Monday, June 15, 2009
Financial crisis?
We hear so much on the news about the current "economic crisis" but I wonder how much it's actually affecting our day to day lives. I hear reports of people having their credit limits reduced and suddenly finding themselves over the limit on their credit cards and paying fees for that. I don't actually use credit cards except for gasoline and utilities (for the convenience factor) and I'm very careful about paying it off in full each month. But I do check online regularly to see if my limit has been changed at all. So far it hasn't. I have more credit available to me than I know what to do with. And since I never carry a balance I'm not really a money-maker for the bank that issues my credit card. So I wouldn't be surprised to see my limit lowered. But I'm wondering if this is actually happening to people or if it's just news reports blown out of proportion. What are you seeing in your life? Are you being hurt by the current economic conditions?
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4 comments:
We use one credit card for everything and pay it off each month. My limit hasn't been reduced. Although, its so high I probably wouldn't notice. Like you I have a much higher limit than I need!
We don't use credit cards for anything. Really the only thing that has affected us (as far as the economic crisis goes)was the higher gas prices months ago. We did notice a difference in our monthly expenses. It made a big difference when thay went back down.
I definitely saw the change in gas prices in my budget, too. And of course our IRAs have lost value but we're still young enough that they should be able to come back. I have found that things like the current economic conditions don't affect us as much since we don't live beyond our means and have money saved in the bank. In fact, we have been able to get some great deals on things because we have been able to pay cash for them.
We have felt the crunch of the economic crisis. Steve's bonus in an industry heavily influenced by the housing market is between 20-25% of his paycheck on an average year, maybe 10-15% on a bad year. But for the past couple quarters he's received no bonus, and doesn't anticipate one through 2009. We are fortunate that we haven't had to go into debt, though.
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