Everybody Loves Your Money

Arrrgggghh.  I have to remember that cars won’t just go forever without some drama.  It seems like just yesterday that we put roughly $900+ in to our Honda for a new timing belt, water pump and seals.  It was an easy decision to make because we fully intend to drive that car for as many miles as we can.  It’s great not having a car payment and I definitely don’t want one in this economic environment.

Unfortunately, the downside to driving an older car (It’s a 2000 Honda Accord V6) is that occasionally it will break.  This morning when my wife drove to work, the check engine light came on.  She was only a couple blocks away when it happened so she came back home so that I could check for any obvious issues.  I checked the oil, water levels and any signs that the alternator or battery were having trouble and didn’t see anything.  I suspect that the oxygen sensor or some other sensor has decided to quit working and that’s what’s tripping the light on the dash.  Unfortunately I can’t troubleshoot that myself so we are going to have to take it in to the shop where they’ll charge us a minimum fee just to tell us what’s wrong.  Arrrgghhh.

It’s funny.  Now that we are really focusing on saving money, things seem to just keep breaking.  Thank goodness for emergency funds.

So, yesterday was Bloody Monday.  Today we have seen an additional 10,000+ layoffs announced.  Last month we saw hundreds of thousands of layoffs announced.  Frankly, the risk of getting laid off has not been higher in a very long time.  For many people the threat has been realized and you are now forced to frantically look for another job.

For those of us that haven’t been laid off, there are a few things we can do to minimize the target on our backs.

Manage the relationship you have with your boss

This is the number one thing you can do to avoid a layoff.  As an employee, you should always be striving to maintain a solid relationship with your manager.  No, don’t sleep with him or her, but do make sure you understand what your boss feels your priorities are and exceed his expectations on each and every job task.  I like to check in with my boss a few times a week to make sure there isn’t something he needs help with and to make sure that I am reading his overall perception of how I’m doing.  This doesn’t mean you need to kiss his backside, but it does mean giving your boss the attention that’s needed to be part of the team.  Human nature says that when it’s time for layoffs, your boss will consider who he likes working with and who causes him all sorts of headaches.  Believe me, headaches go first.  Don’t misunderstand this advice and be high maintenance though.  Your goal should be solving problems for your boss, not bringing more problems to him.  Above all, never underestimate the power of a good relationship.

Become Irreplaceable

When I look around my workplace I can always spot the people that we’d all have trouble being without.  These people are integral to the successful operation of your team.  Maybe it’s the person who manages the budget for the team, or maybe it’s a technical person that knows all the right buttons to push, or maybe it’s someone with such a detailed understanding of your customers that you’d be lost without them.  Don’t underestimate the power of relationships here as well.  The better working relationship you have with your customers, the harder it will be to live without you.  Customers normally don’t like to lose a strong partner in the business and your manager will need to consider that as he plays Russian roulette with the employee list.

Work Additional Time

Every company and manager wants to maximize the productivity of their workers.  The more work you do for them, the more money they can potentially make.  If you are a Seinfeld nut like me you might recall the episode where George left his car in the parking lot at work when he left town.  When his boss arrived in the morning, there was George’s car in the parking lot and when he left in the evening, George looked like he was still at work.  Needless to say his boss was impressed.  I wouldn’t recommend just leaving your car there if you really want to save your job but I would recommend putting in the extra time.  If you have a job that uses a computer, try to get remote access capabilities so you can extend your day a bit at home in the evenings.  It takes relatively little time to respond to emails in the evening and shows that you are committed to helping the company succeed by being productive.

Get along with your co-workers

This one is very similar to the first item above.  I’m bringing up relationships again, but this time it’s with your coworkers.  Nobody likes to work with a problem employee that never seems to be able to get along with his coworkers.  You should strive to be that person that brings teams together by helping to mitigate conflicts with others and offering ideas for a better team environment.  Managers are quick to notice when they have an employee that is struggling to get along with the other team members.  An employee who has conflict often, no matter who’s “fault” it is, will increase his odds of being laid off.  Managers use layoffs to get rid of difficult people in many cases because that person can cause a lot of negativity and stress to the rest of the team.

