This Economy.... share your survival!!

[RS1976]

I've avoided the OWS hysteria. Even though its got a pocket here... I don't get involved in marches, protests, I am just a calm observer. However, I have something weighing on me. I loooove guitars, and in the past (99-07) I would buy em, play em, record with em, then sell em to the next fella who would do the same.

 

However this past 18 months saw me going from working as a stagehand in a really good hall, to working in the film industry, to accepted into a major university, to separation.... then... strangely.. homeless and drifting for a time until a room opened up and here I have been for the past 8 months. no drugs or booze was involved in this tale... just bad luck!

 

I've been unable to find secure work, i've delivered flowers & candy, played a few spattering of wedding gigs.. made enough to pay for my room, and gas money, but I ain't exactly able to buy gear.

 

just sharing my experience and I wonder if its hard here... how are ya'll holdin up during these times. if you too are not workin as much these days, hang in there. i believe its gonna get better. how are you makin it?!

[Searcy]

My advice is this....

 

Never use credit. Instead pay for everything you want in cash or with a debit card. Never pay retail. Almost everything I buy is either on clearance or used. I'm 41 and have never owned a new car and never will. There are some acceptations to that rule like underwear and tires. They might be cheap but will cost you more in the long run.

 

I just saw a decent Alvarez acoustic in a pawn shop yesterday for $99. I bet $75 cash would take it home. I saw a nice old Lotus Strat that needed strings and a set up for $59 in another pawn shop. Using cash and the knowledge that that guitar has been hanging there for a year now would drop that price to $49. GoodWill and the Salvation Army have American made Pendelton Shirts for $7 and British made Doc Martins for $5.

 

But being a cheap *** will only take you so far if you have too small an income. You have to be willing to go to where the jobs are. Even if it means going some place strange. That's how this California boy who was raised in Florida ended up in Tennessee.

 

 

 

But start off looking locally. FedEx Ground is trying to hire 20,000 people right now. I'm sure UPS is looking for some help too. I once took a job picking up dogshit in a park for $50 a day. Times are hard to be sure and it's not easy but if you're willing to do it the work is out there.

[Versatile]

A very interesting and timely topic.....

 

You are Not Alone is the order of the day....people who had 'secure' well paid jobs are now insecure and/or without jobs

 

Due to globalisation and aggressive competition, many traditional factory jobs have disappeared(in Europe and the US)

 

The World is in a process of re-invention and adjustment regarding economic policies

 

I am amazed and disappointed as more information is made public about how economies like Greece and Italy borrowed to fund over ambitious social welfare programmes

 

But due to competition, if one country borrows recklessly...others feel obliged to do the same to maintain fiscal parity....

 

It is a fine balance for governments to boost youth employment etc with public funds versus squeezing out borrowing by shedding excess labour...

 

I now use my car 1/4 as much as 2 years ago

 

I shop for the 'Value' specials at the supermarket....and enjoy the process

 

Strangely and mysteriously I find I can manage without sun-dried tomatoes, designer soups and vintage wines

 

It can feel good to dump some of the old false values (written large)

 

Be confident and look after yourselves.....

 

V

 

[krock]

Bing only 18 and a business student I keep seeing the recession as only figures and I loose touch with what it's actually like for those most affected. Best of luck mate

[charlie brown]

"Living Within Your Means." Really Can't afford it, Don't Buy It...you'll be pleasantly surprised,

at how many things you (really) don't "need." This works, even if you are (still) employed,

and will keep you out of financial trouble, more often than not. "Saving,"when and while you can, as well.

We love to blame others, our jobs, the economy, but..."poor planning," and bad habits, are most of the

problem...they're just are more obvious, and acute, in "difficult times!"

 

CB

[milod]

First, this is the worst economic situation overall I've seen in my own life. My own decisions had been toward doing what I wanted and what I considered fun as opposed to what might put money in the bank for the future. Yet friends who had oodles of cash now are facing retirement with none of that left, in homes they no longer can afford and with ongoing expenses that outstretch their means. I hate to think, "I told you so" to those who lived far better for 40 years, but...

 

Yeah, South Dakota for example has very low unemployment in theory, but an $8 an hour job with no bennies is considered "employed." The North Dakota oil patch has oodles of jobs but... I don't know how guys who've been sleeping in their cars are going to survive now that temperatures are well below freezing. Even a place to park a small trailer run around $2,000 or more a month; the elderly are being forced out of apartments because landlords can make far more from oilpatch workers. Where I live, wives and families four hours from the oil patch can live quite nicely, but also as though the working husband is in Afghanistan.

 

My youngest sibling, under 40, has what currently seems a stable job with pretty good cash, but also with increasing expectations to keep it. My younger bro is looking at retirement from law enforcement after 40 years, but also with increasing price tags on everything - and not always having been in the state retirement system.

 

My sis still is working at 64 (although the disgusting woman could pass for 20 years younger), but her husband is retired, lost consulting contracts because of the economy, and has some health issues.

 

Me... I'll keep working as long as I can and a compulsive work ethic probably is my only salvation, 'cuz I can't afford to "retire" in this or any other economy.

 

I dunno. I think "we" have to consider the pyramid scheme of social welfare programs isn't working any more in "western" nations. The expectations of a "good life" owed to us by "government" are being discovered as unrealistic, but "business" is being blamed for consequences of meeting our expectations as allowed and required by "our" governments.

 

Our population is exploding and our quality of life is dropping regardless of "gadgets." Laws to protect the environment from our growing populations makes basic personal transportation double or triple what it cost in adjusted dollars from when I was in my 20s.

 

Again... I dunno. The work ethic has got to trump a lot of things; "we" have to get used to living increasingly as bees in a hive; with increasing populations and stable or diminishing resources "we" also have to get used to living with less. Those who want to live on lawsuits have to give up that game. The "big corporations" some hate so much - I personally loathe their impersonality along with that of "big government" - are part of the result of population explosion along with denial that those populations bring consequences contrary to lifestyle expectations.

 

Frankly I think our days of what we've considered freedom from the time of Clausewitz to today are over. Oh, "we" will consider ourselves "free" living in a beehive with corporate (so-called private and government corporations) ownership, but it will be due to our not knowing better. Life will be longer, but to me, so what?

 

"We" will perhaps return to block parties for entertainment, so our by-then plastic Gibsons and Fenders will still offer a vehicle for some self expression in a world where there will be less schizophrenia but more depression even as among those cultures such as the Hutterites where life is communal.

 

Yeah, I'm cynical and pessimistic. Worse, I saw it coming over 40 years ago. What we see today is a rage against the night, but the target is wrong: It's the old Pogo quote that's the truth, "we have met the enemy and he us us."

 

It's a communal karma all must cope with, and it's hard.

 

How to survive? Start dumping excess baggage, live frugally, work harder than others, expect less of anything other than response from your effort to improve interpersonal relations, and play more guitar.

 

EDIT: Yeah, there's "corporate greed," but it's "us" that made branch managers wealthy (for a while) by cutting expenses, people and paychecks, so retirement fund "owners" and other stockholders would get more returns. And that's "us" who did it collectively.

 

m