Sort of. Yes because we got married and are now a two income household instead of one. .
No because we are both making 1/2 of what we were four years ago and are living in a country that is 2x the COL. If we had gotten married and kept things the way they were, we'd be laughing to the bank every month
Post by shouldbworkin on Sept 16, 2012 21:38:46 GMT -5
I'd say we're about even. Four year ago we made more, but had 2 kids in daycare, so it felt like we had much less. Now we have one in daycare PT and we make less, so not much has changed financially. DH's paycheck being less has nothing to do with the economy, though.
Post by EllieArroway on Sept 16, 2012 21:51:41 GMT -5
We are definitely better off. I left the workforce to stay at home, but DH has advanced enough in his career that our HHI is still similar to where it was. We paid off his student loans & are almost done with mine. Our savings have tripled. Our retirement accounts are in much, much better shape.
I'm not sure how much of that can be attributed to the government, though.
Yes. H did get laid off in '10, but found a job shortly after he started looking. We have around the same HHI. My condo is still deeply underwater, but recent comps are starting to creep up slowly. And my payments got lower due to the ARM. We were able to save enough to look into buying a new house, with the intention of keeping the condo since the rental market has picked back up.
We don't vacation or eat out as often, but that's really DD's fault, not the economy's.
Post by mominatrix on Sept 16, 2012 22:44:39 GMT -5
Absolutely.
H has gotten raises and bonuses, and is flirting with being promoted. We've paid down a schitton of debt in the last four years; four years ago, our finances were really dismal, we were still reeling from the decision we made for me to SAH and for H to move from a ($$$$, no benefits) contracting gig to a real job with the same company (less pay, but security and benefits).
Me? I'm much better off than I was 4 years ago. But as a family, we are still not to where we were in 2006 when we bought our home. DH's salary is about 60% of what it was. So we are close, because I'm about 30% better off than I was. We are within about 10k of what we were making 6 years ago, and I guess we are about even with where we were 4 years ago. DH is worse off than he was even 4 yrs ago (he is a recruiter).
Post by oneslybookworm on Sept 17, 2012 4:20:28 GMT -5
We are, but like Publius, we've not liven in the States for the past 3 out of 4 years. Our situation is better off solely due to being on an expat package overseas. We'd probably be the same if we'd stayed at home.
Post by ChillyMcFreeze on Sept 17, 2012 5:35:46 GMT -5
Yes, but I was in school 4 years ago. But since then, I've gone from unemployed to part-time to full-time, thanks in large part to the government. And at the end of this year, DH will have a large portion of his student loans forgiven. He was able to move to a better school system, and he's still seeing annual raises.
Interesting to read that the majority of posters are better off now than 4 years ago. I'd be curious to know for how many of us, that had to do with age as much as anything (ie used to be in school or just graduating) or just our particular fields. I don't know if its possible to find out WHY most of us are better off, but its certainly interesting to me.
I think this is why we are better off, despite having had three kids in four years We're young and upwardly mobile in our careers so we're earning more now than we were back in 2008. We're also very fortunate that the housing market in our area remained relatively stable and didn't tank like so many others did (we bought in 2005).
So it's really a combination of luck and circumstance for us. It easily could have gone another way.
Post by cookiemdough on Sept 17, 2012 7:30:00 GMT -5
Some things are better like our retirement accounts, but our house is still significantly underwater due to all the foreclosures in our neighborhood during the meltdown.
Yes. I have received a promotion and raises and bonuses every year except 2009 was no raise. DH has gotten significant raises and a promotion.
I also have had a lack of qualified candidates applying at my company-almost no one from competitors. Usually people who have stalled in other careers looking to make a change. And it's a great company with excellent benefits and decent salary.
So, I guess in my corner of the world things are better.
Very much so, but that's because DH finally found a job almost a year ago. We went from $15,000 a year to about $125,000 a year. Even in a slightly higher COL and more bills, we are doing significantly better than four years ago.
Yes, we are. And the programs this adminstration put in place directly impacted our ability to breath easier today.
