<p>Self employed and work for now but not sure how the late summer/fall will look. We are beginning to hunker down, spend less, save more. Not sure what else anyone can do. Spend less, save more, exercise, eat right.<br>
Sharing the stress by talking with others helps.
The biggest issue I’m having, and I posted a while back, is that the B2B community has gotten pretty tough. We are having collection issues with customers and having to use our lawyer, write certified letters, etc. in order to collect even 10K from customers. This is new in the past six months. We have been in business 8 years.</p>
<p>Next investment ideas: pharma that make antidepressants and sleeping pills.</p>
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<p>We receive a daily email that lists all the lawsuits filed in the civil courts the previous day. I have never seen so many small collections suits as I have in the last month - $21,000, $18,000, $12,000…companies not paying these relatively small amounts, their vendors/creditors really needing the money, and lawyers willing to take on suits of that size.</p>
<p>I think getting a puppy is entirely rational.</p>
<p>The kids and I would love a cat, but H doesn’t get pets. Cats got me through the stress of law school - how can you stress out over studying for an exam when there is a big purring cat on your lap?</p>
<p>I’m finding myself looking for more “quiet” time to just sit and relax. Watching my S’s grades go down and up for the past 3 yrs. has been like riding a roller coaster that won’t stop. Right now, he’s doing much better but I worry that just when I feel like I’m enjoying the ride, there’ll be a freefall or some whoop dee do! As for the economy, I’m not as scared or nervous as I was last fall. That doesn’t mean that things have improved but rather I’ve gotten over the shock of the falling values in our home and investments. We’re still trying to do the same things - vacations and other activities but just scaled back. This summer, we’re using our airline miles to visit schools back east.</p>
<p>I don’t even look at what my 401K is worth ( I think it’s now a 201K and falling). We have always been savers rather than spenders, so we are keeping our spending at the same level. We could cut back some, but if everyone does that it won’t be good. </p>
<p>Missypie- you mentioned girls taking jobs to earn money for drill team, I can so relate here. D is in her final season of dance competitions, so that expense is soon to go away. On the other hand, college starts in August…</p>
<p>I am also praying and trusting God to help us all through.</p>
<p>Batman, the 8-week-old black lab, comes home on March 7. <<gulp!>></gulp!></p>
<p>It will be fun ( just keep repeating that)
We have a black lab who will be 15 this June.
She was a puppy for about four years.
lol.</p>
<p>( I can laugh about it * now* )</p>
<p>First of all, Zoozermom, my heart goes out to you:(. I’m sad that you are dealing with your moms serious illnesses on top of everything else going on. You were so kind to me, for the past 2 weeks, while I was frantic about my husbands heart attack…I had no idea you were suffering too.</p>
<p>Stress is code red for us these days. We may be in one of the worst places of all, lol. My husband is a developer…ummmm, I think we all know how thats going!!! That has so much to do with why he got sick I feel, because of his inability to really handle stress…but, in his defense, he has alot on his plate. The one light at the end of the tunnel is, we have managed to pay for 2 of our kids to get their BA and BM…they graduate (thankfully) this May…since they are going out into the world debt free, I think we’ve done a good thing for them…They know that they will need to work and get loans, etc to continue their educations on their own. But they are very fortunate. I’m very grateful, that we were able to do that for them. My husband and I really did feel it was our responsiblity to give them the best education we could afford…whew! Thats done.</p>
<p>We’ve cut back on alot of things that were ridiculous extravances anyway, like having every package possible on Direct TV, lol…paying about $200 to watch tv, that wasn’t including landline and internet! We cut back to a whopping $159, lol, but I told him we should call cable again…Its a new house, so cable wanted us to bring the lines up from the road to our house, for $1000…I had a big problem with paying for their wires to come to my house so I could get their service which I’d pay for monthly. So we went DTV. We too do try to eat out once a week still, but in the family owned restaraunts in our local community. </p>
<p>I spend alot of time, trying to tell my husband things like…you know this too shall pass…this kind of thing always does. You didn’t cause this problem so please stop feeling bad about how things are…He’s so depressed, its hard. I’m not exactly jolly, but I do have hope…once you lose that, fuggedaboudit!! </p>
