what are you guys doing to cut back this year?

my work just announced a wage freeze for the next 2 years/ discontinueing our 401k matching plan/ stopping earned time acrual for 5 weeks each year/ and laying off 400 staff members. that could put me out at least 10 grand over the course of 2 years, not to mention starting from a 2008 salary when the wage freeze is lifted.

thank you obama for the new healthcare reforms.

You still working?.....that in itself is a blessing.

ask the 400 losing there jobs if they would rather have a Wage freeze instead.

we are cutting back on vacation. We'll be staying local except for one get away late in the summer. Also stopped eating out and have been carpooling more.
Its not so much the recession, it more my fear of the current administration and its impact on my families future.

planning to double my operation this year
if all goes according to plan...
although it's still in the "unknown Zone"
i'll know more on April first
april fools day... how appropriate :grins:

payoff every credit card
cancel every non-critical recurring expense
consolidate trips
reduce outflow of cash
eat at home
go to the library more

Been brown bagging it to work. Also not going to buy any fishing gear this year as I am sure I can make due w/ all the stuff I have now.

Vacation this year is going to be local......day trip type stuff.

eating out now is going out for pizza on fridays w/ the family and that is it.

I'll be cutting back on fishing gear and going out for fewer expensive dinners with the wife.
Other than that, I'm going to be taking advantage of some of the great deals on travel and take a nice family vacation along with a guys weekend with some friends. I'll also be having a new roof put on the house this year and having a lot of trees taken down. I've already got quotes that are substantially less than quotes from 2 years ago on the roof.

Our organization is looking to save millions in 09. Almost all of which will come from associate salaries. My division is also combining with another which will obviously mean consolidation and layoffs. I feel safe but certainly much less safe than I ever have. We had planned to remodel our kitchen next month but just decided to put that on hold just in case. Who knows what will happen. Not fun at all.

I'm still going to Cuttyhunk though!

F%cking do more with less will definitely be cutting into my fishing time this year too. :bsod:

A penny saved is a penny earned. In a country with taxes , a penny saves is 1 1/4 cents earned. I am trying to "earn" all I can by cutting unnescessary expenses.

I posted elsewhere that i am now making my own coffee and buying baggles or muffins in a store instead of the DD drive through. That's good for $1000 a year. I'm switching to a Brita type water filter instead of bottled water for drinking , that's worth almost $1000 a year. I turned down the water heater and keep certains parts of the house cool instead of heating the whole place , thats big for soem people but since I'm alreday fairly energy efficient , its worth about $1000 a year. I started buying at BJ's in bulk instead of running up to the corner 3 times a day for stuff. That saves a lot. One of the biggest savings is to cook at home instead of eating out all the time.

Anyway , when you can't increase your income you trim expenses. the whole goal is to have more free money .

Only turn the heat up to 60 during the day.No heat at night.Make extra food at supper time for lunch the next day.Keep the TV and the Computer in the same small room to provide heat when the door is shut.Get most of my bait my self.

Not really cutting back much, as i dont really spend much to start. I Dont owe anyone anything , so nothing to pay off.Wife and I are starting a new venture on the side to make some extra income . My work also cut pay raises at all properties. I didnt really mind that till i heard of the managers getting a bonus this past week:af:.

I took a 10% cut in my billing rate in January - that hurts. I think I'm fairly secure, however, so I'm not going in to full bunker mode. My wife is a teacher and there is zero chance of her losing her job.

I drive 24,000 miles per year so I'm happy to see gasoline prices down but my property taxes just went up about $50 per month so I'm not feeling any extra jingle in my pockets.

Needless to say, none of President Obama's so called incentives apply to me and my wife.

Ditto on the salary freeze, still have the 401k match but that does nothing for the cash flow. I'll be cutting back on dining out and trying to do a lot more of the work on the boat and around the house myself.

I agree with everyone's approaches. The sad part is that all of this is only going to prolong the downturn.

I agree with everyone's approaches. The sad part is that all of this is only going to prolong the downturn.

so true

yep... :(

I agree with everyone's approaches. The sad part is that all of this is only going to prolong the downturn.

