Bad Economy? What Are You Living Without?

hbelectric

A year ago, we were renting a house, i told my wife that bad times are coming and we moved into an 2 bed Apartment. I now tell her we will be needing a smaller apartment. She is pissed off and does not want to move, I told her to call the landlord and tell him we need a discount or we are leaving. I'm waiting....

We just cancelled Cable TV , so we are back to 4 channels. We decided to cancel our fax line/house phone, but we are keeping Cell Phones, Broadband, Netflix, and xbox live. I said I will take my lunch to work, maybe twice a week.( I really hate packing my lunch).

We would like to refinace or even pay off one of the company trucks, to save some money. That has been on the list for awhile, but because of the tax write offs, i guess its been down on the list. She says there is no money to save on Insurance.

We have also decided we will put more effort into shopping around for materials, which I should do anyway.

The good part is we are still busy, for now atleast.

WarnerConstInc.

I had to give up a few **** site subscriptions.

hbelectric

Haa funny , nobody really pays for **** on the internet HAAAA. Oh wait your from Indiana!!!
I still have a house and family back in South Bend/Mishawaka, never heard of Auburn though.

Wolfgang

So far I havent had to do anything. Lucky that we havent been affected yet. I dont plan/foresee any equipment purchases this year so that helps. My wife works as a counselor at a Hospital and that job is probably more secure than mine...and I own my own company. I guess if I have to cut back on anything it will be the two extra morgtage payments I make every year. Having an 80% VA disability rating equals about 19K tax free/yr. That pays the morgtage and car payment with some left over every month. I'd like to think I'm pretty lucky. Hopefully the slow cycle everybody is experiencing will turn around shortly.

Patrick

I canceled my subscription to the pay section of contractortalk.com Thats the part of the site where they actually tell you exactly how much to charge for jobs

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Originally Posted by Celtic
Like I said...I'm sure you are very good at what you do ~ whatever that is and where ever it happens.

Tiger

Business in '07 was almost identical to '08. I'm waiting on contributing to my retirement fund until I see how this winter goes. Otherwise I'm just being a little more cautious about major purchases. I've had much tougher times in business where I didn't cut myself a paycheck.

Personally, we've had budget discussions. We went over everything in our budget & decided what is necessary & what is discretionary, but didn't make any immediate changes. We went a little lighter than usual on Christmas gifts & we go out a little less. We've survived much tougher times than this, so no worries yet.

hbelectric

We have grown alot in 08, but we are just being pre-cautious. Even though 07, 35% of our work was school jobs, we actually landed zero school jobs in 08 and still had a better year.

Christmas gifts we cut back dramatically, the whole not buying chinese imports made it easier.

WisePainter

I never had anything in the first place...not much to cut back on or lose.

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My advice: Hire a real painter to do it.

hbelectric

Omg we are going to have a pity party for you.

Bodger

To the bone, cut out everything I don't need. No more Starbuck's (here come the hoots and hollers) no more restaurants and ordering out for delivery. Haven't bought a new tool in months, not even hand tools. Spent as little as possible for Christmas and that was only on my kids.

WisePainter

I actually like it that way.

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My advice: Hire a real painter to do it.

Mike Finley

So tell us once again how you like the recession? In the other post about GMAC you were against getting back to a growing economy.

I can't follow your logic. I thought you like the recession, sounds like you're living the dream, enjoy.

Chris Johnson

I found '91 was worse than this

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Chris

hbelectric

You missed something, I said i'd rather they lend money to buy an American car, then lend money to buy Chinese made goods, that don't have any real effect on our economy.

BTW because I want to cut back on expensives, has zero to do with how my business is. We are doing great, but things could change for the worse Many people are having a tough time and I sympathise for the people who are struggling. Any thoughts on this issue is the topic of my post.

joasis

I think we are so spoiled to "things" that we really loose focus, but what do I know? I have been working on being debt free for a few years, and getting there is tough. I have said before how much we could live without....but squeezing the trigger is like pulling teeth. We can live without Dish.....but I don't want to....we can turn off the home phone line, and then goes the DSL.....ok, enough already.

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dougchips

Our weekly dinner out is now at a Chinese buffet instead of our nice seafood place........they even let my 2 year old eat for free.

I am keeping my warehouse but I moved my office back into my home, with everything being wireless I have not really used it in 6 months.

Keeping existing truck and car, first time in 12 years that one of my trucks has seen over 60,000 miles! One is paid off and the other will be paid off in a couple of months.

Cutting down on long distance trips, I don't really need 3-4 trips to Florida and a couple of trips to Vegas every year. <----I like them but don't really need them.

Cutting down on subbing out work while I sit around. <---I'll see how I feel about this in a week or two, I just got done scheduling myself 6 days a week.

Buying my supplies in bulk has saved me a couple of grand a year.

Internet fax saves me a ton in paper, toner and phone bills.

Driving my caravan cost about 50 cents a mile compared to $1.00 a mile for my truck so I tend to use it as much as possible(not installing windows out of it! Rather estimates and errands).

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mickeyco

I've cut back on the Grey Poupon.






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Some people climb mountains. I take out the trash. But we both do it for the same reason.

JustaFramer

It hasn't even started yet. We are in a funny transition time between presidents. The hell isn't scheduled to break lose till mid to late 09.

Bodger

I was thinking about ' 91 the other day and hoping to hell it doesn't get that bad or stay that bad. Maybe it already got there, hoping it will be over soon. That was a bad year for me.

mdshunk

What am I living without? Absolutely nothing. Earlier, I turned up the thermostat a few degrees for no particular reason. I think the recession is in the newspaper only.