Common (cents) Sense and the brink of a recession

Greetings all,

If you watch the news, listen to radio or surf the internet you have inevitably heard or read about one of two things…the upcoming Presidential election or the economy. Both of these subjects are historical in nature and even though I am throwing my financial support and efforts behind the Obama/Biden ticket, I am not writing this blog about politics and the change I want to occur on November 4th! This particular blog is about the pending recession (depends on who you are asking?) and what common cents is forcing me to do in order to take care of my family. I speak from the stand point of “head of the house” and I am certain that what we are encountering in my house is being felt in households all over the nation.

Tightening the Budget

One of the things I tell my wife all of the time is that money does actually grow on trees (since money is made from paper and paper comes from trees) but we do not have one of those type trees growing in our back yard. I say this to her all of the time when we are addressing budget issues in the household which is almost daily now. At the beginning of each month and week, I show my wife how much money we have in the budget to handle our affairs and we discuss where we can cut back. Ultimately it comes down to a discussion of “wants and needs”. Basically, my position is, “if it is a want then we don’t need it”. It is my wife’s position to try and get me to be more flexible when assessing wants and needs. Now we have been married for 8 and a half years and she knows that most decisions for me are based on rational thought not emotional ones. This being the case, all non essential spending has been cut out. This means no going out to dinner or movies for the time being and I have cut out my daily mountain dew soda which cost $1.49 with tax. The mountain dew example is the point I make to my wife in showing her how this small sacrifice makes a big difference in our budget which becomes an approximate $45.00 savings per month and a $540.00 savings per year. I then go to our separate checking accounts where I deposit our allowances (we have a separate account for our bills and yet another for our savings etc.) where we discuss/argue on where we can cut back more. At the end of the discussion/argument, we agree on finding additional ways to save money by changing our spending habits. I pointed out to her that she could save money by getting cash back when making a purchase at the grocery store versus going to a non-affiliated ATM to get money because of the ATM fees associated with each transaction which averages @ $4.00 per transaction. In the past, she would frequent an ATM 2-3 times per week thus paying as much as $12.00 per week and @ $48.00 per month in unnecessary fees. She saw my point and now looks for other ways to save. This month we found a way to save an additional $300.00 in our budget which goes a long way in this pending recession! I share this testimony with you and challenge you to do the following by asking you….


Do you think we are in a recession?


Do you have a realistic budget?


Where can you find $100.00 or more in monthly savings?


Now that you have answered those 3 questions what are you going to do next?