Are you cutting back?

Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 235 Location: 3rd coast

I'm not sure if this belongs on the Politics forum, but it's really a general question, and if it needs to be moved, I'll shift it over there.

Anyway, my brain is a little foggy, but I think last spring/summer I posed this topic when gas prices climbed towards $3.00/gallon.

Now that we've got THAT little number back at the pump, and a recession kicking in, I'm wondering:

What, if anything, are you cutting back on to manage your budget?

USA Today checked in with folks to see if they were altering spending habits.

Last time, I think I wrote that I cut back on Blue Bell ice cream, which is sooo tough to do around here. Tonight, I went to the grocery store and passed the most adorable group of young Girl Scouts stationed at a table. For the first time ever (seriously), I passed on buying GS Cookies. No Thin Mints this year. Sad

Never had a Netflix account. I use my public library to check out DVDs free of charge and I can keep them up to two weeks. The selection isn't as great as services like Netflix, but the catalog is growing. I got the two-disc version of Ron Howard's Apollo 13. Before that, I chanced on the two-disc anniversary edition of All the President's Men.

The public library is a saving grace right now.

Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Posts: 6 Location: PA

I've been getting cheaper, less food. Definitely going out to eat less. Trying to carpool whenever I can. Trying to cut any corner that I can. So for it's been working....the income tax helps!

Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 235 Location: 3rd coast

Getting a refund too. This will help with some emergency medical necessities. No retail store is getting one penny of it.

Welcome to the forum Erica.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

Hi Erica!

Yeah, my little $300 will help catch up some on the behinder I've gotten this past few months, but like HC says, I'm not about to go out and spend it at some retail place just to make some hedge fund billionaire a few bucks richer. It just "might" cover the increases in the prices of bread and milk and energy for a few months but that's about it.

Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 235 Location: 3rd coast

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

In answer to HC's original question, I've changed a lot about the way I buy groceries. I'm afraid my diet is going to have a lot more carbs and a lot less protein now. All those little noodle and rice dinners and such.

I've pretty much given up the idea that I'm simply postponing getting my teeth worked on and realizing that is simply isn't going to happen.

I've pretty much had to park my little car that gets 39.4 mpg highway so people like Edward S. Betterthanme can drive humongous SUVs or be chauffeured around in huge limos on stretched Hummer chassis burning $4 gas

I get my veggies at a canned food outlet here in town for about 15-20 cents a can. Not the best but reasonably edible. Fresh produce, even though I live in the richest agricultural area in terms of production in the country is beyond the reach of many of us on fixed incomes, especially SMALL fixed incomes.

Our county is the LEADING dairy county west of the Mississippi yet I've had to cut back on my consumption of dairy products drastically as milk is pushing $4 a gallon due to 90% of the local product being contracted to large corporate creameries. The local co-ops are all gone now.

Bread is $3.50 and most other commodities have undergone similar increases in the name of shareholder return in recent months.

There are numerous other small adjustments to be made on a monthly basis as the situation seems to worsen every month no matter what kind of bullcrap is coming out of the White House.

I think as long as Mr. Bush hasn't had to tighten his own belt any, he's just like his daddy and simply doesn't care about what the rest of us are having to do.

Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 235 Location: 3rd coast

I had a rent increase in Dec. 2006 so I started my food and entertainment budget adjustments around that time. I've been experimenting with bean dishes. (Co-workers assumed I was a vegetarian; nope, on my wages I really can't afford many meat dishes). A 16 oz. bag of kidney beans would run 59 cents. Now it's up to 75 cents.

It was only a few years ago that a gallon of milk ran $1.79 on sale at my local Krogers.

Now the "sale" price this week is $3.50, nearly 100% price jump. (I had cut back on milk consumption, and now I'm wondering if a calcium deficiency help create my current dental predicament.)

Two years ago during Lent, I would snatch up cans of tuna 3/$1.00. Now cans are priced 69 cents each.

It does help that frozen veggies are still a $1.00 a bag, same as 6 months ago.

I could get a loaf of whole wheat bread for $1.50 this time last year. Cost is now $2.20.

A dozen eggs cost 69 cents two years ago. A year ago the price rose to $1.09. Now I shell out $1.69. I eat more oatmeal for breakfast.

I only drive my car to and from work, and all errands must happen during those commutes.