We both have higher salaries than we did four years ago, the homebuyers credit allowed us to pay off our student loans, we got a nice refund from our old health insurance carrier this summer thanks to ACA and HARP allowed us to lower our mortgage payment by about $250/month.
So, yes, we've been fortunate enough to get through the recession and improve our household's standing
Definitely. We are fortunate. We graduated in 2008 and 2009, and despite the total freefall in the jobs area during that time, we managed to make it work. I landed my job through a connection from an internship and H stuck with a business he had started during school. We both moved up in the next few years from that point.
We bought a home, got the tax credit, our HHI has almost doubled, and we are contributing a good amount to savings.
Yes, by far. Despite a layoff a year ago and another child (and resultant daycare costs) we are in a far better place than we were 4 years ago.
We were able to buy our house with an $8K stimulus credit. It has maintained its value. We both have seen our wages increase - mine by nearly 60%. I moved from the public sector to the private sector, which accounts for a large part of that.
No, but I don't necessarily blame the administration. I (still) work in an unstable industry, and things are going to get hairier when my company comes out of bankruptcy this year. While I've thought about leaving my business, I haven't been active about it, because in all honesty, jobs with my skill set pay less than I make and I enjoy what I do.
We also went from being DINK to having a 16-month old in daycare. So a good chunk of out extra money goes to that.
We had the misfortune of getting married and buying our condo at the height of S. FL's real estate bubble. We don't have a mortgage we can't afford and we're not in danger of losing our home, we simply haven't been able to try and move into a real house, which was one of our goals. We're now weighing our options: short sale, sticking it out, renting it out, but we haven't made any decisions yet.
The biggest thing causing me grief is the fact I really want to have a second child. We just don't know if we can afford it. That's what we're trying to figure out now.
Despite those woes, I actually have seen two minimal raises after years with no salary increase and my husband is doing incredibly well at his job (he's the one keeping us afloat, and I know that puts a lot if scary pressure on him.)
But I know we're fortunate. It could be a whole lot worse. I just feel like we're financially stuck and I'm not sure how things will get better.
Post by racegrrl714 on Sept 17, 2012 8:54:22 GMT -5
Yes, we are much better off than we were four years ago, even though Mitt Romney would still classify us as poor. LOL Four years ago, my husband was unemployed and I was making less money at my old job after 9 years there than I am now at my new job that I've been at for 9 months. My old job also had a 55 mile one way commute. My new job is 12 miles away from home and at the end of the year, our office is moving to a building that's 3 miles away from home (!!!!! so excited!!!). So not only am I making more, I'm not spending as much just for the privelege of working. My insurance was marginally better at the old job, but not enough for me to say I was better off back then. Hubby is also gainfully employed now.
We still struggle with being paycheck-to-paycheck, but we also have a lot more luxuries (Iphones, cable, internet, nice house, etc) than we could even dream of back then. And we have a kid now. She eats a lot and has expensive tastes in clothes and diapers... LOL
Post by passthewine on Sept 17, 2012 9:04:52 GMT -5
We are definitely NOT better off than 4 years ago.
In the past 4 years I was laid off from 2 jobs and DH had been laid off once. Neither of us are making the same money that we had been (not a big cut, but a cut none the less.) Due to the layoffs we accumulated credit card debt that we're working hard to pay off, and due to a change in medical insurance and the debt we're trying to pay off, IF treatments have pretty much become a pipe dream.
That depends on how you define "you." As an individual, I am worse off. As a household, we are better off. I worked in an industry that has had a huge contraction. My company was acquired by a competitor in 2009 and I was laid off as a "redundant" employee. I was 37 weeks PG at the time. I tried like crazy to find a job, including leaving my 7 day old son at home so I could fly to Philly for an interview. My industry continued to shrink and I had no luck finding a job. I was in a very competitive industry that was male dominated. As a general, applicants who are not currently employed are not considered for new positions. I have been out of the job market for so long that I doubt I would be hire-able. Most companies would not hire me for a position comparable to what I left since my contacts are no longer current and a mom whohasledt the workforce for a few years is seen as not having the "killer instinct" necessary to be successful. I am probably not seen as a good candidate for a lesser job, even though it actually appeals to me now, because employers would expect me to jump ship as soon as I plugged to gap in my resume and moved on. I don't think I will ever be able to get back to the fast track I was on prior to my company being acquired in 2009.
