How’s 2009 Been Treating You So Far?

By Alex in Money & Finance on Jan 31, 2009 at 1:28 pm

So, the first month of 2009 is almost over and it seems that so far the new year has been nothing but bad economic news after bad economic news.

Last week, the folks at the US watched as big companies cut more than 100,000 jobs (with over 70,000 jobs lost on Monday alone), the stock market tumbled, and home prices continued its freefall. Congress played politics over the stimulus package (it passed the House strictly on party line votes) and – surprise – Wall Street continued giving billions in bonuses and perks ($87,784 for a rug, anyone?)

And you know the economy is bad when more people are searching Google for coupons than Britney Spears (via Bo Cowgill).

How’s 2009 been treating you? Did you lose your job? Have trouble making ends meet? What do you think needs to be done to fix the economy? Can the economy be fixed? I’d love to hear from you.

Tags: 2009, economic crisis

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sw
Jan 31st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
my position was eliminated dec 4.
Taylor
Jan 31st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I am losing my company doors will be closed within a week my father lost his two job days ago (a 4350K a year job)we are about to lose our homes cars and all of our belongings. we went from upper class to nothing in the drop of a hat. in about a week me my family and dogs will have nothing. GO 2009!
Joe H
Jan 31st, 2009 at 2:07 pm
My Dad signed off his job of 36 years and it will be gone by March. He’s got a fair amount saved up for now, he’ll be getting a year’s pay which will be used to wipe all of his debts. We’re moving in with his GF, so it’s not so terrible. I’m hoping to get a job or two over the summer and save up for tuition money to go away to college by next year. I think we’ll be okay, just a lot of severe cutbacks will be needed to live.

I trust the heads in DC will stop knocking into eachother and figure this all out soon. I’d expect by early 2011 America will be on it’s feet again. The future is promising, but the wait is awful.
lookas
Jan 31st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
It’s a strong crisis things will go better, but we have to modify our lifestyle, it’s time to understand that we can’t keep growing forever. 1/10 of world population has been living using 9/10 the planets resouces, this can’t last forever
ron
Jan 31st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Twelve friends, and one family member have lost their jobs so far this year.
FIG
Jan 31st, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Its rough huh? Im used to being poor so its no biggie for me I know how to adapt, kinda funny seeing big wigs have to rough it out like the rest of us though.
Christophe
Jan 31st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
business down 5%, margins down 13%.
Ouch.
Bill
Jan 31st, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Lost my job in October and my family lost half there retirement savings. As hard as all this is to take, I welcome the change. It is breathing new life and urgency into a complacent nation. People are realizing that all the Bush policies were designed to enrich and protect those pigs on Wall Street, while everyone else got screwed out of what they worked for years to accumulate.

It’s unfortunate that things had to get this difficult, but the harder the economy falls, the better our safeguards for the future will become. It will get worse, but with Obama in the drivers seat I am confident he will lead us to a more egalitarian and honest society.
neatoman
Jan 31st, 2009 at 3:16 pm
hope. change.

right? :/
Jynxerz
Jan 31st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
My fiance and I are doing okay I think. We had to move out of our apartment and into his sister’s house when he lost his job. I was able to find a job as a cashier and luckily we can pay 90% of our bills on that one income. So we are still juggling a couple of bills. Mainly our car payment and the credit cards. I would have to say I am definitely anti-credit cards now. Mine will be paid off soon and that thing is staying home forever.

For me the most depressing part is we had to cancel our wedding. But I tell myself it will be better to pay for a wedding in a couple years than be burdened with more debt now.

The last thing that is really hard is that he is trying so hard to find work and he is having no luck. It is hard to see a man that you thought of as so strong struggling.

Well, that’s enough of a sob story. Just remember guys, our grandparents and great grandparents went through way worse. We will be fine.
Vim
Jan 31st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
here in the Philippines we’re trying to hang on to whatever means we have in our hands. People are letting go of luxury for necessity.
sam
Jan 31st, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Don’t have a job, can’t get one. Unemployment is already about up.

I’m not much for conspiracy theories, but I’ve heard a few people say that this is planned. The bailouts and bonuses are just squeezing the last wealth available from the dollar and pretty soon we’ll have to be bailed out by a north american union with a new currency.

Like I said, I’m not much for conspiracy theories – but I do find it interesting how quickly the higher ups are grabbing up wealth while the rest of us are about to run out of food.
yosh hash
Jan 31st, 2009 at 3:38 pm
About 5 years ago, I sensed something was amiss. As a construction worker, I was appalled at the level of waste deemed to be “normal”. I quit work and went back to school to become an architect. I’m not saying that I knew this was coming, but I did sense that it couldn’t go on that way.
I am not holding my breath for finding employment, but I am finding a niche in consulting with homeowners to assess their energy efficiency for existing homes, counseling to make smart moves for additions and renovations. It’s looking like my intuition has served me well. Time will tell if this continues.
Rayce
Jan 31st, 2009 at 3:50 pm
My boyfriend got laid off at his job back in September of last year. Unemployment turned him down because he stayed on for a week after the lay offs to train the new person. We appealed and got declined a second time. So how are we supposed to pay an attorney to fight it when WE HAVE NO MONEY!

