free up $300/month cash.

The other ones graduates in 2010 so our cash flow should increase considerably over the next couple of years. Likewise, a second job won't cost so much or won't need to be incredibly flexible. So it has been kind of weird as many around here (in "foreclosure central") are struggling, we seem to be going the opposite direction. As we graduate from one-income living. We are just kind of getting back to where we were before kids with our income and assets.

No debt but our mortgage, which is very reasonable and far cheaper than renting. No plans to borrow anything.

Healthcare has been a huge financial issue in recent years. This year are expenses stayed steady, which was a welcome change from the usual 10% - 40% annual insurance increases. It feels nice to get a breather for one year...

So all around, 2008 has been good to us.