I don’t know about you, but this economy is getting to be pretty scary thing for our family budget. I can certainly see what they meant when economists said a while back that eventually there would not be a middle class. The gas prices have certainly put a crunch on our family budget as well as the increasing prices of food and everything else. Unfortunately, my employer did not give our annual raise either. But, they did double the CEO’s salary and significantly increase the other 11 or so VPs’ salaries. Isn’t that nice? Make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
I have certainly decreased my driving unnecessarily. I am getting back into using coupons and watching for sales before purchasing anything. We walk whenever we can to cut down on our gasoline useage.
The Wall Street situation is more than worrisome especially for someone like me who uses stocks and money markets to try to increase their retirement savings. Now that stability is gone. I am thinking of going back to saving my money in mason jars and burying it in the backyard somewhere as some of our ancestors did. Seriously!
So, it means for we have to call the person who handles our retirement fund and put it in a no risk account. I think I will just leave it this way. Too much risk for me to have it otherwise. I cannot afford to lose it all.
Grocery shopping is so depressing. I am thankful we had a garden this year and were able to can and freeze a lot of vegetables for the winter months. Of course, we still have to purchase things weekly like milk, bread and the staples. I find myself trying to time my trips to get the marked down dairy and meat products. I often plan our meals around what I can find on sale or marked down. Many nights we just eat veggies due to the high cost of meat.
We definitely do not eat out like we used to. Gas money takes away from any funds we used for eating out or doing anything spur of the moment.
Difficult economic times has caused the crime rate to increase significantly too. I hate even hearing the news about all of the local shootings. Most are drug related. As the economy worsens, this will become more and more common as drug abusers need to steal money for their fixes. Of course this makes the walking more dangerous for all of us.
I would love to hear how others are making changes to cope with the declining economy.