Since we don't have a state income tax in Texas, each city, county and municipality is heavily dependent on sales taxes (food is not taxed here) and property taxes. Since consumers appear to be cutting back, it's going to be interesting to see how local governments are going to balance the budgets, especially in light of the housing market bust and rising property taxes cutting into homeowner's budgets.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

But the old economy is "robust" and Mr. Bush is acting "robustly" and doesn't see any need for alarm. I'd like to give him a "robust".... ah never mind.

The guy must need a nose bob every night.

Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 235 Location: 3rd coast

Hot damn! Krogers has a gallon of milk "on sale" for $3.00 this week!

I may splurge.

I'm serious.

Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Posts: 1362

Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 235 Location: 3rd coast

Readers of the online edition of the New York Times weigh in on this topic.

Interesting to note the number of reader comments originating "across the pond" from places like Scotland -

Joined: 09 Feb 2008 Posts: 1292 Location: Brand Central

perhaps all those idiots with huge trucks and SUVs will buy a reasonable vehicle now

one can hope

Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 235 Location: 3rd coast

I can tell you I've cut back on driving, and I own a little 4-door import, though its age may hamper fuel efficiency. I just had a tune-up and maintenance on the internal air control motor, but it's hard to tell how much difference that made.

I have always chosen jobs that require short driving distances. That 40 mile commute both ways every day doesn't cut it with me. For some workers, though, there's no choice.

Joined: 09 Feb 2008 Posts: 1292 Location: Brand Central

half the people i work with have one hour commutes...!!!

i simply do not get that - i have *never* had more than a 20 mile commute, and that was for one year (and they were paying me almost 100K a year for that) and that just about killed me... all the rest have been under 10 miles

i'm not going to spend an hour a day in a car each way

Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 235 Location: 3rd coast

Some of my colleagues have chosen to live in outlying suburbs & counties such as Katy, Ft. Bend, Tomball, Wharton, as the property tax rates are (supposedly) lower. Price of houses are lower out there as well. Public schools in those districts carry the veneer of better reputations.

However, the trade-off involves the daily commute-to-from work: 1 hour or more each way, 20-40 miles travel distance, traffic-clogged freeways not designed for such demands, and minimal public transportation infrastructure in place to offer any alternative.

It's rough math I'm doing, but I figure whatever these workers "save" in taxes and property costs goes right out the window when they glance at the dashboard, see the needle nipping on "E" and they pull into Exxon/Mobile.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

The scary thing is that they're making it virtually impossible for the working class to own and drive private vehicles in much the same way they've made it virtually impossible for them to own homes and yet they are not offering up any alternative modes of transportation on anything like a workable basis.

I foresee a future in which the drones and worker bees will be living in tent cities built on the parking lots of the places where they work. You have to admit that since only the rich will have the luxury of private transportation, it would be a good use of all that empty space and go far to solve both the housing problem and that of long commutes.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

I was lucky enough during my fire service career that almost the promotions and transfers that came through were all within the same unit and didn't require any major relocations or commutes since the entire inhabited area of the county would only be about 2500 square miles.

The only exceptions were the temporary teaching assignments at the Academy and I just stayed there from Sunday evening until Friday afternoon and went home for the weekends.

I have however, been jammed into rush hour traffic in the major metropolitan areas of the state on many occasions and I simply do NOT see how anyone can live like that on an every day basis even if fuel prices were something like reasonable.

Whoever decided that this needed to be a place of millions of private autos as opposed to a working rail system such as they have in other developed nations needs to be dug up and flogged and reburied. Has anyone ever published a true comarison of the cost of building a mile of railroad track as opposed to a mile of 8-12 lane freeway?

If most of us had any other way to work we might be as complacent about $8 gas as they are in the UK but our auto and oil industries made damned sure our entire transportation system was built on the concept of individual private vehicles and now we're just starting to see the ultimate end of that train of thought.

Joined: 09 Feb 2008 Posts: 1292 Location: Brand Central

the real issue is Urban Sprawl

our cities that developed before the automobile are doing pretty well now that the tide has turned and people have tired of driving out to the edge cities

the inner cities are redeveloping and the inner suburbs as well

developers of crappy subdivisions are unhappy, but thats the breaks

in Florida the new concurrency rules and urban service area boundaries will change the face of our cities for generations to come

Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 8:33 pm Post subject:

Let's see. . . . . . .

I canceled my Netflix account
Got rid of Directv
Canceled my newspaper
I buy mostly off brand items
and I am starting to use coupons more and more

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