<p>Someone asked about anti anxiety medication. You should see a doctor, but be very careful…they are extremely addictive. I have a freind who was seriously addicted to xanax…it started very innocently…panic attacks. she was to take them 3 x’s a day. Eventually she was popping them like candy, and was a mess…the more she took, the more she needed…and her doctor had no problem just prescribing them as needed…it was a nightmare. She ended up in a rehab trying to break the addiction. She learned that there are only 2 things you can die from withdrawing from…alcohol and xanax. Xanax can be useful, but also dangerous. I always worry when I hear relatives or friends saying they want to take them, cause of the mess I saw my freind end up in. Not a good thing to live through…So, be cautious. Meditating, Yoga, excersize, sleep and hobbies can really do the same thing for me, and of course the computer, lol. I just need to stay distracted, to stay hopeful. I avoid people who are feeling utterly hopeless. I love when people recognize we’re in a serious situation, but know we need to work through it to get to the other side. Anyone remember how bad the 70’s were? My mom reminded me of that this morning…then it went bad in the 80’s…we came back…90’s same…now we’re here again…we will come back. Who knows, maybe in the end we will all be better off, living within our means…learning to save more then we spend. I want to beleive that will happen.</p>
<p>wow…didn’t know that was a novel…lol, sorry.</p>
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<p>As a real estate lawyers, I know lots of developers…yeah, most of them are not the laid back types. That “can do” spirit does have a down side.</p>
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<p>Actually…no on the 70s. My dad was a social worker, employed by the state, so we never had any money. We would have been equally as poor in a good economy as in a bad economy. Back in the days of lenders requiring a 20% down payment on a house, my parents were renters until I was 20.</p>
<p>Having had good results from Librium years ago, I inquired about Librax when stress exacerbated my IBS. Fortunately, my dr. agreed. While the difference it makes during the day isn’t very great, the difference at night is tremendous. I’m able to get to sleep within a reasonable time instead of lying awake feeling the anxiety build and I no longer wake up three or four times each night thinking of a list of worries.</p>
<p>Ds’s employer’s stock has dropped more than 90%. That was a large part of our net worth and we were unable to cash out due to quiet period restrictions. We will pay more in taxes this April on his stock awards than we could get for selling the shares. We sold our former home last year and took a loss of nearly 30%. Our RE agent was more upset than we were, but then we were focused on ds’s medical problems.</p>
<p>Thankfully, my widowed mother has long term care insurance and surviving spouse pension benefits that cover her current expenses. The sibling who has PoA over her financial and medical affairs put much of her money into growth stocks, so I doubt there’s much left. Another sibling was really counting on that inheritance, and the reaction to the current situation makes me all the more glad that I never gave it any thought.</p>
<p>Dh’s job is uncertain, as are so many these days. Ds has not yet found a job, but plans to move out of state to live w/ a new GF. He’s in denial about both his health and his job prospects. I suspect he hopes to go back to school and thinks we will fund him. We gave our children generous graduation gifts, so he will have to live on that and find some combination of a job and student loans for the rest. </p>
<p>One happy development is that dh & I hug a lot more. It’s amazing how much stress relief a hug and a few words of understanding can provide.</p>
<p>In addition to the threat of being outsourced - I am in IT, (we will know in one month whether we will stay or we will go), I have the added stress of waiting for college admission decisions on April 1st!!</p>
<p>I can’t stand the wait anymore - DS applied to eight colleges and the threads about Likely Letters and Phone calls have drained me to exhaustion. I need to step away from CC for a little while. (He hasn’t received any LLs or Phone Calls).</p>
<p>He has been accepted to State U, and with a free ride basically, but I know his heart is set on other schools…and his older brother attends to a top 25 school. He’s got a few hooks and did well, but the process is a crapshoot.</p>
<p>So I am completely stressed out for the month of March. </p>
<p>Exercise sounds like a good idea.</p>
<p>I know it’s pretty small-scale, but we’ve been doing a lot of cleaning out of cupboards and closets and we’re starting to sell things. This was prompted by my younger child moving into the nicer bedroom vacated by the older child who is now at college - she will have his old room when she comes home for the summer.</p>
<p>Anyway, as my younger kid looked through his things during the move, he found that he was ready to let many things go. We just sold a practice bass amp and guitar stand last night through Craigslist. I have some furniture listed, but there aren’t many nibbles yet. My son also sorted through his CD’s and found about a dozen that he doesn’t listen to anymore, so I took them to Rasputin’s today and got $34 for them - not bad! I’ll use the money toward his birthday which is coming up in a few weeks.</p>
<p>The other benefit of all this sorting is that it feels good to clear things out. If only we could get rid of some of the books - they are taking over in every room of the house and I wish we could pass on at least half of them.</p>
<p>I have been eating too much - I definitely am a stress eater. 