DH, on the other hand, works in the auto industry. He took a pay cut in 2009 prior to the bankruptcies. 2009 was awful for us and things got a lot worse before they got better. I tried to work with our mortgage company to lower our interest rate/payment through the modification process. Our rate was close to 6% and the current rate back then was less than 4% but we could not refi because we were so upside down. I tried for 9 months and could't even get an answer out of Citimortgage. Finally, they began foreclosure proceedings. I contacted our congressman who had a staff person assigned to help troubled homeowners. the staffer said he had worked on hundreds of modifications and only a small fraction had been resolved in favor of the homeowner. I told him I would do the work if he would lend me his clout. I drafted a proposal that showed the losses the bank would take, based on numbers their own property manager had given me, versus what they would make if they lowered our interest rate to the current market rate for the next 23 years. (the remainder of our term back then). Ihad the staffer consign my email on behalf of our congressman and I sent it to about 40 people at citimortgage, including the vp's of loss mitigation, financial operations, government regulations, the COO and the president of Citimortgage. I also copied the comptroller of the currency who oversees banking regulation, my governor, all of my senators, senator Chris Dodd, who was chairman of the senate banking committee, my state attorney general, President Obama's office, etc. Pretty much, I blitzed every single office that had even a hint of dealing with housing or banking. On the fourth day of my email blitz I called citimortgage and spoke with the admin assistant to the president. I gave hermy name and said, "My name is 4Speedy and I'm calling to see if...". That's as far as I got before she cut me off and said, "oh, I know what you're calling about, I've seen the emails.". She told me I would've hearing from someone from their office before the end of the week. That was on a Thursday morning. Thursday night at 9 pm, the VP of loss mitigation called me to tell me my foreclosure proceedings would be halted and I would be given a loan modification with a new interest rate of 3% for one year and then it would be adjusted to 4% for the remainder of our term after that year was up. the whole thing was completed and we were back on track within 10 days of initiating my email campaign.
That was Oct. 22, 2009. Since then, my DH received a very significant promotion. He is now considered an unclassified executive so his pay took a huge jump, although a lot of it is tied to long term incentives. He has been given cash bonuses that take 3 years to partially vest and we are 2 years into his promotion. When that cash becomes available to him this Feb, we will finally be back to where we were when we were a double income family. Our house is still under water but it is our forever house so we don't need to worry about selling any time soon. Our payment is quite a bit lower than when we bought the house, so we are better of that way.
So while my DH makes a lot more money, my prospects at future employment are quite dismal. As a family, we are just now finding our way out of the hole we were in and we are pretty much at the exact spot we were at 5 years ago before the shit hit the fan.
If you want to factor in the toll the stress has taken on DH's health and our marriage, well then, no, we are not better off.
Financially our take home pay has recovered to about where we were four years ago. But that was due to our choices (moving from NYC to Delaware) and the accompanying instability that came with DH changing jobs multiple times. I also don't have the threat of losing my job looming over my head right now.
ACA was huge for us. H and my son both have pre-existing conditions and I worried about what would happen if we ever lost coverage. Now I don't have to worry about them not being insured.
So financially we're even but I sleep 100 times better at night.
Post by cookiemdough on Sept 17, 2012 9:14:02 GMT -5
4speedy the mortgage story is awesome. Good for you! It does make you wonder why the people that work at the bank couldn't figure it out themselves but I am glad that someone was actually heard for a change.
I'm waayyyy better off. Probably b/c of the crisis, DH was able to buy his company for practically nothing and make a crapload of money. Since Obama was inaugurated I went from living in a TH to a much larger home, got married, had 2 kids, got a nicer car, quit my job. Under Bush, I lived in a studio apartment and was single w/ no money. All b/c of who was president. Anecdotes ftw!