My job doesn’t pay much. Been here 3 years and my title does not = the job I do. When it came time for my review they pretty much nitpicked every little thing so that I ended up being .01 percent from a promotion. Literally screwed me by leaving out things I had did so that my review % was lowered. Tried to fight it and job just ignores me.

If boyfriend doesn’t have a new job by March 1st, we are losing everything. Our apartment, everything in it, two cars and I have a 16 year old daughter that is home schooled due to medical problems that making going to school difficult sometimes. Tried going to get state assistance but they told me I would have to make $500 less a month to quality for $150 in food stamp assistance?

No idea where we will be in 30 days. Homeless is how it is looking currently.
David Govett
Jan 31st, 2009 at 4:33 pm
You younger readers probably believe that economies always grow, salaries always rise, goods always drop in price (to $0 on the Web), and jobs are always available, even for those who wasted the opportunity given to you during your school years. Any study of history in general and American history in particular will disabuse you of that silly notion. Your parent’s generation had the Carter recession, with double-digit inflation and unemployment. Your grandparents had the Great Depression, when about one-quarter of workers were unemployed and many others under-employed. Reagan pulled us out of the former and the post-WWII boom pulled us out of the latter. Who will save your bacon this time?
Taylor
Jan 31st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
i had to leave a second comment because people noted how the wigs and the hire ups where making more and doing fine as i stated before my business and my fathers that he just got let go from he was in the 1 percentile with his salary and i run and own a million dollar company and we are left with nothing. we went through it in 89 also but this is not just the regular people we are all getting hit we went from luxury to in about a week i am packing up my car and moving cross country with my dogs to live off a friend. i am not sure yet what the other 3 people in my family have set up. we are losing our 2 houses worth over 4 million together a business and everything we own. this has far surpassed conspiracy theory and in six months what our grand parents and great grand parents went through will look like cake (minus mine and the tens of thousands of others whos families lived through the holocaust i would not dare tell any one in my family i have it worse because i did not live through concentration camps.) but that whole part aside this is bad this is real bad and its effecting everyone and is also starting to affect dc. I truly think Obama is the man to fix this but we have a LONG road ahead of hell and i lost everthing over this, my long term boyfriend packed up in one day cause he couldnt deal with my constant stress of trying to keep a failing company open. I cant wait for this to be over but point being. dont think this is a conspiracy against the average man as someone said. we are all in this together right now. i am sitting in a million dollar business as we speak with 100 of thousands of debt and change in my wallet with a bank account so overdrawn its being frozen on monday. we are all fucked!
Obama get working fast!!!!
Alice
Jan 31st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Oddly, my husband and I are doing better now that we ever have. We finally have cash for the luxuries, like a new laptop and camera. I am a housewife and my husband is a software developer. His company makes HR software for medical staffing companies. They’re actually hiring.

The strangest thing in all this is that none of my friends have been affected either. In some ways, I feel sort of bad and guilty that we’re doing so well. On the other hand, we work hard for what we have.

Life sure is strange ..
MacNeill
Jan 31st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I am a 58 yr old Illustrator who has been a self-employed-freelancer for 35 years. My biggest recession was all of 2007 where my income was less than 1/3 of my usual average income. 2008 was good for me and it is still carrying through into 2009 (so far). Some people think that freelancers are the ‘canaries in the coal mine’ ie: the first to suffer at an economic downturn and the first ones to profit during the upswing. I can only hope this holds true and things will return to semi-normal for most everybody else within the near future.
Brent
Jan 31st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
So far, I have had to liquidate all my investments to pay off my bills. I lost My father fired me from his company to scale back costs. I can’t find a job anywhere I look in my area, as everyone is firing off workers to cut costs and not hiring. And I had to move back in with my mother. I am surviving and not starving or anything, but it has been a major disturbance in my life.
david12345
Jan 31st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I’m SUPER! Thanks for asking!
yrnewfriendsam
Jan 31st, 2009 at 5:40 pm
The company I worked for became insolvent on the 20th of Jan. 9 of us lost our jobs. getting money from the british government is like trying to bleed a corpse in the desert!
Aye Chihuahua
Jan 31st, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Business is great. Earnings are up.

