Savings Sunday

[biccat]

It's been raining all weekend. Started around midnight on Saturday and is still going this morning. We've had everything from a light drizzle to small hail. But there's certainly a silver lining, with winter (hopefully) gone and spring on the way, the yard is getting saturated and hopefully the grass comes back green and healthy.

TOTD: Since today is the start of Daylight Savings time, and considering stories about Americans and corporations cutting back on their spending, are you doing anything different to save money?

I think thriftiness is always a good practice, so we aren't really doing anything different. We go out to eat less than once a week, see a movie maybe once a month or two, clip coupons, and the rest.

[linda22003]

Sunny and warm here in DC.

We've always been pretty good savers, and we've gotten more aggressive (although I still have the money I need for shopping....)

If either one of our jobs goes down, it's more likely to be my husband's than mine. We've planned for that possibility, and we can live on my salary, if we use savings for our mortgage payment. Out of savings, we can pay the mortgage for more than two years.

It was always our goal to live on one of our incomes and save/invest the other, and we are there. After taxes, maximum 401k takeouts, and health insurance costs, we are putting $1000 a week in savings. We figure, if the economy takes us down, it will have taken a lot of other people first.

[SaintLouieWoman]

It's warm and sunny here, earlier very dreary. There were tornado alerts out earlier, but now just the gusty winds. Glad we had the largest tree trimmed drastically last year (it looks like a tree with a poodle cut--little pom poms of leaves). It had damaged our gutters last year and destroyed a nice Lyon Shaw wrought iron bench.

TOTD: We're fairly prepared for anything. Nothing is owed on the house or cars. We just renegotiated our contract with Charter cable and are saving $40 a month over their previously inflated price. We have our land line, cable and internet with them. Our new windows and siding have insulated the house so much that our utilities are low (in fact our gas, electric and water bills are less than the stupid Charter bill).

It still kills me to look at my 401k, but we've got our spending in control. I'm glad that a couple of years ago I changed my 401k contributions to all cash (money market).

[PoliCon]

Overcast and comfortable here in The Burgh

TOTD - I do charitable work for a living so . . . I know all about how to make a dollar stretch. My biggest change is shifting away from BIG fundraisers towards smaller ones with a more specific target audience. :)

[BadCat]

We're doing fine.

We have no debt except for the mortgage.

We are basically "boycotting" the economy, no purchases except for the essential.

We've moved a bunch of cash into gold, platinum and palladium.