Has the recession hit you?

[OneThirty8]

b.t.w. roofus i would choose option 3 look for a job. i know this will be a shock to you, but there are jobs out there, maybe not what you would like to do, but i have no sympathy for you or anyone else bitching if you don't pursue other options.

Yeah... um, so when you lose a high-paying job, and the job market for people with your skill set is shrinking, you're supposed to take a job flipping burgers so you still get evicted when you can't make rent? That's not really a very promising option. You got something better?

[Eviltaco64X]

The staff was almost always useless.

This is true. I remember going in there to buy a hard drive and walking past 4 employees who were playing Goldeneye in an emulator on a display computer.

[Code-Red]

I got the pink slip in August of last year. I've been laid off more times than I can count. I'd elaborate, but I'd probably get pretty worked up. I just try to live life as it comes now.

Unfortunately for our generation, there is no such thing as job security anymore.

[SuperMegatron]

I got lucky. I just landed a new job. Its making less at 33k, but we are now able to survive. The downside of this is a nice 12 hour work day and I had to promise to stop seeking other jobs.

[Specially Cork]

I got lucky. I just landed a new job. Its making less at 33k, but we are now able to survive. The downside of this is a nice 12 hour work day and I had to promise to stop seeking other jobs.

I do a couple of 12-hour workdays and really enjoy it. It leaves me working 4-5 hour afternoons/weekends for my other 3 days. I admit it's very tiring, but getting to sleep in late 5 days a week and still work full-time is worth it.

[Lartrak]

I got lucky. I just landed a new job. Its making less at 33k, but we are now able to survive. The downside of this is a nice 12 hour work day and I had to promise to stop seeking other jobs.

I do a couple of 12-hour workdays and really enjoy it. It leaves me working 4-5 hour afternoons/weekends for my other 3 days. I admit it's very tiring, but getting to sleep in late 5 days a week and still work full-time is worth it.

Well, Mega might be working 12 hour days 5 days a week - which sucks hard. But yeah, I had an old job where some people worked three 12s and then a four hour shift, which meant they got 3.5 day weekends every week. They said it was tiring, but worth it.

[adventure_of_link]

if anything I liked the idea of 10 and 12 hour shifts. gives me 3-4 days to do whatever the heck I wanted to do.

Unfortunately for our generation, there is no such thing as job security anymore.

Unless you happen to be over 60

apparently you people don't understand the concept of looking for a job.

Apparently you don't understand the concept of grocery stores, landlords, creditors et. al. still expecting to get paid while you're looking for a job.

Hate to say this, but apparently you people understand the concept of trying to live above your means, which is how we landed in this recession in the first place.

[Ex-Cyber]

Hate to say this, but apparently you people understand the concept of trying to live above your means, which is how we landed in this recession in the first place.

Is it really "living above your means" when your means change drastically with little warning? Should we all live 10 to a crappy apartment and eat nothing but ramen because one day we might be laid off?

[adventure_of_link]

Hate to say this, but apparently you people understand the concept of trying to live above your means, which is how we landed in this recession in the first place.

Is it really "living above your means" when your means change drastically with little warning? Should we all live 10 to a crappy apartment and eat nothing but ramen because one day we might be laid off?

I was merely trying to make a point that because people were trying to live above their means (getting big huge houses when they don't need them, driving uberexpensive cars (which for the most part people don't need em either), and making other huge investments, then all of a sudden declaring bankruptcy or otherwise not paying the bills) is what drove us into the recession.

[Ex-Cyber]

Hate to say this, but apparently you people understand the concept of trying to live above your means, which is how we landed in this recession in the first place.

Is it really "living above your means" when your means change drastically with little warning? Should we all live 10 to a crappy apartment and eat nothing but ramen because one day we might be laid off?

I was merely trying to make a point that because people were trying to live above their means (getting big huge houses when they don't need them, driving uberexpensive cars (which for the most part people don't need em either), and making other huge investments, then all of a sudden declaring bankruptcy or otherwise not paying the bills) is what drove us into the recession.