My children are great and my wife and I still love one another.
Tanya
Jan 31st, 2009 at 5:55 pm
My husband and I have been fortunate. We are both in the medical field. He is a certified nursing assistant and I am a phlebotomist. Luckily the layoffs haven’t hit us in the medical field yet. He got layed off from his job as a welder last August and was on unemployment until this month when he finished his CNA training. It has been Ok. We are making it. I think it is amusing how everyone was singing Obama’s praises just a week or so ago when he was inaugurated
and now the backlash has begun with his crappy stimulus package that does absolutely nothing for regular people and does nothing for the economy. What a better way to beat America into submission that to take their jobs, money, homes and hopes. You beat people down long enough, you can make them eat any crap you serve.
Cheezwhiz
Jan 31st, 2009 at 6:41 pm
My dad is a doctor and he has to work at THREE places to make ends meet, what with my brother’s college tuition and all these Ponzi schemes. What worse, these bonuses are actually helping Long Island, where I live.

http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzwall3112415857jan31,0,3307686.sto ry
EricTheRead
Jan 31st, 2009 at 6:47 pm
We’re doing fine so far, but with two kids approaching working age – one in college, one in high school – we wonder how much longer we’ll have to be supporting them with the job market the way it is.

Things won’t turn around until consumers start consuming again, and that won’t happen until they feel their jobs are secure and their debts are under control. How bailing out the banks, other financial institutions and large manufacturers might help anything is beyond me. So far it seems that a good portion of that money has been used for unjustifiably astronomical salaries and bonuses, luxury acquisitions and office renovations. The problem is that these people don’t ‘need’ more money (despite what they seem to think). Yes, some have gone from $100 million fortunes to $50 million fortunes. So what? Their lifestyles aren’t likely to suffer. We are witnessing an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest. ‘They’ can coast along quite nicely for five or ten years without noticing a thing, meanwhile ‘they’ saddle future generations of lowly waitresses and IT techs with billions of dollars (trillions?) of debt. If the free market was good enough for them on the way up, then it ought to be good enough for them on the way down, too. On the other hand, if they are, as everyone says “too big to fail”, then they must accept the deadening hand of regulation to keep them from recklessly gambling away our collective prosperity and well-being.
zav
Jan 31st, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Not dead yet. Plan on working on that in the future. Flying off to Africa to hang with cute dutch girls, drink copiously, and drop computers off at high schools. If you’ve got any old trash yet functional computers you want to donate to kids in Africa, let me know. I’ll be seeing them next month. Here is the link from last year when we bought a preschool: http://tinyurl.com/5acse5
Email is zavpublic(spamblock) at mac.com. Remove the spamblock. The chilluns thank you, as do I. Best wishes to those who are being hit with the downturn. Fingers are crossed for ya.
Donald Sylvester
Jan 31st, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Now is not the time to spend huge amounts of money we do not have?

Cut payroll taxes next week….gives more cash every paycheck every Friday to over 120M families in the U.S.
Do NOT tax unemployment benefits (nothing like a kick in the groin after a slap in the face).
Cut capital gains tax or eliminate it.

We need stimulus to the economy. Companies won’t hire people until people start spending money. People won’t spend money unless they have it. Giving money ONE time per year is useless. Giving money EVERY WEEK helps start pumping money into the economy.

Give 100% tax break to OUR U.S. oil companies to start looking for all the gas and oil they can find within our borders. They pay well; our efforts will pay off in the long run because the mounting pressure will keep gas prices down (every $10/barrel = $4Billion per month for the U.S.). Invest in the search for available gas and oil NOW.

These are not Republican or Democratic ideas; they are just good business. People will NOT spend money if they don’t have it. People in government do not know how to spend it on the right things. Citizens and companies know what to do.

Make the U.S. attractive for investors again….cut the taxes, make it easy to prosecute those who drive banks into the ground. Foreign investment will never come here if they don’t think someone will go to jail when their money is squandered or stolen.

Donald Sylvester
11402 Wickersham Lane
Houston, Texas 77077
ozoozol
Jan 31st, 2009 at 8:01 pm
My fiancee got laid off from her programming job on the 23rd. We’re relocating this week to a place that costs $1000 less per month to rent.
Non
Jan 31st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Work for yourself, and nobody can ever fire you. Know what is needed, and find your niche.

My husband and I both work for ourselves. He owns a software design firm and I am a painter/sculptor with my own studio. While in theory work should be down, with consumers holding on tighter to their pocketbooks, this hasn’t been the case for us as we both focus on very specialized markets.
Aye Chihuahua
Jan 31st, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Donald Sylvester.

Bravo my man.

Bravo.
atanguay
Jan 31st, 2009 at 9:27 pm
I’m also a freelancer, and so far I am doing ok…mainly by being really proactive and watching for online opportunities.

