What have you given up because of the economy?
 

I given up driving the PORSCHE and LOTUS so I don't need to buy insurance for them.

Gave up our COSTCO membership.

We stop going out to restaurants except on Tuesday night when it is $1.00 Happy Meal night at McDonald.

We just pulled the plug on our DirecTv account. Daughter wasn't very happy because now she can't WIC after school.

No ski vacation plan for this season.

Probably no summer vacation.

WIC?

Selling the 944, but I'm not at a point in my life where I can afford to bring it where I want it to be.

Close to $100,000 in taxes.

I think that's more than enough but apparently the Democratic leadership has plans to redistibute even more of my money.

Everything but the absolute necessities.

What's a vacation?

Watchin I Carly, it's a Disney show.

That were you go and spend a huge amount of cash to get away from work, but since I'm part of the 2.6 million people that are unemployed I'm on vacation every day.

small changes:

pack my lunches, and we only eat out one day per week. usually on friday.
i quit buying books, and got a library card. (who knew that my local library is full of cute librarians, with glasses and that tina fey thing going on)

i vaporized my car mods budget. nothing new. i gave up using my credit card. i save up cash for purchases. if i still want it, when i have the money is saved up, then i buy it. i gave up some annual hunting trips with my brother.

we plan on paying for her schooling without loans. that is the rub.

I've given up my childhood dream of a highly-leveraged real estate empire.

Doing lines of coke off hookers' asses. Well, actually I've just cut back on it some.

In all seriousness, no more ANYTHING other than bills and necessities. No new purchases other than necessities. Selling a bunch of crap too. And moving the F out of Kalifornia. That'll help a lot.

About half my net worth.

Wow, you guys south of the 29th really do seem to have it worse than us. I've read that in the news, but this puts a bit closer of a perspective on it.

Can't say we're really doing much different, but our belts were already tightened last year when my wife went on maternity leave, so she's down at half pay for a year. We of course saw that coming and prepared for it. A few less really expensive dinners out and a few less of the really expensive 911 goodies (though I'm picking up a replacement motor next week). But in some ways now is the time to be buying the big ticket items, because prices are awesome. We just got back from Disney world 2 weeks ago - $3k (cdn) for 3 plane tickets, accomodations, park passes (kids were free) and meal plans. You can't beat that.

I make a living financing and selling used cars, and guess which industry is started to boom right now. Yep. I'm not in any way counting my chickens before they hatch, but we're expanding right now and trying to take advantage of this massive shift away from new car dealerships. The biggest question mark is the massive loss of manufacturing jobs in Ontario, because many of our customers are in that field. However that's been going on far longer than this recession, and we're still getting the payments in.

:eek: Is that on paper, or "real"? What I mean is, is that in investments that are likely to recover if you sit tight?

>I given up driving the PORSCHE and LOTUS so I don't need to buy insurance for them.

Have you heard of Hagerty? If you got a relatively modern primary car (which your sig indicates you do, although it may be <10y old, can't remember), you can probably insure the lotus x2 and the porsche for $250 a year !

Yeah, its just on paper.... I did a big refinance thing last fall when I bought a new developement property in town here; man that looked sooooo good on paper; couldn't do that today though, and get away with it.

It's all recoverable and I can afford to wait it out; I see it as just being "on sale" at the moment. Ha! Back to the basics..... "Cash Flow" baby!

Glad to hear it's going good for you!
I'm working hard at making this my best year ever.

At Casa de Lane we've given up or reduced the following:

Pulled insurance from all but 3 cars (except for fire/theft). Saved $120/month
Dumped 1 cell phone - $60 a month
Sold my Mazda6 - $400 a month
Home brewed coffee instead of $$$ kioss - $50 a month
Cancelled magazine subscriptions/stop paper when I'm on travel - $40 a month
Consolidated 3 high interest credit cards to 1 fixed rate loan. $100 a month (plus
about 3 years less payments...)
Payed off (or consolidated) and closed a total of 7 credit cards. Yeah I know FICO
who freakin' cares? FICO me when everything's paid off in two years...
Other than socks and underwear, haven't bought a new item of clothing in more
than a year. Buying used at ebay, craigslist or thriftshops.
Shop for food at discount, farmer's markets, etc., instead of Safeway/Albertsons.
How much does that save? Try close to $300 a month for the family.

We'll probably send Steve's Jeep down the road as well ($550 a month). If we could sell this house, we could move into our rental and everything would be a piece of cake. I think we can pretty much figure this house won't sell though so cutting the costs is the pre-emptive contigency plan.

I've been much much worse off than this though. Compared to past bad times, this is a walk in a flower strewn garden. I can handle it, in fact, I know perfectly well it could get a whole bunch worse and I could still handle it. So can alot of other people.
angela

I haven't cut back on anything, in fact I'm spending as much as I can to help things along!

Any alternatives to Hagerty? I checked their website and see

"Driver Eligibility and Driving History
Generally, one or two minor traffic violations or accidents are acceptable. We are not able to offer coverage to drivers with a major infraction within the past 3-6 years, such as an alcohol-related offense, reckless driving or an excessive speed violation.* Applicants must have 5 or more years driving experience in the following states: LA, MA, NM, NC, VA and WA. All household driver’s records are subject to review by an underwriter."

Also the "What Qualifies" part of their website doesn't make it sound like most of our Porsches would qualify.

Sure, try SNEED, or Leland West. There is also Grundy but they screwed a friend on his 356 claim so I would not recommend them. My 83 Sc qualified, even though it's not on their policy anymore as I chose to drive it more often...

Thanks, I'm looking at Leland West's website. Agreed value policies for <5K miles/yr. Jeez, my 911 gets driven maybe 6 months of the year, maybe 1 day every couple weeks.

http://lelandwest.com/index.cfm

Checking out the online quote engine now. What value would you put on a 1989 3.2 Carrera coupe?

ok. i have also given up trying to sneak stuff past my wife. i respect her anxiety, and dont argue about money EVER. she lost her job, and feels horrible about it. i wont do anything to hurt her feelings when she is down. she put me on a budget, i will do what i can to meet it.

now when she gets a new gig...i am going on an african safari..hehe.