Still Working, but Making Do With Less

[groovedaddy]

LINCOLN, Calif. — The Ferrells have cut back on dance lessons for their twin daughters. Vaccinations for the family’s two cats and two dogs are out. Haircuts have become a luxury.

And before heading out recently to the discount grocery store that has become the family’s new lifeline, Sharon Ferrell checked her bank account balance one more time, dialing the toll-free number from memory.

“Your available balance for withdrawal is, $490.40,” the disembodied electronic voice informed her.

At the store, with that number firmly in mind, she punched the price of each item into a calculator as she dropped it into her cart, making sure she stayed under her limit. It was all part of a new regimen of fiscal restraint for the Ferrells, begun in January, when state workers, including Mrs. Ferrell’s husband, Jeff, were forced to accept two-day-a-month furloughs.

For millions of families, this is the recession: not a layoff, or a drastic reduction in income, but a pay cut that has forced them to thrash through daily calculations similar to the Ferrells’. Even if workers have managed to avoid being laid off, many employers have cut back in other ways, reducing employees’ hours, imposing furloughs and even sometimes trimming salaries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/us/29paycut.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[cdsilv]

1. yup - just got 'trimmed' by 5% yesterday.....

yeah, I know its not much, and it is certainly better than a layoff, but I don't
see this as 'recovery'.....

[jwirr]

2. And this does not happen just to middle income people, all of us are

being forced to look for things we do not or never needed. I did the hair cut thing almost a year ago and we use SHARE to supplement our food budget. This is what the Congressmen and women do not get. We are broke.

[SheilaT]

3. I've had trouble finding full time work

this past year, so I've had to cut back also. The real up side is that I have not had any fast food in that length of time, and have eaten at restaurants of any kind about four times since the fall. I've lost about twenty pounds, which I definitely needed to lose, and hope to drop about another fifteen pounds. I'm preparing all of my own food and eating a little less, so I've saved a lot of money that way.

I do live alone, which makes it easier to do this.

I start a full time job with benefits on Monday at the local hospital, working admissions there, and I'm very pleased as I won't be quite so desperately poor any more.