Reply #16: I hear you...I wonder the same thing myself...

[youthere]

We're pretty fortunate, my husband pulls a very good salary, and I make a decent amount off of my part time job, plus we are pretty self-sufficient (raise most of our own veggies, fruit and meat). We were sitting pretty good and had some disposable income but not lately. Our spending habits haven't changed (in that we aren't going out more often, or making additional frivolous purchases) but yet there is less and less money come payday. We save a substantial amount from our income, and don't have much debt beyond our mortgage but just the living costs (gas groceries utilities etc..) are taking a larger bite out of our income. I spend the same amount at the grocery store every two weeks and bring home less and less. So we stopped eating out as often. We stopped going to movies. We stopped making runs to the store on a whim.We didn't take a vacation this year. I've been making whatever I can instead of buying it at the grocery store (bread, noodles etc). We could reduce the amount we put into savings but that would only hurt us in the long run, so we'll have to continue to tighten the belt as much as possible before resorting to that. We have some friends that are feeling the pinch as much as we are and they've been living off their credit cards-even using them to buy groceries-that's a financial disaster waiting to happen. I don't know how other folks are doing it, but that's how we're managing for the time being. I guess it all depends on how willing you are to adapt your standard of living-but some folks have cut their standard of living to the bare bones..to the point where it isn't really even living anymore-just barely surviving.