How do you feel about your personal financial and job situation?

[Engineer]

I work in a toolroom for an automotive supplier. Pretty much all that needs to be said....

My personal situation isn't as bad as others. I paid off my home about 3 years ago and everything else is paid for. I have a few 0% credit card balances with the money earning about 3.25 to 5.00% right now. I did lose 100% of my overtime pay as well as took a 5% pay cut. Also had pension frozen (forever) at the current level. My wife was fortunate to land a full time job at the local school this year but it isn't a guaranteed job so after May 2009 will be a little more sketchy.


I could have been in a much better sitaution had I not fucked up in the stock market last year (entirely my fault, not the market conditions)...but that's in the past and it's time to move forward carrying the lessons learned.

I hope to keep my job and plant here but am not sure that it will happen. At the very least, I hope to get build a better savings account in case it doesn't happen.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
I am not surprised

If I was as educated as you, I would be able to get a real job... every few months.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Engineer
I work in a toolroom for an automotive supplier. Pretty much all that needs to be said....

My personal situation isn't as bad as others. I paid off my home about 3 years ago and everything else is paid for. I have a few 0% credit card balances with the money earning about 3.25 to 5.00% right now. I did lose 100% of my overtime pay as well as took a 5% pay cut. Also had pension frozen (forever) at the current level. My wife was fortunate to land a full time job at the local school this year but it isn't a guaranteed job so after May 2009 will be a little more sketchy.


I could have been in a much better sitaution had I not fucked up in the stock market last year (entirely my fault, not the market conditions)...but that's in the past and it's time to move forward carrying the lessons learned.

I hope to keep my job and plant here but am not sure that it will happen. At the very least, I hope to get build a better savings account in case it doesn't happen.

The huge silver lining in this is that you own your home, that is absolutely massive.

 

[dmcowen674]

Tomorrow is Friday

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Tomorrow is Friday

Not if you live in Japan.

 

[Kirby]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Tomorrow is Friday

Well, there's one prediction you may get right.

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: Fern
Reading though this thread, things don't seem dire for the AT crowd.

I own a small accounting firm, so far this is what I see in my area:

1. Construction companies are getting slammed bad.
snip

Fern

That says it all for me. I am in commercial construction and there is simply no money to be had.
The owner does all the bidding, and his desk is almost clean. Typically, you have to wade through prints and proposals to get to his desk.
He is worried he will have to lay off 60% of his workforce by the end of March

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
I am not surprised

If I was as educated as you, I would be able to get a real job... every few months.

If I was? First lesson: The subjunctive uses Were, not Was.

 

[JohnCU]

meh, unless they stop using electricity my job is secure. :thumbsup: the only thing i have to worry about is no more bonuses or raises next year.

 

[midway]

My job is okay because I work in an industry that experiences boom times when companies are going under. It's a terrible thing to say, but it's true. We raked in mountains of cash during the .com crash.

 

[Falloutboy]

I'm a driver manager for a trucking company, unfortionally 90% of our business is from GM or the other big 3, so yeah.....

 

[daveymark]

Question should be reworded to not include government jobs.

 

[SacrosanctFiend]

The president just announced that all employees will be receiving a 5% "appreciation award" next week, and we just added 40 people to the full-time payroll. I think my job is fairly secure.

 

[rdp6]

Loads better for me, crap for lots of family members. I just started work on Monday this week, my first (non-Co-op) engineering position with an enormous defense contractor. Wife is a biologist in a medium-sized company which is planning to add hundreds of biologists in the near future and has had continuous new construction for the past two years.

I haven't earned meaningful income since I separated from the USAF in 2004 to go to school full-time in changing careers. We bought a modest home in 2005 and have been doing fine on my wife's income/benefits up until the birth of our daughter 3.5 months ago. We are normally very careful with money as the wife's income is comparable to an electrical engineering co-op student's wages here in north central Ohio. However, maternity leave and my extended joblessness had us giving family members (before news of layoffs) notice that we may need to borrow from them to make the next mortgage payment. For perspective, we never miss payments; in fact we overpay ~8% each month on the primary mortgage.

Just checked, we were down to less than $200 in our checking account yesterday. We have some money in investments outside of retirement, but all our investments have taken a huge beating.

We haven't had real spending money in so long I have all but forgotten what it is like. We plan on continuing to live frugally until we are debt-free (11K student loans, 12K car, ~85K mortgage, 2K cc) and have "caught up" with funding our retirement for our age (early thirties). We haven't had dual income since early 1999, so things are really looking great for us.

I think we are gonna splurge on a new camera to replace our 9.5 year old (budget model at that) Olympus, and we are also considering a new vacuum cleaner as military moves and the years have not been kind to our Dirt Devil. Are the Dyson vacuums worth Costco's price?

As I am concerned for the local economy I have asked for something produced locally from Santa this year: a case of Great Lakes Brewery Christmas Ale.

 

[Robor]

My employer cut 6% of staff today totaling 79 positions. Luckily I was among those unaffected. We lost a good coworker in my dept though...

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Zebo
If I was? First lesson: The subjunctive uses Were, not Was.

*my play on words*













*your head*

I hardly need grammar lessons from someone who capitalizes random words in his sentences.

 

[zephyrprime]

I've been profiting off the the financial crisis. Up 100% in my IRA but my 401K is down ~5%. My parents' iras are up also. Where there's trouble there opportunity.

My job is ok for the time being. My industry is one that is very susceptible to economic downturns but we're still hiring because the slowdown just hasn't hit us yet. I expect that it will soon and we'll probably have some layoffs.

I'm looking to buy a house also. A duplex or maybe even a 4plex here in Minneapolis. Prices are low but I worry that they will go even lower.