I would love to stop stressing about the economy

[Tiggeroo]

Dh has maintained his job with some weeks of substantially reduced hours. Whenever it looks like things are getting busy for a few weeks it drops off. I used to work 4 days a week, now I never turn down work. I'd like to try working in some other school district but I'm afraid to risk losing work. Our expenses are up and we have three children college/young adult who are living at home. They are getting hit by it especially hard. They all work hard and pay their bills but have faced hour cuts, pay cuts, etc. This means that dh and I are helping them out a bit here and there and they are home much more of the time as they are being careful about spending any extra money. DH and I need desperately to purchase a new mattress and replace the car. We can afford it but are afraid to do anything do to the things we see going on around us. I know there are many much worst off then us. But I suspect a large portion of the people are like us, experiencing some increased expenses, tiny cuts in income here and there but worst of all a feeling of insecurity. If that sense of security would return even on a small scale many of us would start spending and it would put others back to work. The economy is in my opinion largely mental/emotional and if people feel secure and confident in improvement it will follow.

 

[TinklednPants]

Well housing sales are substantially up this month and the Market (though today was not great) is way, way up over a year ago. So there is certainly reason to be optimistic. Hang in there.

 

[Tiggeroo]

Yep I"m normally optimistic. I will feel better when the winter is over though. Then I could probably relax. Dh is working for a company that has become quite nasty as things downturned. Yet he doesn't want to switch, if he can, and be low man on the totem pole in the bad economy. So every day I'm watching him be unhappy at work and he's usually pretty vocal about it. I'm going back to the wine thread.

 

[Tiggeroo]

If folks like me, generally stable income, fairly low debt level, could feel more confident it could lead to improvement. Not happening though.

 

[comicguy]

The economy is a fickle creature. The more people stop spending the more job losses that occur. The more people spend the more in debt (it seems) as a society we go. There is a fine balance but that balance was not acheived in the 90's or 00's. That's why we have the mess we have today.

I understand the issue of security in regards to the economy, I often feel the same way. But sometimes you just have to do what is best for you at that moment. You should be able to get some good deals on the items you are looking for, so it might be worth "spurlging" now instead of later.

BTW, I am usually an optomistic person, but IMHO the economy is just seeing a slight bump due to all of the deals (Cash for clunker, back to school shopping, lower home prices, and other related deals). Based on what I have read plus looking at historical data, I think we are only about half way through this resession. I hope I am wrong and things improve but it does not seem likely (look at all of the X-Mas deals out already for stores to try to gain market share, because they all know it will be a lean X-Mas this year so they are trying to get those dollars now instead of waiting until after Black Friday)