Everybody Loves Your Money

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?