We've been fortunate not to have to change anything since the recesion, we've faced neither job loss nor cut wages. But we have reaped the benifits of planning we've done since getting engaged in 2004 (married in '05).
We bought a modest house in need of fixing with 20% down, and have done all the fixing ourselves. We're still underwater on the house (bought at the housing peak...D'oh!) but since we have no plans to move for at least 6 more years, hopefully we can wait it out. Since we had a good down payment, we actually have hope of being able to sell some day and get what we owe on it. Had we done a low or even no down payment, we'd be so far underwater we'd have no chance of being able to move for at least 15 years.
We have no car payment, instead we own both our cars outright and DH does all the repair work to keep them running. For example he just made what would have been at least a $500 if a repair shop did it for only about $100 in parts.
We do have CC debt (not due to cronic monthly overspending but to 3 large purchases, two of which could not be delayed and saved up for) but it's all on low fixed interest rates. Orginally we hoped to have it all paid off by this time next year, but now that I'm expecting our first child, I've set us up on a 2.5 year payment plan instead so we can put more into savings. Since we have no car or student loan debt this doesn't bother me too much, though I look forward to having it gone.
I moved our 401k from stocks into bonds about 9 months ago because I thought the market was way overheated. I did miss out on a lot of the run we had but based on what we've seen the past week, I made the right call I think.
Because I enjoy eating fresh organic veggies I started a much larger veggie garden this year, I should have enough this year to can my own tomato sauce, diced tomatos, and cucumber pickles. While I did it for health reasons and because I enjoy gardening, we should break even on the cost of expanding the garden this year and be ahead next year just from grocery savings.
Because I'm able to work from home, we save about $150 a month in gas and a few hundred a year in work clothes for me. DH is also able to take my car to work instead of his truck, better MPG from that also saves us about another $150 a month in gas.
DH figured out how to "jail break" iPhones so we were able to buy two used iPhones for $140 (total for both) and can use our t-mobile pre-paid sim cards with them, meaning we pay only about $100 a YEAR for the use of two smart phones.
When we do spend, we look for the best deals. Our tv was bought online for 50% off retail because it was refurbished. When our 1st washer went kaput we replaced it with a $75 ebay find, when that went kaput earlier this year we replaced it with a clearanced floor model for more than 50% off retail. I buy all my kitchen gadgets from Kohl's only when I have a 30% off coupon, and only buy new clothes when Penney's has a good sale AND I have a coupon (I can't buy clothing or shoes on clearance as I can NEVER find my size, but I do pretty well on sales).
We aren't perfect, we still spend too much eating out (our Achiles Heal of spending) and we don't have enough in liquid savings (though we are working on that) but good planing and some good luck has put us into a much better situation than we otherwise might be in.