I got out my Wii Fit on March 1st and am going to try and use it each day until the weather warms up. So I will be using the Wii like your parents, Missypie :)</p>
<p>Husband’s sector is hard hit by the recession and although his job is okay now, we know several people w/o jobs with slim hopes for oppurtunities in his industry. So we need to watch what we spend. . . </p>
<p>As far as sharing with your kids - of course it depends on their ages. But I think the high schoolers and college students should be told that times are tight. Mine heard that Christmas would not be as bountiful, that we could not go away for Spring Break, that our retirement funds were down 35% (last time I was brave enough to look!). But I don’t talk about it often – compared to many, we’ve got it good.</p>
<p>I do recall the 70’s all too well. My college fund nearly disappeared, but I was lucky enough to get an academic scholarship that covered tuition. Jobs were hard to find, and Dh was thankful to my Dad for his contacts. In my first post-college job, I earned the magnificent sum of $800/mo. and dh’s pay wasn’t much better. We still managed to save, thanks to my Dad who’d grown up in the Depression and taught me to be very frugal. Still, when gas hit $1+/gal. it was a shock. We put plastic over the inside of our single pane windows in the winter (sort of like shrink wrap that was applied using a hair dryer) and slept in sweat pants/shirts in order to keep the thermostat low. I recall stretching ground beef in various casseroles for supper and eating a bowl of popcorn for lunch. Back then I had the patience to sew, which saved a lot on my wardrobe. We were stupid about insurance, and it nearly broke me (emotionally) when our car (old & not worth much) was stolen. Since dh traveled so much for work, he had to take the other car and I ended up driving a moped as it was all we could afford. Looking back I am amazed that things did not end very badly.</p>
<p>The 80’s were not a big improvement. Our mortgage was booked at 17.9% but had a lower payment rate, thus causing negative amortization. It took nearly two years to sell that house when we decided to downsize after the children came along and I became a SAHM. Dh’s employer was bought out and things were dicey for quite a while. </p>
<p>In the 90’s, no sooner had we finally gotten ahead and bought another house, then dh was transferred. Our cost of living rose 30%+ but his employer did not adjust his pay. It wasn’t long before that employer was the subject of merger rumors also. We moved again and faced yet another increase in CoL. Dh’s first two bosses were terminated, the company reorganized, outside talent was brought in and then - not again! - another merger. </p>
<p>These days, I rather regret being so frugal. I wish I’d insisted on taking more vacations while our children were at home and before dh & I developed health problems. That deferred compensation, typically restricted stock awards and stock options, is worth next to nothing now. On the plus side, we have set aside enough cash to cover our bare bones expenses for three years just in case dh loses his job, so we do have more peace of mind about the negative impact of the dreadful economy than in prior decades.</p>
<p>Calreader - we did the same thing - cleaned out the basement. The Vietnam Veterans took much of the stuff - including boxes and boxes of books.</p>
<p>They (or the Lupus Foundation) will pick up from your home - you don’t need to be there and they will leave a form for you to fill in for tax purposes…</p>
<p>It was very cathartic.</p>
<p>In a strange way, its reassuring to hear how other people are dealing with this stress…and managing to cope anyway. It does help to share the burden of fear with other people in the same sort of situations.</p>
<p>oops - Re: post #52, that should read “Dh’s employer’s stock has dropped more than 90%” - not “Ds’s.” Ds remains unemployed. Sigh…</p>
<p>Helpingmom, I am right there with you on the stress eating. Wii Fit is a good idea! Even if I just did Wii bowling and boxing, it would be more exercise than I now get.</p>
<p>Agree re: cleaning out and selling things. I am actually happy to pare down. Gold is at a high price right now. A friend of mine recently sold some jewelry she never wears to a jewelry designer in our town. I have some pieces in my purse ready to take over there.</p>