Your plan for economic disruption.
 

Lookout and Ali had a good question. What is everyone doing? We are not changing much financially beyond increasing our cash reserve. We're pretty frugal normally so we don't plan to tighten belts unless there is a layoff. If that happens we'll get very serious about country living skills.

When we heard about the 80 redundancies at Dazza's work we had to face the possibility that his company is running out of money. It seems unlikely being a multi-national engineering/consulting company, but a few dodgey things have happened lately that've made us start looking at other options.

The lucky thing for us is that Dazza is able to branch into almost any area of consulting to do with environmental science/economics or aquaculture, so it's realistic to consider that he'll always have a decent income. He is lining up a lot of extra curricular consulting work so that if the worst does happen, there wont be much of a gap between finishing up where he is and moving forward with other projects.

Our biggest problem are my spending habits. With that in mind, I'll be the one who really needs to change my ways as the person who generally manages our budget. I'll have to stop 'going shopping' and impulse buying and start writing out lists and sticking to them. I've already got plans to build a decent sized vege garden so I'll just up the ante a bit on that. We wont really be able to afford to buy organic veges (or any veges for that matter. They're ridiculously expensive here atm) so that will help. I'll also do more home baking and less shop buying. No more buying clothes from Myer and DJ's and more thriftshopping.

I can always go out and get a part time job. I do have a lot of skills in sales (believe it or not) and am willing to work on commission, so I doubt I'd have much trouble getting work, even if I have to sell insurance.

I feel very confident that Dazza will be able to take care of our income though. All I have to do is manage our outgoings with a much stricter hand.

ETA: and if worse comes to worst, I could always murder him. He's worth a fair bit to me dead. :D

You know, I keep reading about people going all Survivor Man and disaster-preparedness and all that... but I really have a hard time imagining how such a scenario could come about. I mean, individually, the worst that can happen is a layoff followed by eviction, and you end up homeless. Granted, being homeless certainly sucks, but you still have restaurants, the YMCA, the public library--i.e., places you can go to get heat and running water for a few hours, places you can buy a snack with a couple bucks. It's far from post-apocalyptic. Even if shocking numbers of people are homeless, if the streets become dangerous as more are willing to attack strangers and break into homes for food and supplies, where is the step that leads to the general loss of running water or electricity? At what point is food unavailable, as opposed to just unaffordable for individuals with no money? About the only way I can see it happening is if the flow of oil just stops dead, and we simply can't transport the food from the farms to the houses anymore... but is that really what people are thinking is going to happen?

I don't think like that, but my Dad does. He's obsessed with doomsday prophesies. He's pretty self sufficient anyway where he is, so if worse really did come to the worst we'd probably just pool our resources with him and move to the farm.

Anyone for a mango?

I wish I had the ability to do some of the stuff you dad has done but I don't own enough property to do it at this time. I will someday. I am not caught up in the doomsday stuff so much as I just want to live off the grid as much as possible, or at least have the ability to do it if I need to.

Back to the original topic. We are concentrating on becoming debt free as much as possible. Paying off everything we can. We are definately spending less, much less this year. We are going to start to pay more into our mortgage this year each month and hopefully have the house paid off in 5 years. We refinanced to a 15 year mortgage and only have 9 years left on it. It is unlikely that we will go on a big family vacation next year, we usually rent a house on the beach in Fla. We are directing more money into savings and investments, buying while the market is down. Job wise, I am in one of the most secure fields there is at the moment but that can all change with a revamping of the health care industry under Obama. So who really knows what the future holds. We are going to keep more money at home that is for sure.

There is a whiff of Y2K fear in the air and we can't help but pick up on it, although we do not harbor fears for his job. But we are paying off the car loan faster (already way ahead but we want to cut out every bill possible) and set up an automatic savings allotment beyond the 401K and other investments. I won't cut back on quality food and care for the pets, nor occasional lunches out for us, but dinner is more often here. :( I strongly believe and live by the saying, If you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a hyacinth for the soul. My hyacinth next year is a first trip to Paris, France (hope!), so I have a goal that makes it easier to make changes. I did Christmas shopping using, for the most part, points from the credit cards. And my preference is to live minimally so there are not that many corners to cut, or lower settings for the thermostat, or new clothes to not buy. And I found a generic alternative to the brand name (with no generic) medicine - from $50/month to $3. Yeah!

We're going to be debt free soon if all goes to plan. So much of this recession business a total head game that I'm reluctant to reduce our spending for fear of being part of the problem. I wonder if a lot of businesses jumped the gun on layoffs in November, being more in love with the appearance of seriousness than keeping their workforce happy.

What is your game plan for the next 5-10 years
 

In light of the current correction, layoff, long emergency, global catastrophe, economic meltdown. who is formulating a game plan and what is it? Does it involve stockpiling, alternative living strategies, business as usual?

http://www.cellar.org/showpost.php?p...postcount=2971

muck it out as I go along, as usual.