The only good thing I can say is that I can ignore all those doom and gloom stories about ‘what would you do if you lost your job?’…well, I didn’t lose it, I know where it is, I just don’t go there anymore. yuk yuk.

I am SO incredibly grateful to be busy I can’t really put it into words…when you’re a freelancer and have no business, you’ve got not much to do but sit and worry.

Hope things get better for the people above who are down right now.
Bill
Jan 31st, 2009 at 9:32 pm
sorry Don, but those ARE exactly republican schemes that don’t work and got us into this mess. Will you guys ever wake up? You can’t tax cut your way to prosperity. you have to do it the old fashioned way and create jobs just like FDR did during the great depression with the New Deal. WWII helped, but again that war represented our government putting the population to work by funding jobs via the national debt. This is the same tactic Obama is about to use.
Chris
Jan 31st, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Just got laid off last week after 7 years with my company. Got called into the manager’s office – “your position will be eliminated”, “when?”, “Right now, do you need boxes?”… Ouch… By the way, if anyone has any leads for an office or help desk job (travel ok) in Tampa Bay area, please email me… Chris palmtree(at)bonbon.net
That Guy Ruste
Feb 1st, 2009 at 1:38 am
(rant)

You wanna be free? You wanna be happy? First step is to realize that all you really NEED is food, shelter and companionship. Everything else, is simply a distraction. A means to a manufactured end. Plasma TVs. Covered patios. Ipods. Retirement funds. GPS units. Government bailouts. All handy, in some way or another, sure…because we attach value to them and MAKE them handy. The real problem though, is that we, as a society, have our heads sooo far up our own asses, believeing we need certain “things” in life to be labeled as a “successful individual”, that we’ve forgotten how to survive. To take care of ourselves. We point fingers at the officials. We blame each other, the media and/or video games, whichever is more convenient to attach to the crime at the time. We have ceased to hold our own selves accountable for the good AND the bad in our lives. We have also overloaded ourselves with material desire. Driving a Ferrari does not make one a better person. Making $1,000,000 a year does not make one an enlightened individual. No one cares about their neighbor anymore. We build more fences than doors and until we stop doing that…we will never truly be free. I apologize for the random rant, but none of us have anyone to blame but ourselves. Freedom is a state of mind. So, change your perspective. Recycle your conscience. Stop being taught to chase and learn to LIVE.

(/rant)
LisaL
Feb 1st, 2009 at 2:27 am
So far, my husband and I are doing fine. He works in a VA hospital here so his job is pretty secure.
My brother and his family aren’t doing so well though. He hasn’t been able to find a job in a long time. He’s done temp stuff, but nothing permanent.
His last temp job, they let him go a week before Christmas.
It’s scary what’s happening right now. Every single day, you hear about some other business cutting thousands of jobs.
I really hope things getting better soon.
Aye Chihuahua
Feb 1st, 2009 at 11:24 am
Sorry Bill,

The Great Depression was extended by 7 years because of FDR’s programs.

The lesson from history is that you cannot SPEND your way out of a recession.

A smart combination of aggressive tax cuts and aggressive spending cuts will put immediate money into the pockets of the people. Ultimately, it’s the people who control the economy.

The gov’ts role is to get out of the way and let it function.
ted
Feb 1st, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I like That Guy Ruste’s comment. Live within your means. Do you really need to spend $100K on a fancy wedding? Do you need a television in every room, a wireless network, a fridge that orders its own food?
It’s hard to keep up with the Joneses while the Joneses are struggling to keep up with you.
DOJ
Feb 1st, 2009 at 6:13 pm
No complaints,
except a New Year’s Day hangover
Scooter
Feb 2nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Wife lost her job over the summer. I still have mine. Thankfully, I can afford the house payment and all that but we have to declare bankruptcy because we have CC debt and have no way to pay it. After the house, gas, water and electrical we only have 250 dollars to buy food. It’s not like we are living in an expensive house (lived there for 6 years now). Just have to make cuts. No more going out to eat, etc.
I know i’m better off than some people.
Anise
Feb 2nd, 2009 at 10:16 pm
I am becoming the person I need to be, my real and stable self. I never thought this would be possible no matter how hard I worked, because I didn’t think there could ever be any way to overcome severe trauma and neurological damage. Thank GOD for all the wonderful medications we have now!! I would rather live in a cardboard box on pennies a day than do without any of them (and who knows, it may yet come to that, considering how expensive they are.) My advice is for people with intact brains to count their blessings, because you don’t know what it’s like to have one that has been damaged and to fight for many years for the right treatment. Money problems are so trivial next to that.
mr reality
Mar 28th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I travelled all over the world and saw people living beyond their means. Trying to keep up with the Joneses is never a good idea. Learn to live within your means. If the world was properly maintained and we had any form of leadership, this would have never occured. Time for me to fly !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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