Be Seen

It’s not enough anymore to just keep your head down and do your work.  You need to be your own cheering squad in subtle ways.  Make sure your boss knows of your significant accomplishments.  If someone thanks you for a job well done, ask them to drop a quick note to your manager.  If the opportunity presents itself, make sure your manager’s manager knows who you are.  When you volunteer for organizational assignments ON TOP of your regular workload, you might find you have more opportunities to be seen.  If you aren’t visible, your name is just another regular old name on the employee list.

Any other recommendations for avoiding layoffs?

It’s amazing how long it has taken to get our refinancing completed.  It all stems from the massive way of people that jumped at the chance to get 30 year fixed loans at historic rates.  I had been worried about how long it was taking because I was worried our rate lock would expire.  Once my credit union assured me that they would extend the lock, I’ve kind of just been sitting back waiting without much thought.

Well, the lady from the credit union finally called today and said she has our loan documents complete and we are ready to go to escrow.  Originally I had been hoping to get the loan completed before the end of January.  She told me that today was the cutoff for January loans so I decided to wait to sign until next Monday.  By doing that, we won’t have our first payment until April 1st.  That’s appealing right now because we are saving for a new roof and we can use all the help we can get to build our savings account up further.  The reality is that we can afford to pay for the roof  now, but that would use a lot of our emergency fund (the roof is going to be very expensive because we are removing shake and putting on composition roofing, which my homeowners association requires to be top quality 50 year roofing).

So, being able to skip a payment for one month will help us get there that much quicker.  I’m still pretty giddy that we were able to lock in 4.875% for a 30 year fixed rate loan.  There were a few days where the rate was even lower than that, but we had already locked in.  Frankly, I never thought we’d see a rate that low, which is why I continue to be thrilled.

If you haven’t been looking at the news much today, you might be surprised to hear the media has already given today a nickname.  They’re calling it Bloody Monday due to the number of job losses.  CNNMoney reports that there have been over 68,000 job cuts today alone (announced).  With earnings announcements all week, I think we’ll see a higher number by the end of the week.  This could be one of the worst weeks we’ve seen yet since companies are finally announcing how they performed in the last quarter of the year, which I think we all know, wasn’t too peachy.

Here are a few of the notables so far this month:

• Circuit City: 30,000
• Pfizer: 26,000
• Caterpillar: 20,000
• Alcoa: 13,500
• Sprint/Nextel: 8000
• TDK Corp: 8000
• Home Depot: 7000
• ING: 7000
• Intel: 6000
• Microsoft: 5000
• Boeing: 4500
• Motorola: 4000
• Hertz: 4000
• Honda: 3100

I personally don’t see a turnaround anytime soon.  I’ve always held a bit more pessimistic opinion about how the economy is going to go, but this time I don’t think I’m being overly pessimistic because there just doesn’t seem to be any good news on the horizon.  I’m expecting that things will keep going at this pace for awhile.  If we start to recover in 2010, I’ll be really happy, but with so many variables in play here, I just don’t see where the good news is.  More foreclosures are on the way due to ARMs resetting, job losses and negative equity.  More jobs are at risk as consumer spending and GDP continue to retract.  Consumer debt levels are still at levels that are waaaay too high.  What else am I missing?

Please, if someone can shed some good news on the economy, please do.  So far I just don’t see it.

Update:

Okay, here’s at least one good sign.  Homes are selling a bit better and the available inventory has dropped to a 9.3 month supply because more people can actually afford the lower priced homes with lower mortgage rates.  Not huge, but better than a jab in the eye with a sharp stick, as my father used to say:

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2009/01/buyers_are_star.html?campaign_id=rss_daily

Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh but we have discovered we’ve pretty much quit eating out, other than an occasional fast food restaurant.

