how much did you lose already?

[sweet_peach 0]

Over all we have taken a 32% pay cut at work

retirement was frozen

401k went from 40K to a little over 2K

Stock dropped from 20K to 3K - needless to say i sold it all....

Othat than that its just great

[Jenn! 918]

401k went from 40K to a little over 2K

Holy cow! How did that happen?

[Mononoke28 135]

Speaking of the economy, I just went to Realtor.com and saw a couple of homes that were for sale at $346k this summer being sold for $267k. Augh!!!! If I only had enough for a downpayment.

Diana

Edited November 13, 2008 by Mononoke28

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Check out Detroit, there are homes for sale at $100.

Edited November 13, 2008 by A.J.

[Mononoke28 135]

Check out Detroit, there are homes for sale at $1.

Nah, drive by shootings are not my cup of tea.

Diana

[Peikko 1,575]

Homes at a $1 but no jobs. I'll stick it out in SoCal - even at the worry of the Big One (Shakeout Style!)

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I edited - I meant $100.

And what's wrong wit a driveby?

And if you own your house outright and have savings from a past life and are old enough, you don' need to work!

[doodlebugg 10]

This is why I prefer to think of a house as a place to live as opposed to an investment (I think AJ and I had this discussion earlier this year). My house has lost probably about 50% it's value. I don't care. It's a place to live, not an investment. If it's worth less, I pay less in property taxes.

This is a good point. You will pay less BUT only if you file something with your city/town. Otherwise it won't go down/up until the next assessment. My lawyer gave me all the info so I can file myself but I can't remember the name of the process. If people haven't already done this they should. I mean why not...it's free and it'll lower your tax bill by a lot.

Also something everyone in my family is doing is filing a homestead paper which basically states that if you go bankrupt or whatever your house is secure up to I think $400k in equity. Not that everyone here is considering filing now but it's better to just do it so you can breath easily and it's only $35 in Mass.

[Mononoke28 135]

I edited - I meant $100.

And what's wrong wit a driveby?

And if you own your house outright and have savings from a past life and are old enough, you don' need to work!

Well, as much as I like the movie "Friday", I prefer to watch them driveby shootings than be a part of them.

Diana

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

This is why I prefer to think of a house as a place to live as opposed to an investment (I think AJ and I had this discussion earlier this year).

Yup, we have. I continue to see it as both.

[Peikko 1,575]

I edited - I meant $100.

And what's wrong wit a driveby?

And if you own your house outright and have savings from a past life and are old enough, you don' need to work!

Maybe not, but Detroit? Not my idea of a great retirement spot.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Maybe not, but Detroit? Not my idea of a great retirement spot.

There are turn of the century brownstones at about $500 in a "lovely" (cough) suburb of Philly.

[chri'stina 190]

Bottom line this sucks bad ...

fo shizzle!

I lost my job and my life savings. But go ahead and worry about your mutual funds and stocks.

people worry about what they lost. ####### dude if we all worried about your life savigns we'd all be calling you every freakin' minute to check on you and you'd hate that more wouldn't you.

I don't want anyone worrying about my life savings. However, I know several people here on VJ who have lost their jobs because of this. They're worried about losing their houses and feeding their families, and then they read this and see someone whining about mutual funds and sh!t. Losing investments is one thing - I've lost investment income/potential income before. But when it actually comes down to having to get food from a community food pantry, getting rid of cable, cell phones, landlines, and maybe natural gas, possibly losing your house - THEN you can whine about your losses.

I see what you are saying Larry but then everything is relative. For instance, I could say to you that until you live in the condition of poor Indians in India, THEN you can whine about losing your job, having to get food from a pantry, etc. At least pantries exist! You have solid walls around you, not a hut made from boxes. I am just being silly to prove a point about relativity. If people want to complain about losing money, their money, then it's totally understandable. But yeah, we should always realize there are people way worse off than us.

I come from a very blue collar family background even though my dad is a pastor(definitely not a rich one!!), investing has been a foreign language to me but we are trying to slowly build our lives for the future. No one that I know of from my close family(parents included) has investments or retirement. Very scary. Their savings, almost non-existent. I have no family money coming to me.

Edited November 13, 2008 by Parivar CSK

[mrsartis 10]

This is why I prefer to think of a house as a place to live as opposed to an investment (I think AJ and I had this discussion earlier this year). My house has lost probably about 50% it's value. I don't care. It's a place to live, not an investment. If it's worth less, I pay less in property taxes.

People who have INVESTED money as a means of providing for your retirement.... You DO realize that investments have risks, yes? If I put my money in a savings account, I earn a tiny amount of interest on it. If the bank fails, FDIC covers my savings. The increase is small, but the security is high. I just can't imagine trusting my future to the shuffling of papers, stocks, funds, etc.

hahaha, i guess platy its for the main reason of increasing benefits in a short period of time,,,, banks takes time in a low interest rate..

[Imua 0]

One benefit to being a poor librarian is I didn't have much to lose in the first place. My TIAA-CREF account has lost about $1500 in the last 2 quarters so I reallocated everything to the 'guaranteed' fund - the interest is tiny but better than losing any more $$. According to the college president we are OK at least for this school year, renovation projects are even being continued so hopefully my job will be secure as long as my vision holds, which is a more pressing problem.