How The Recession Has Affected Me (Debt Bloggers Network Group Writing Project)
You guys and gals know that I am a part of the recently formed Debt Bloggers Network. We strive to share our personal stories of dealing with debt in order to help others not make the same mistakes that we did.
Every month we write on a group topic and the topic for the month of November is *The Recession*.
Whether you want to want to call it a recession or not, the recent trends in the economy have pointed to some bad financial times for almost everyone.
I have had to do a few things to make sure I am on the right financial track in light of what has been happening lately.
Gas
Even though gas prices have been coming down lately I still continue to practice the various hypermiling techniques that I did in the past. I still drive slowly and take my foot off the gas when I am approaching a red light so that I can coast to a stop instead of having to use my brakes. This has led me to have a consistently high gas mileage per gallon of gas that I buy.
I used to go to Walmart three (or four or five) times a week but I cut that down to my one essential trip on Sundays.
I used to drive out of town about twice a month and this has been cut down to once a month. I have been saving money on gas because I do not use as much as I used to, even though the price is now much lower.
Credit
I still continue to pay my credit cards to the best of my ability. I currently pay $10 more than the minimum on all cards except for the card that is the focus of my snowball. This card gets a bit of extra money sent to it as a snowflake payment during the month. This extra payments is in an effort to reduce the amount of debt that I still have left on the card so that I can reduce my total debt.
Budget
I have had to tweak my budget a little bit to make the best use of my money. In my food budget for example I usually had $25 designated as dining out money and this was under a separate category in my excel spreadsheet.
I would normally use this money to get a 555 special once a month from Dominos and the pizza would last me an entire week (eating pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner).
Lately I have decided to use that money to get Subway instead of pizza. I have to drive out to Subway to get the food and it is very difficult to get out of the parking lot and back onto the main road. As a result, I have only gone to Subway once for the month and spent $5.41 on dining out.
I will not be going back for the rest of the month because of the difficulty I have in navigating their horrible parking lot so I have reduced my spending on dining out.
I also used to make sure that I got a package of sugar cookies (they taste GREAT frozen!!!) as part of my regular grocery budget. Because of the tight financial times I have removed that from my budget (also a great way to help me lose some weight) and have resorted to spending less of my grocery budget on silly snacks.
Future plans
I wanted to go back to school (to work on a PhD) next year but I am going to have to put that off for a little longer. I am going to work for about three more years before I reconsider going back to school because right now it is just not going to be worth it.
Those are just a few of the things that I have really thought about because of the recession right now. What are some of the ways the recession has affected you?
If you have a post about the ways the recession has affected you, please consider submitting it to the group writing project by sending an email to groupwritingproject [at] debtbloggersnetwork [dot] com. Include the following information in your email: your name, the link to your post, trackback link, and the title of your post.
More Articles About the Recession
If you’d like to participate in this group writing project, and get a bunch of free links to your site, read the announcement here.
Here are links to all those who’ve participated so far:
- And I Thought I Was Immune from the Recession
- How To Survive The Collapse of The American Empire
- How Will The Economy Impact Your Business?
Popularity: 1% [?]
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15 Responses to “How The Recession Has Affected Me (Debt Bloggers Network Group Writing Project)”
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Sounds like you have a nice system in place. The lower gas prices have been huge savings for everyone lately. I’m with you on cutting down trips to the supermarket to once a week. I try to map out my errands to maximize the most out of my drive trips.
Craig
@ Craig
I just can’t seem to help wanting to go to Walmart. It is about a mile away from where I live…and even though I don’t need anything I just want to go so I can:
* smell candles
* play with toys
* look at books.
Crazy huh?
That’s not crazy. I live near a Borders and Best Buy and when I’m bored on the weekends I’ll head over to those stores to kill 30 mins or so. And even though sometimes I have no need for something, I find myself buying a book or DVD.
Craig
You have it well planned out. I have recently been faced with all the financial responsibilities of our home and business. I must say that I have gotten some great ideas. Currently, I have shut down our Satellite svc, and only using local cable. Saving money there.
So, now my site I recently started should be renamed…lol ….. I am learning more from blogs than in College 
@ Craig
I guess we are just two nuts who like to wander around businesses and waste time. I hope we don’t get picked up for loitering.
I agree with Criag there,The lower gas prices have been huge savings for everyone lately.I came across the hypermilling blog and tried most of his suggestions which saved me a few bucks. You got a great system here LuLu. It did affected me in a number of ways, had to take up two jobs,cut down on groceries a whole lot.Hope the next year will be different.08 has been a tough one for me & the kids.
I guess I’m a nut also because I feel like a bookstore junkie somedays. Hanging out in a bookstore has been one of my favorite past times for years. Now that the gas is a bit cheaper I’m trying my best to bank the savings.
It’s great to see you have stopped and thought about how it has affected you. Many people would not have given it a second thought.
Heh, the “recession”….
Gas here is down to $1.86 a gallon last I saw (about a week ago). Certainly a lot cheaper than it was back at the end of the summer.
I don’t understand your reasoning with paying your credit cards in the fashion that you are doing. Why pay $10 more than the minimum on each card? Why not take that extra $10 per card, and put it all towards your snowball on a single card? This seems like a much more efficient system and would help the snowball roll much faster (well, depending on how many total cards you are paying that $10 extra on).
Budgeting can actually be quite fun (how weird is that!). This month, I told myself I was going to spend next to nothing all month and so far, its working. It’s been very motivating to see my total money spent at such a low number.
So how has the “recession” affected me? It hasn’t at all, other than giving me something to blog about and seemingly upset people (oops? heh). I still have fun and do most everything I want to do (attend hockey games, UFC fight night parties, etc…). I still hold firm to my belief that the economy is 90% between your ears – the choices you make affect your finances directly.
Shawn Knight’s last blog post..Ole Miss Wins 31 – 13
@ Shawn
I pay $10 more than the minimum because those cards are interest bearing and paying only the minimum would not allow for interest so the balances would be going up.
Hrm… if you paid only the minimum, those cards would only increase in balance… forever?
Don’t guess I’ve ever seen that happen. Figured if you paid the minimum, sure interest would negate most of that payment, but your balance wouldn’t actually still go up…
Shawn Knight’s last blog post..Ole Miss Wins 31 – 13
It’ll go up and up and up. That’s the way the big credit card companies work. Don’t deceive yourself; they aren’t there to help you but to enslave you. Seriously.