After reading Madame X’s post about where she spent her food money last year, I can say I’m quite happy we have stopped eating out at places like Applebees, The Keg, Red Robin and other local “sit down” restaurants.  I was shocked to see that Madame X spent so much of her food budget eating out.  She readily acknowledged that’s where her money went and I think she might have been a bit surprised as well.  Her budget got killed in the “sit down” restaurants. 

We haven’t consciously talked about reducing our restaurant meals but I think we’ve just slowly shifted our meals back to the house.  The thought of spending $30+ on a meal just doesn’t even seem remotely appealing.  After seeing how quickly those “sit down” restaurants can kill a food budget, I think we’ll definitely continue our strategy of avoiding the nicer restaurants unless it’s a special occasion.  As frugal as I’d like to be, I still can’t bring myself to take my wife to a fast food restaurant for our anniversary.

What are we doing instead?  Well, we aren’t starving, that’s for sure.  We have been doing a much better job of buying our food at grocery stores and eating at home.  We still work hard to purchase sale priced items to add some variety to our meals and to save money, but there are always those “staple” type items that we buy regardless of price.  We used to debate “going out” to eat before many of our meals.  Now there isn’t even a question of whether we will eat at home, although there is still plenty of debate on what we should eat on a particular night.

With that being said, we are still eating out every now and then, but we are choosing low cost “fast food” which might explain why McDonalds and other fast food chains are doing fairly well.  I think we are one of many families that are choosing lower cost fast food when we do eat out.  We actually don’t go to McDonalds much but we do go to some of what I’d call the “middle of the spectrum” fast food.  We eat at places like Baja Fresh, Chipotle, Taco Del Mar and a few other smaller chains.  Yes, that’s a lot of Mexican food, but that’s due to my food allergies more than anything.  We also get Thai food when we have a coupon, as well as a bit of other Asian food.

Have you changed your habits when it comes to eating at restaurants?

As I struggled to stay awake in a 7 hour meeting yesterday, I was happy to see that it was time to take a break and connect to a webcast that our Vice President was holding to discuss 2009 goals for IT (Our Information Technology group). He also planned on taking 45 minutes of questions during the session which is what I was most interested in hearing. I was anticipating some rather bold questions in light of the fact that our company announced upwards of 10% of the IT staff would be laid off. My company is pretty large and there are hundreds of IT workers. I’d guess there were at least 500 people connected to the webcast.

After the introductory presentation where everyone struggled not to nod off, it was finally time to start asking questions and people didn’t hesitate to start off with the most direct questions. "Why are you laying people off instead of seeking other cost cuts?" read the director from a previously submitted email. The VP squirmed a bit and expressed that they had done significant cost reductions in other areas and believed that labor was the last place they could cut. "Why isn’t the company considering freezing salaries or reducing existing people’s wages instead of laying people off?" said the same director as he read from yet another previously submitted email question. Frankly that question surprised me. I wasn’t surprised because I was against the idea, but rather because I was surprised people were willing to personally sacrifice a percentage of their salaries. What surprised me even more was the nodding of heads and general agreement in the room I was sitting in.

I’ve never seen people more willing to reduce their income levels to save the greater population of employees. Perhaps I was sitting in a room full of people that all felt they were about to be laid off, but I don’t think that’s the case. The people around me have all been at the company for quite some time and would be some of the last people to actually be laid off so I don’t think fear of a layoff was driving the general opinions in the room. Unfortunately the VP answered with a "fluff" answer. He basically said that all options were considered and the company hadn’t considered salary freezes or reductions as a viable option. It’s a strange time.

It just so happened that the same day this meeting took place, Microsoft announced they would be reducing their workforce by roughly 5000 people. As IT workers, that will definitely create more competition for my fellow employees that are laid off and looking for work. Something tells me it’s going to be a long, tough road for many of these people. I’m hoping I won’t be in the same boat but so far I appear to be pretty safe in my job.

