Thread: Economy and Your Cruise Budget (poll)

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may ...."

. . . and carpe diem, too!

w/o jinxing us,both companies we work for are ok, both have binding contracts out till 2013, by which time I will be retired (Dec 2012). so if world is going to end then, maybe will retire in July instead, that yr so have at least 6 mos of not working. ha.
we budget for vacs. the year before so the money is in bank long before go away. plus all money leftover each week on payday is put away for spending on vac, be amazed how fast that adds up!!
so for right now, we're not changing anything. we are very blessed in many ways.

We keep hearing how awful things are on the NEWS ....

Still, I don't know anyone who is not living and spending normally. Do YOU?

Originally Posted by canarymoon

. . . and carpe diem, too!

But what does holding fish hae to do with this thread?

Originally Posted by LuLu

We keep hearing how awful things are on the NEWS ....

Still, I don't know anyone who is not living and spending normally. Do YOU?

yes.
I think it was last July or August that I cancelled all booked cruises, and have not rebooked. We also now eat out maybe once every five or six weeks, nstead of once or twice a week, and have cut out or cut back a whole list of other things, as well.

But then, my income is dependent on the health of the automotove industry. My clients are all large automobile dealers. They started cutting back on outside services (which imeans me) and whatever else they could over a year and a half ago - well before it became generally known that the industry was in trouble, and before even they knew how deep the trouble was going to be. It didn't happen overnight. Most of my clients have been slowly consolidating positions and laying off employees here and there for many, many months.

For some of them, it started with the housing bust. In the last half of 2007, construction work begain scaling back, and workers and small contractors stopped replacing their work vehicles - small trucks. (Florida is one of the top foreclosure states and building is and has been at a near stand still) This really hit my Ford clients, as truck sales are one of their mainstays. My luxury brand dealers (like Lexus) lasted a few months longer before they saw the downturn, but even they finally got hit with it, too, in 2008.