I am just curious. I know that the financial crisis has huge economic impact on Australia's economy and many individuals have been negatively impacted. I have seen the impact that it has had on specific areas which directly or indirectly affect my employment, and I cannot go anywhere without people talking about how 'bad' the economic crisis is.
Now having said all that, Mine and DH's personal financial situation has only been benefited by the financial crisis. I feel kinda bad admitting that.
DH is a federal government public servant in a very secure employment. His work are offering redundancies, but all voluntary - he wouldn't even consider taking one, and forced redundancies are extremely unlikely. My job is also quite secure, but wouldn't woryy me if it did dissapear - I am taking 12mths unpaid maternity leave shortly anyway, and am not sure if I will go back. So no job worries.
The lowered interest rates mean that we are paying off our mortgage at double the repayments we are required to make.
We are entitled to the government bonus' coming out, so will have the extra cash there.
Basically the financial crisis has been a blessing on my family
So how has the financial crisis affected everyone else out there?
Me, not so much as I'm taking the year off work on maternity leave. But I work in a private school and student numbers are down. My position wasn't filled for the year I'm off (only part time in my subject area) so I really don't know if I'll have a job to go back to next year. The scary part of it is that numbers were down before the financial crisis really hit.
For DH... He works in corporate events. Sound, lighting, production work. Over Christmas it was really obvious. There weren't so many big corporate Christmas parties and things... less hours for him, less money for us. This has continued. The company has laid a lot of people off, and it's a huge blessing to us that DH still has a job, but he has been asked to work less hours. He's often not paid on time as wages tend to bounce at times.
On top of all this... the owners of the previous place we lived in were forced to sell, so we were forced to move. This means we are now paying more rent and getting less money...
We have benefitted in that we bought a newly renovated house at a mortagee auction and got it for $75k less than the last buyer paid for it.
We have lost a few clients for one of our businesses because they are having financial troubles but not enough to make a big dent. Luckily it's an industry that is needed more in financially troubled times.
Our other business imports stuff so we will have to raise our prices to compensate for the lower exchange rate but we will still have a good profit rate as will our clients.
The main way in which I'm affected negatively is that a lot of my dept's projects are getting roadblocked or coming to a standstill because the govt is trying to cut spending as much as possible, so my current position hasn't yet gotten confirmation of continuity past June, and other job vacancies aren't there so I can't apply for something else.
But at worst, I go back to my substantive position, which is a very secure, no-way-in-hell-will-they-make-the-position-redundant sort of job, and at not a lot less pay too, so in that respect, both me and DH (who works in the same dept as me) are secure.
On the positive side, the interest rates going down means we're paying off my mortgage faster.
Last edited by sushee; March 5th, 2009 at 12:47 PM.
well I am also one who has benifited from it ... All the Krudd money has helped me get way infront of my bills and moving to another bigger house is now not just a wish but it's beginning to happen! I have been able to save money where I never would have before!
BW, that is no good at all I hope things improve for u soon!
Personally I have felt the same...I don't feel as though we have been negatively impacted, although I am not the most informed person when it comes to national or global economy so perhaps i have been effected more than I realise.
DH has had a lot of people at his work made redundant, hours changed around etc. But his position is a necessary one and one that not a lot of people are qualified for (he is an industrial electrician/fitter and turner and also has a telecommunications licence so has 3 trades and knows the plant he works at very well has been there for 6+ years) there aren't many electricians who are experienced with industrial and his plant basically its him and the second sparky) so basically if he gets made redundant it means the plant is shutting down, they are happy with him and without someone in his position the plant can't run. However, I know he does still worry a little as the only income earner in our family. He's applied for a few jobs lately with recommendations from ppl he knows already in the companies and both of those would be very stable and higher paying and new things to learn etc so perhaps its a positive nudge to bigger, better things??
And then also the stimulus packages have/will be a good help for us!
DH's brother has just been made redundant for the 2nd time since it all started though so not good for everyone. SIL is a nurse though so at least she is in an area where job security is good
DH does tech support for a small business which folded this week. Fortunately he was offered another job with better pay the following day, but the business he was working for had been operating for 10 years and it just up and died over a few months. Scary.