While that's a real problem, I don't think it was a major cause of the current downturn (though it was probably a catalyst). I'm not a financial expert, but here's my rather limited and simplified understanding of it: a lot of banks were making loans that they shouldn't have because they knew those loans could be bundled up into inscrutable financial instruments that could then be sold off to others because there were ostensibly enough good loans in the bundle to offset the risk of the bad ones. Since the people giving out the loans were isolated from the risk of bad loans, they had limited incentive to lend responsibly (say what you want about the customers, but the banks are supposed to be money experts). Investment firms then came up with a way to essentially invest money in only the bad loans at an absurdly high return rate. All the while, they basically pretended that the bad loans were as safe as the overall bundles and made a huge amount of money by (indirectly) buying and selling loans that had no realistic prospect of being repaid. However, this "money" never had any backing, and the system collapsed when there was a surge in defaults and someone finally had to pay up. These loans had been ground up, reconstituted, and repackaged so many times that it was no longer feasible to identify and write off just the bad debt, so any asset and any company that was suspected of being tainted suddenly plummeted in value. Suddenly nobody knew what anything in the financial market was worth, and a lot of money pretty much vanished overnight. This led to a freeze in the credit market and a crash in the stock market, which caused a sudden and prolonged drop in economic activity (otherwise known as a recession).

[AWESOM-O]

Nope. Not one bit. I piss more money away than ever, I paid off most of my debt and my girlfriend and I have excess of around $2000 a month.

[SuperMegatron]

Nope. Not one bit. I piss more money away than ever, I paid off most of my debt and my girlfriend and I have excess of around $2000 a month.

Me and the old lady now have a good deal of excess money too, though we got it by extreme budgeting. We are saving every cent just in case one of us loses our job again.

[AWESOM-O]

Nope. Not one bit. I piss more money away than ever, I paid off most of my debt and my girlfriend and I have excess of around $2000 a month.

Me and the old lady now have a good deal of excess money too, though we got it by extreme budgeting. We are saving every cent just in case one of us loses our job again.

I don't budget at all.

[SuperMegatron]

I don't budget at all.

We didn't either and we both lost our jobs. We wary with your money. Save every cent now and ride out the recession with a saving account just in case. Buying anything now is crazy, although I guess people like you are the ones keeping the economy moving.

[AWESOM-O]

I don't budget at all.

We didn't either and we both lost our jobs. We wary with your money. Save every cent now and ride out the recession with a saving account just in case. Buying anything now is crazy, although I guess people like you are the ones keeping the economy moving.

I do save. I save around $2000 a month. That's the excess after our bills and pissing money away.

[Kevin Beckman]

So you're a banking executive.

[Specially Cork]

So you're a banking executive.

Or a troll.

[Kevin Beckman]

I sure hope so. I don't even make $2000 a month.

[DaMadFiddler]

I sure hope so. I don't even make $2000 a month.

A lot of it depends on outside factors such as where you live, too. For example, I take home about $2400 a month, but there are a few caveats:

1. I live in California. Everything is bloody expensive here. My apartment is considered a really good deal for my area, and it's a tiny studio for $850. Even a 1-bedroom apartment would run me anywhere from $1100-$1500 a month.

2. My job is only 11 months a year, so averaged out, my "actual" income for the year is a bit less.

3. My job is a very senior position (I'm an assistant to the school district's Director of Curriculum), something that you usually spend 5 or 10 years working your way up to. I just happened to get in when they had a vacancy without any interested internal candidates, and my education and prior experience were just the right fit to convince them I could handle it without the usual background experience.

That aside, my job is one of the many thousands of jobs that will be cut in California this year as a result of this state's disgusting budget management. If my girlfriend weren't still in college here, I'd seriously consider moving elsewhere.

[Kevin Beckman]

Well $1200 a month for me in Massachusetts with a wife and kid. The rent alone takes up half that and my landlord is raising my rent next month. My hours were gonna get cut in half this week but we picked up on orders.