This maybe true but people need to stay in budget,not everyone can be careless with money.

I've been brown bagging it for years,nothing beats mashed potatoes & meatloaf heated up on the Truck dashboard in January :lurk:Hummmmmm.
I make my own coffee every freaking day I get all the news I want for free of the net.

Every project that I've done at this house and my old one I've done my self to save Thousands.........

The name of the game is save & in these time ya gotta tighten you belt if you want to eat tommorow:hidin:



5/0

The name of the game is save & in these times
ya gotta tighten you belt
if you want to eat tommorow http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c66/ravenob1/sign-GUYS/sleepy.png 5/0

~
or, ya have to grow a garden at least 4' x 8' for every 2 people
your feeding using vertical fencing to get things climbing on them.

WHEN ->you harvest say 1 head of lettuce one late afternoon
or early in the morning the trick is
to instantly plant 3 to 4 new lettuce plants in that same square foot
or ya can put
a cabbage,1 bell pepper, 12 carrots, but keep it growing.

sugar snap peas are easier to grow than a friggan lawn !!
and they cost 5 - 6 bucks per pound and up. :cheers:

do you trellis you tomatoes?

Vertical squash?

I hate growing lettuce, I can't seem to like eating something that is 97 pct water and not be beer.

I never got into the garden thing,I have a packed with my Buddy fresh fish he gives me fresh vegies.

I was actually thinking of a vegetable garden this year. Nothing tastes better than a homegrown tomato

most tomatoes you buy in supermarkets have been picked green in the field then they go from there into a ethylene gas chamber to force ripening NOT in the sunshine so they didn't really get a chance to absorb energy from the sun. they do that to prevent bruising. THE typical supermarket tomato has no flavor and the texture just plain sucks. IT's mealy
and spongy and looks nothing like a home grown slicing tomato.

When you grow tomato's in a 5 gallon or (even better) ten gallon planter they mature (produce) much quicker than the same tomato planted out in the garden planted at the exact same time.

a single squash plant will easily take over a 4x8 garden and obliterate it with growth in no time.
better to grow one zucchini or yellow squash bush. USE radishes to
mark your rows and they will be ready to eat in 30 days.

So for a 4x8 garden you put a climbing fence on the north side. you keep a separate area set aside for your transplants so when you see something you want to harvest you grab the transplants and take them to the spot, harvest, then dig out the root and slam the replacements in .....
right then and there- and water them in...no saying- i'll do it tomorrow or next week.

We're gonna expand our garden to about 5 x 30' this year -

We got enough tomatoes last season (4 different varieties) to harvest by the 5 gallon bucket, give 'em away and still can 4 cases for the winter - my bride is a midwestern farm girl, she does it all...:love:

Gonna do cukes too for homemade sweet & dill pickles - she's got her mom's old recipes -

Hell, last year we had beefsteaks the size of cantalopes, too - plus red peppers, jalapenos and Italian, and those little Portuguese peppers I used to call firecrackers - the ones my grandma, mom and aunts used to make a relish out of and can - plus the usual herbs - a massive basil bush, fresh dill, thyme and oregano...:drool:

This year we'll do lettuce, snap peas, green beans, kale (ya gotta have curvsh for the soupesh), tomatoes, peppers & herbs - I wanna see how we can max out the sq. footage production in a small space -

Figure next week I'll start working the beds - the first rite of spring...:)

Plus real veggies are a treat, not like the crap you get in supermarkets...:doh:

sugar snap peas go in first directly in the ground

they are not even phased by frost or snow so don't wait...

grab your V hoe stretch a string and drag a little trench

i usually back fill over the peas with a soil fluffy mix

the main thing i look for is 5 days or so of rain and i plant

them just before it starts ...so your only risking 2 bucks

of pea seeds to start them early... remember spring tends to be over quickly
suddenly it'll jump from freezing temps to HOT allot sooner

than your used to having.... OH the trick with PEAS is to pre soak the seeds until they swell
and ADD the black powder inoculate ...it helps them take make root nodules quicker

then shake and bake them til coated...

so the idea is to plant them and they are essentially already growing.... and the rains make them POP that much sooner

then all ya have to do is water them ... a strong wind proof

A fence is absolutely necessary for a climbing variety

i'm ready to build THE MEGA FENCE this year LOL :uhuh:

simple cheap green house plan

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c66/ravenob1/greenhouse.jpg

Any tricks for keeping the groundhogs away from the plants?