Here's a useful blog post from Get Rich Slowly. Common sense, really, but this person says:

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/20...oure-laid-off/

oops, now we have 2 threads

Maybe a mod can delete mine since it has fewer replies. Or merge them

My wife and I will be 100% debt free as of next month. From this point we'll be putting all the money we were spending on car payments, credit card payments, student loan payments, etc. and put it into the bank to save up 6 months worth of our bills and a down payment for a house. We'll also be trying to buy up some stocks and mutual funds while they are on sale.

Merged.

I'm feeling a little odd about this recession. We've been immune to the effects so far, and we're positioned to stay immune for a while.

We looked at buying a home a several years back, and weren't willing to do the insane mortgages that buying in LA required. As a result, we have no crazy mortgage, and we're not locked into a property that's losing value by the day.

About a year and a half ago, we started looking at buying again, in earnest. As a result, we moved a huge chunk of our down payment money out of the stock market and into regular old savings, expecting to need quick access to it, and unwilling to risk losing it in case of a crash.

Because we were actively in the housing market, we felt the first rumblings of the tightening credit crunch, and extrapolated out that if mortgages started seizing up, the housing market market and other credit-dependent industries would start getting bad. We moved our remaining investments into bear-market stocks and funds.

I'm not saying all that to sound smug. I'm saying it because it's shifted my mindset about the recession. If things get kind of bad, or every pretty bad, we'll be OK for a while. We could live off of savings for about 12 months at our current level of expenses, and up to 2 years if we went into bunker mode. A lot of that is hold-over from the mindset of my early professional career, when jobs were few and far between, and we saved every penny to cover the months where I wasn't making much.

Because my family is isolated from the "pretty bad" scenario, I've be obsessing over the "worst case" scenario. I've been consumed by thoughts of what it would take for the economy to collapse to the point where I'm begging on a street corner, or my kids go to bed crying from hunger.

It's made me realize that there's little I wouldn't do to prevent that from happening. Having a family changes your perspective. There was I time when I would have scoffed at "selling out" and doing something other than music for a living.

Now, if I suddenly woke up and there were no more work for me in the music industry, if my university started axing faculty and I were kicked out, I would do anything to put food on the table and to keep a roof over the heads of my wife and kids. Anything. Stand on a corner dancing and holding a sign advertising sub sandwiches? Sure. Work the night-shift on a janitorial crew? OK. Day laborer? If I could get my Spanish back up to par. Begging? Yes.

My dignity comes from seeing my kids warm and fed. Anything that I have to do to accomplish that borrows its dignity from their well-being.

Actually, so far the turmoil has been good for us too. With interest rates coming down so much over here, it's allowing us at least another $500/month to pay off the debt compared to 6 months ago when everyone started foreclosing because they couldn't pay the high interest rates on their mortgage. I think we'll probably be fine too unless Dazza somehow loses all ability to create an income.

Badger and I make about the same salary, and we've always tried to live within one of our incomes. It came in real handy when he took a year and a half off to go back to school for his Master's.
We're both in the same industry, so there is some downside to that lack of diversification. Though at least we are with different employers now! We used to be in the same group, same department, same company.

Funny how actually having children changes your perspective about a lot of things in life isn't it?

Now in the Hall of Fame.

I am trying to be better at paying my rent on time and in full. My landlords are wonderfully understanding, but I know they struggle at times.

I am unfortunately going further into debt in some ways: student loan plus my overdraft is getting bigger. I just increased it to £1,500 from £1,100. But, I am really getting a handle on my other debts. The two credit card debts that went to debt collectors have been halved. Brought down from £1,100 and £1,200 to £580 and £650. It's taken me nearly three years to do it though. I was offered the choice recently of doropping the levels of my payments in line with the reduced balance, and chose not to. I'll keep paying at that rate in the hope I will eventually pay the bastards off!

I can probably economise a little more. I am not careful with money, I live day to day, but I am trying to waste less food and eat before I go to uni, instead of buying food on campus.

Other than the possibility of my landlords getting into trouble with their buy to let mortgages, I can't see the recession having that much of a direct effect on me. Indirectly, I may be affected if it hits members of my family; my brother's line of work might be affected by recession. The only potential direct effect would be if the bank called in my overdraft suddenly...in which case I am right royally screwed:P

So far, I haven't felt any bad effects.
The Yen I brought back from Japan (in cash) is worth 60% more than it was when I earned it. I expect to change it soon.
My job is teaching international, and mostly Chinese, students. A global recession could see demand in China taper off, but due to the fall in the AU$, we should pull students who might otherwise have gone to the USA.
I have no kids, no mortgage, and am saving. Except that I keep spending on stuff for my new home, but I'm just doing that to help the global economy ;) .

Right now, things are still active at work. Clients are scrutinizing bills more, but I think they are still paying them. We have reduced our number of temporary employees through attrition. Just haven't brought in any new temps as the old projects dry up. Keeping our own staff busy instead.

I've been at the same law firm for 17 years, and they have never laid anyone off during that time. I imagine that if layoffs start, I've got enough seniority that I'd be one of the last to go. However, If they decide that they want to get rid of the dead wood, as middle management, I may be one of the first to go. They might just invent a reason to fire me. That would be the worse case scenario.

