by @BarryRafkind in Economy & Poverty
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Last Modified on October 4, 2009 at 9:07 pm
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My wife and I are fortunate enough to have kept our jobs through this Great Recession, but the news is filled with reports of massive layoffs, furloughs, and benefit reductions. Are you still employed? Do you know people who are struggling to find jobs? How are you coping? Are you hopeful that the government stimulus programs will work? Please share your story.
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I’m still employed at my day job, but even that’s sputtering (there’ll be days when no clients send work, so I don’t get any paid hours in). My second income (sunspotdesigns.com) is down to a negligible trickle, and I’m living off of reserves, but hopeful, if only because people are buying houses again, which is supposed to be a definitive sign of improvement.
Meanwhile, I’ve given up drinking and clubbing (except at the fourth Monday pub sing in Waltham: bostonsongsessions.org) and started blowing off Scottish country dance (http://rscdsboston.org/) if there’s paid work in the offing. I make my own bread in a bread machine, and my own soda with a seltzer bottle (although the latter is something I mostly started for environmental reasons). I’m living on the copious hoarded food in the freezer, cooked recreationally back when times were easier, and no longer even open any consumer catalog. And I’ve discovered the wonders of Market Basket! My spending habits have improved greatly, and I hope I don’t get lazy when things pick up.
I read today that Massachusetts has been among the slowest states to deploy its stimulus money, so I do hope those projects get started soon so that there’ll be more money flowing through my day job’s clients (we’re a transcription outsource). My own work is geography-independent (I ship worldwide) so that’ll probably be slower to pick back up.
In the end, my optimism is probably more a product of my personality than of any evidence, but if that’s all I can get, I’ll take it!
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Thanks for sharing your story, Columbine. Do you know when your workload started to decline? How long will your reserves last you? Are you worried about being able to afford your mortgage or rent? Do you have a plan B in case your business does not pick up before your run out of savings? Do you have other strategies to lower your expenses? Do you know of others in similar or worse conditions?
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Well, my story’s a bit odd because summers are always slow at my day job – summer was just DEAD this year, and well into September. It’s picking up again with the school year, and I hope this really is the nadir this time.
I’ve eaten up about half of my old “emergency” account, but really just demoted it to a “to hell with credit cards” account. If I get to a point where I just can’t pay the rent, I can start using the plastic again, or only repay the minimum (right now I’m on a very ambitious schedule of repayment and trying not to use them at all). I always leapfrog them to a “0% until X month promo” when the previous one runs out – there’s a transfer fee, but it’s less than the interest would have been.
Having good accounting software has been VERY helpful! I check everything regularly and make sure I know exactly what’s going on.
Most of my friends are actually salaried professionals, so when their jobs vanish they can actually get by on their unemployment until something else turns up. I think Boston’s been unusually lucky for that sector – high-level sysadmins, biotech, that sort of thing. Without that sort of background, back when I needed flexibility to do my own work, I took a wage job that didn’t have paid vacations or sick time on a hunch that it would outlast the normal jobs, and I lucked out – so far. And I still don’t have to get up early, which never did wonders for my health!
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Hi Columbine, so has business picked up for you like you hoped?
Coincidentally, about a week after I wrote this post, I was told I would be laid off from my job four weeks later. In the intervening weeks, I subjected myself to a dizzying regimen of online job hunting and interviews. Fortunately, the market for software engineering jobs is still quite strong, so I was able to find a position by the end of the 3rd week. I started there on Monday and consider myself to be quite lucky.
I think my lay-off was due mostly to the financial situation of the start-up company I was at, but I’m sure the poor economy was also a significant factor. At least now I can empathize better with the feeling of anxiety unemployed working-class people are experiencing in this recession.
Good luck to all who are looking for a job!
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The day job’s picked up some, which is good because I just burned through the last of my reserves. Now just paying the minimum on the credit cards (Citi just informed me that they’re going to break contract and jack my rate through the ceiling just because they can – that’s getting transferred and the card cancelled). My own business is still slower than a snail stuck in molasses in January. If I can get through the end of the year I’ve got sales events in January and February that are usually helpful, and won’t have to restock much for them.
I’m starting to seek out $1 charities (GBFB coupon at Harvest Co-op, round-up for local shelters at Petco, a particularly good fiddler in the T station) just for the good luck!
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