Well, after a couple month hiatus, I’m dieting to shrink my waist line a bit.  I’m not really subscribing to a strict diet but I have drastically reduced my food intake and am counting calories through the Weight Watcher’s method.  To keep me honest I’m meeting my brother in law at his house to weigh in each Monday night.  So far so good.  If I don’t lose weight each week I have to pay my brother in law $10.  He’s doing it as well and he has yet to have to pay me.  I’m ashamed to admit I’ve paid him once (about 6 months ago when we were doing this).

A side effect of dropping weight is that we spend a ton less on food.  I don’t eat out because the restaurant foods are so packed with fat and calories that it’s impossible to have any self control.  That has reduced our overall food expenses significantly.

I’m also starting to reap the benefits of a smaller waistline when it comes to my clothes.  I’ve been sitting at my maximum weight and have pretty much worn out my “fat clothes”.  That was one of the reasons I finally decided it was time to get back on the wagon.  I’ve got a closet full of clothes that are a couple sizes too small.  I’m just starting to get back in to some of them so I don’t have to spend money to buy more “fat clothes”.  Besides the fact that I didn’t want to spend the money, I also didn’t want to buy big clothes again because I knew that would make me comfortable and I’d be a lot less inclined to drop weight and, in fact, would probably put on more.

I’ve found the best incentive for me to lose weight is to keep my wallet shut and force myself to be uncomfortable in clothes that I’m growing out of.  Of course it can’t look too ridiculous (in other words I don’t let myself wear pants that look painted on) but I do definitely feel the discomfort around my waistline when I’m reaching my peak weight.

What am I doing to drop the weight?

We’ll see how things go over the next couple months.  I’m looking forward to getting back in to all of my old clothes.  Most of them are in “new” condition because I grew out of them so fast.  The fact that I already own all these clothes just makes it a sweeter victory when I hit my target weight.

I’m a big fan of the office.  I found this pretty darned funny.  They found pretty good characters to compare with the American version.  If you read fark.com, you’ve probably already seen it.

Favorite line: Michael is a big phony wiener face

When we went through the application process to refinance our house we locked our interest rate for 45 days at 4.875% for a 30 year fixed loan.  We are quickly approaching the end of the lock period and I have found myself feeling a little bit stressed because interest rates have gone up a bit.

When I looked in to what would happen when my rate expires I was disappointed to find that the credit union had stacked the deck in their favor.  If my rate expires and the current available rate is lower than the rate I locked, the credit union will still give me the higher rate that I locked.  If my rate expires and the current available rate is higher, they’ll switch me to the higher rate.  Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

So, like I said, I’ve been concerned that my refinance is not going to close before the lock expires.  I sent a note a little over a week ago and my loan consultant replied that the loan would close before the rate expired.  That was 8 days ago and I haven’t heard from her since.

This morning I sent another email to my loan consultant and said I had a lot of concern that this was not going to close in time and I had absolutely no interest in a loan with an interest rate a full half point higher.  I was happy to get a quick reply from her apologizing for the delay.  She said that they have had a much higher volume of loans and that it’s taking longer to process them.  She said that due to the higher volume, they would extend my rate lock at no cost to us.

Phew!  That made me feel a lot better.  I would like to see the loan close this month so that I don’t have to make another payment to my current lender, but if it doesn’t it won’t be a huge deal.

When will people quit falling for these scams?

A LONELY postal worker has landed himself in huge debt – after handing over £130,000 to a string of internet scammers.

Shane Symington started sending cash to the fraudsters in 2007 after he was contacted by a woman claiming she needed funds to help her sick mother.

The trusting postie agreed and started sending money from an inheritance he had received when an elderly relative passed away…………..

Shane, Shane, Shane.  No alarms went off?  Since when does the FBI ask for their victims to fund their investigations?  I feel sorry for you but I’m disappointed that nothing ever seemed “off” with this whole deal.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2131643.ece