The main effect it's had for us is that we're thinking alot more about long term plans, long term security. When things are good it's easy to forget that times like this come around eventually. We'll be making lots of changes over the next few months in our work and living arrangements, lifestyle and money habits because of all this. It was a bit of an eye opener how quickly DH went from having stable employment to not. With me self employed we are doubly exposed.
We also have to move soon - the owners of our house are returning from a few years OS - and it quickly became apparent we won't be staying in this area. Rent prices have increased by $80-$100 a week around here. Our rent hasn't been raised since we've been here and to get a comparable house we're looking at that sort of increase which has occured in 18 months. It's ridiculous and we aren't paying it. We'll probably move further out.
I really feel for all the 20 somethings though. They have never known anything but economic boom, low unemployment etc and they are all in for a very rude shock this year me thinks.
DP and I lost $50 000 of our own money on the share market and now only $5 000 left (which is not in the stockmarket anymore)! DP is extrememly depressed about this and it has caused alot of relationship problems.
DP's mechanic business is almost down the toilet because people aren't getting their cars serviced nearly as much anymore as it seems cars are the last thing people want to spend money on unless they absolutely have to. He has now had to get a second job working security in the city at nights and I rarely see him
Our rent prices went up over a year ago because of interest rates but have not come down.
My credit card interest rates went up over the years but have failed to come down since the interest rate cuts.
I will get $900 from the government for the stimulus package but it hardly makes up for losses.
We cant really blame anyone else. I suppose it is just the time in the cycle that our economy is in. We are lucky that we are healthy and have plenty of years in front of us that we can work and regain the money. I am sure there are a lot of people in worse situations than us.
I am also extremely lucky that being a government employee I am being paid maternity leave and my job is very secure.
Ali, we've lost a lot of value on the stockmarket too but they are a long term nest-egg so hopefully after about 10 years they will have gone back to where they were.
I feel bad in saying but its done us great favours, all our savings went into our house 18months ago so now we have a mortgage and with interest rates dropping we are paying well above our minimum repayments.
Plus we are both in jobs that we don't need to worry about.
I feel selfish saying this when people are doing it really tough. We just been lucky it happened when it did in our stage of life.
We got our mortgage last june and fixed our interest for 3 years so are paying heaps more interest. DH and I both work in govt jobs so are secure but DH's pay is pretty low and he has been getting less overtime which is what makes his pay a lot less than we need.
Despite having a lot less to live on than other people who qualified we got none of the children bonus monies (the joys of a mortgage) but we will get the Rudd tax money as we earn under 80K each.
My friend's DH has a mowing business and they are being hit hard.
DP and I were saying only the other night how lucky we are. His job is secure - he's a train driver on passenger trains. It would be a bit of a different story if he drove freight trains - those jobs are being affected because they're carrying less stuff because of the financial crisis. My job is a semi-government one and is pretty safe too and the organisation is heavily unionised.
So for us it's meant that we can do our renovations and be paying the same in repayments as before interest rates started going down.
The only negative is that DP's XW is American. Will try not to write a novel at this point but her financially precarious position because of her own silliness with money and the situation economically in the US, may make it more likely that she will chase DP for money. He didn't represent himself at court for the divorce hearing (would have had to fly back to the US) and she was awarded a high sum in alimony for the rest of her life. We've been told by lawyers since that this was highly unusual and DP was basically penalised for not bothering to turn up to court. So she could chase that backpayment and we could end up fighting an international legal case which could leave us $50K down the tubes. Silly DP - this has caused a lot of tension between us as you can probably tell!
The financial crisis has not impacted our family at this stage.
Both of us are in industries where our jobs can be affected on the economy - I work for a major bank and dh is in the agricultural industry. At this stage we are both safe.
We will benefit from the government bonus as we both earn less than $80k p.a. and we fortunately sold our second house earlier this year, so we have no mortgage.
The downside is our savings are not earning very much interest due to the lower mortgage rates and our share portfolio was affected, but overall this makes very little difference to our overall financial position.
Financial crisis - Has it affected you? How?
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