I tried a garden when we 1st moved up here and they decimated it within 2 weeks...little bastards.

a .22 will keep them groundhogs away:devil2:

Any tricks for keeping the groundhogs away from the plants?

I tried a garden when we 1st moved up here and they decimated it within 2 weeks...little bastards.

That's part of the fun with gardening...harvesting backyard critters. You plant a seed and get some meat on the side! I have a high powered GAMO air rifle that will easily harvest a groundhog. They are delicious:drool:

Gotta cath'em to shoot them...

Most of the time I would come home from work and there would be less garden than when I left.

Thinking about digging down and laying a layer of chicken wire then a boarder of PT lumber w/ a fence all around.

Maybe a Moat, which I will Mine heavily as well as apply a small electrical current to.

also apply a thin coat of Curare/Arsenic to the plants....that should do it

yeah ...you have to fence them out ..i never throw away broken glass...it all gets boxed
for a rainy ground hog day...same as nails and anything else sharp like old razor blades,
utility knife blades too....skill saw blades (use your imagination) so you dig a trench around the garden about sixteen inches deep and wide saving the good top soil for the garden beds and then you put down an L shaped piece of chicken wire and attach that to your regular green squares roll fencing with bailing wire from the feed store. then you take the wheel barrow and scrounge up some rocks ...crumbly rock is perfect and anchor it down in there and as you back fill it with everything imaginable you salt in the NASTIES so when they try and dig under they encounter it and go OUCH ! crap! yow! takes awhile sure, but you'll have time to kill waiting for things to pop and just try and do 6-10 feet at a time.
no need to kill yourself in a single day. ground hogs almost appear every day at the exact time in the morning like an alarm clock and once you spot them say on a saturday ....while sitting in that window patiently waiting having coffee whatever...
watch for them with binoculars. when you find their burrow either shove a hose in there and drown them or PLUG it up with a boulder to keep pissing them off...take a leak down their hole before ya plug it. IF they never quit, i have a twenty two you can borrow... then blast em... ya might have to shoot from inside the house though to muffle the blast then go outside and bang loudly on sumthin LOL

.22 shorts don't make much noise.

but they are fast and can duck a short
when shooting them while still in the hole
you have to skip the bullet on the dirt
one inch in front of them or you can miss

ground hogs love gardens because
A. there are easy diggin
B. the obvious food sourch
C. they love the cooler temperatures
of the soil in summer of a well watered garden

i'll tell ya... there is nothing worse than seeing
one of your plants in your garden suddenly quiver
then slowly submerge as a ground hog drags it downwards
into it's burrow :fury:
i'll git you
ya lil bass turd rat fink som beotch no good veggie munchin sneaky varmit http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c66/ravenob1/elmer.png

peas:yak4::yak4: I don't eat them but my wife and grandfather love em so we'll grow them again this year. If I can grow em anyone can....

I still got some m-80's left from a previous 4th....I'm sure a couple of them down the hole will do the trick

i thought Clammer bought them all ???

http://www.marijuanaseedbanks.com/images/hydro_marijuana_grow_rooms/images/hydroponic_weed.jpg

ground hogs almost appear every day at the exact time in the morning like an alarm clock

Well not always, to my suprise. Came home one night around midnight and realized i left the sprinkler on the garden.

Went to shut it off and there was one eatin the string beans while he's takin a shower. :smash:

nice plant nebe!!!

That Explains the Tinfoil Paneling in all the Closets.....

Well not always, to my suprise. Came home one night around midnight and realized i left the sprinkler on the garden.

Went to shut it off and there was one eatin the string beans while he's takin a shower. :smash:

he was a New Jersey ground hog and they are much smarter :hihi: