How is the recession affecting your country?

[moogle33]

We keep hearing lots of hype on the news about this and I wanted o get some personal views, not just what the media want me to think.
I kind of get the feeling there are no news story’s going on so the media keep harping on about the recession until some celebrity does something bad.

I’m not specifically looking for good or bad experiences just put how you feel your country’s economy (more importantly your pocket) is doing.

In the UK:

Houses seem very difficult to sell, nobody is buying as they all want to wait to find out what is going to happen with the economy.

The £ has lost a lot of value to the $ and euro but strangely not to the OZ $ or SA rand.

Petrol was sky high at £1.28 per litre but now it’s better at £0.94 a litre.

Food is the worst area, a weeks groceries used to cost £50 it now easily costs £75 and that’s with us being careful.

It does seem like I have a lot less money, I never have cash to waste even though I’m earning more that I ever have.

[Cyph3r]

We keep hearing lots of hype on the news about this and I wanted o get some personal views, not just what the media want me to think.
I kind of get the feeling there are no news story’s going on so the media keep harping on about the recession until some celebrity does something bad.

I’m not specifically looking for good or bad experiences just put how you feel your country’s economy (more importantly your pocket) is doing.

In the UK:

Houses seem very difficult to sell, nobody is buying as they all want to wait to find out what is going to happen with the economy.

The £ has lost a lot of value to the $ and euro but strangely not to the OZ $ or SA rand.

Petrol was sky high at £1.28 per litre but now it’s better at £0.94 a litre.

Food is the worst area, a weeks groceries used to cost £50 it now easily costs £75 and that’s with us being careful.

It does seem like I have a lot less money, I never have cash to waste even though I’m earning more that I ever have.

Petrol is £0.92 by me :P

[Streifenkarl]

So far 500 billion €uros have been invested into the struggling banks (total waste) and the car industry is suffering heavily as noone is ordering business fleets anymore and people are buying less cars.

There havent been any job cuts so far, in fact the unemployment rate still decreased in November. I think the recession wont effect us before January as far as the middle class is concerned. But then it will strike with full force in my opinion.

[moogle33]

So far 500 billion €uros have been invested into the struggling banks (total waste) and the car industry is suffering heavily as noone is ordering business fleets anymore and people are buying less cars.

There havent been any job cuts so far, in fact the unemployment rate still decreased in November. I think the recession wont effect us before January as far as the middle class is concerned. But then it will strike with full force in my opinion.

I forgot about cars, nobody is buying cars here either. My boss bought a signum 10 months ago for £10K and he cant give it away for £7K. I bought a PUG 206 for £1600 but three months ago I couldnt find any under £2000

[Dutchforce]

Working in the graphics industry, we notice it remains more quiet than same periods of other years.

My company prints for publishers, other printeries, commercial printing etc.. etc..

Printed goods and commercial flyers/folders/reports etc. is expensive and could be one of the things to save money on.

[Shervin]

A friend in Colorado lost his car repair/mod business and a family friend here is losing his italian restaurant which has been up for 12 years.
People are getting hit hard : /
I know some friends that can not afford living on campus anymore so they moved back home and drive to uni (30-40min one way).

[Desolator]

At work: I run the IT department for a car main dealer, we have 8 dealerships in total and all of them are suffering big time. Past few months our losses outweighed our income and we have already had around 20-30 redundancies about about to **** another 20 people.

In officer we noticed its tons more quiet, no one wants to spend money on their dealer site anymore so most of the jobs we get are just run of the mill password idiots or people who forgot to put paper in printers.

Most of the people with company cars (such as myself) also have been downgraded

Outlook for main dealers is bad. One of our dealerships didnt manage to sell a single car in October and most are struggling with doing a third of their normal sales.

At Home: with the exception our food bill as gone up by 50 quid, and both our gas and electric and jumped a hike, Im not really hit that bad. Well with the except that all the electrical good we brought a year ago seems to be breaking.

Fridge - dead
Microwave - dead
Kettle - dead

all around the same month........

[dracom_ma]

The recession has doesn't seem to have much of an affect for me and the company I work for.

I'm an IT tech for a contracted probation office. In the last month, we have actually opened up two new offices, and we have a number of openings start up for Probation Officers.

Seems as more people lose their jobs, the crime rate goes up, and we end up getting more business.

[Cazzam]

Houses seem very difficult to sell, nobody is buying as they all want to wait to find out what is going to happen with the economy.

The major problem with housing, assuming that the people who want to buy the houses can raise the finance, is that the vendors don't understand that the price of their house is market related; they think that it should be worth more than they paid for it as they have been fed the line that property always increases in value, but this is time frame dependent. The problem arises for people who purchased property as an investment and also first time buyers; people who are transitioning are essentially unaffected so long as they don't focus on the nominal value of the properties.

[UTGeneral]

The major problem with housing, assuming that the people who want to buy the houses can raise the finance, is that the vendors don't understand that the price of their house is market related; they think that it should be worth more than they paid for it as they have been fed the line that property always increases in value, but this is time frame dependent.

Except if you buy a house from a bank where the mortage foreclosed but finance it through another bank, then you don't have that problem and because the banks are happy to get any money.