If that happened, I'd try to get any job I could. If I needed to, I'd dip into my 401K to try to get by. Currently, there's enough in there to last for about 3 years.

We live frugally as it is, so not too much room for easy belt tightening for us. This year, we have dialed back Christmas considerably. We were never crazy spenders at Christmas, but we're spending even less this year.

One of the big bosses at Dazza work has started putting the word about that if anyone wants to take unpaid leave it'll be approved.

Doesn't sound too great for them really.

Edit: and also I found out this morning that they don't take overtime into account when calculating leave time owed. That really pissed me off knowing how much overtime D does on a regular basis...specially when he only gets paid overtime loading if he's working on 'billable hours'.

One head rolled at work today. I have no idea what to make of it. We got a memo last week explaining how well positioned we are and how with a little belt tightening we'd be keeping our numbers constant.

He must have been wearing his trousers much too high.

*snorts coffee all over keyboard*

Damn you ZenGum

It turns out that my plans to disrupt the economy and to plan for economic disruption are about the same.

Despite how good of an idea the commercials make it seem, I am not buying my boyfriend a Lexus this Christmas.

(I'm trying very, very hard to both pay off my remaining debt, save, and stock up on shelf-stable items to see me through the collapse.)

Today I met with some clients who I've had for years. Throughout this time I've known I had only a VERY small portion of their assets because their other advisor was some brother's/cousin's/college roommate's/exwife's neighbor. Eh, it's just part of the gig.

Anyway, we were going over their money with me which they are satisfied with. They are extremely dissatisfied with the rest of their portfolio which I again gave some suggestions for. We're talking 40% losses at this point. I made my case, they made the right sounds. This should be a slam dunk. Just pull out the pen, make some scratches and get on the path to recovery.

Then they started talking about this video "the secret". they completely lost me while they were churning through this bullshit, but by the end of it they'd convinced themselves they didn't need to change their investments - just their attitudes. WTF?!? Being smiley and cheerful won't make shitty stocks bounce folks.

People are nuts.:headshake

If by "nuts" you mean "gullible" and "stupid" then yes, people are nuts.

I remember seeing signs on the side of the road promoting that movie, but I didn't know it was something someone would take seriously.

What movie? :confused:

Shawnee Does Dallas?

edit: sheesh I am a MORON today. Nevermind.

Don't tell Mrs Dallas. Sleeve you naughty boy.

uh, the movie "The Secret".

I was thinking it was a book. Shows how much attention I pay to that crap.

OH, sorry Mrs Dallas...I meant nothing by it. :redface:

Ahhh "The Secret" that book/video/whatever needs a thread of its own.

It's also on CD rom. ;)

My plan for economic disruption is to continue to pay my bills, as close to on time as possible. I figure this will confuse things to the extent that the entire world will grind to a financial halt.

What? It has already? Whoops. Sorry.

Don't worry, everybody. The Secret is the answer. You know, if you go to The Secret website, there's a place where you can print out this fake check, and fill in the amount that you want to have the Universal Forces of Greedy Goodness give you, and you just hang it where you will look at it every morning and you'll get what you asked for. Just so long as you don't have any doubts whatsoever, because that will, like, make these negative attachments, and then you'll just stay in your same, old, unenlightened rut.

Isn't that pretty much word-for-word what got us into this mess?

My brother-in-law lost his IT support job last Friday. The whole IT department at his mid-sized company was let go.

He had been through the layoff process once before (in 2003) and he worked with a recruiting agency to get the very good job he just lost. He called the agency back, and they hooked him up with an interview, "something to get you through the new year".

He had an interview the same day he got laid off, got the job, started on Monday. It's a pay-cut, but he's still interviewing for a better position. He does clean up very well, and is rather extroverted for an IT guy. Just sayin'.

His wife (my husband's sister) doesn't work, and they have a 13 month old baby.

I am so relieved. But I am waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Cue chaos in 99, 98, 97, 96 ....

Heh yeah. To spreadsheeting upper management, IT looks like nothing but a big drain of funds.

"Those assholes don't do anything but yell at us when our PCs break! They don't sell anything, they don't have direct contact with any of our products or any of our customers, yet for some reason they make big bucks. Screw them!"

One year later

"Oh no! The IT outsourcing company raised the price again, now that we're dependent on them, and now it looks like they are sending us their shittiest people! What can we do? We'll have to hire expensive contractors to get our quality back up!"

One year later

"Thank you for coming to the company meeting. We have just sold the company to Inglomco. They think they will see cost savings by rolling our IT into theirs."

Will anyone be consulting the Ouija board to decide the best path?:rolleyes:

Was that sarcasm? I'm never sure.

Yes, kinda. I was testing for Alzheimer's, or whatever that was, that uses sarcasm as a dowsing tool to diagnose. Oh, wait! :)

Do you have dementia?

What does irony indicate?

A lack of wrinkles.