F-U recession. We'll be fine.

I haven’t written in quite a while. I just haven’t made the time. Between dropping the little off at preschool, running home to get some cleaning in, and running to the office to be consistent enough with our marketing efforts with the firm while at the same time developing some new ideas for new endeavors and trying to get home early enough to share some quality time with Emily, so we can play, have dinner, bathe, read and ultimately, go to sleep. Actually, SHE goes to sleep and I try to catch 10 or 15 minutes of CNN just to make sure the world hasn’t ended just yet. . .well, it’s been crazy.

Anyway, is the economy catching up with just about everyone, or is it me?

The positive spin on this whole recession, possibly soon-to-be-depression thing is that we can all learn some things to lead more responsible lives and learn to appreciate what is truly important.

Dave and I have worked our butts off for a long time to be “ahead of the curve” financially at a young age. We own our own business; we live in a nice house. We drive nice cars and send our child to a beautiful private preschool she loves. But as we are quickly learning, all that can vanish in an instant. We’ve lost neighbors to foreclosure and are seeing the value of our home drop. We’re holding off on vacation this year (other than a couple of Disney trips and what not) But, I am beginning to understand that all that “stuff” we work for is not really that important. We’ve seen some tragic and trying times around us – more than one set of friends who have lost a child in the past year, family members filing for bankruptcy, a leukemia diagnosis for my daughter’s cousin (thankfully now in remission), and countless other much more trying times than seeing our bank and retirement accounts shrink. This puts things in perspective.

In times like these, some people decide that the world is coming to an end and cross their arms to wait for Armageddon. Others, like myself – like so many of you, we decide we have to fight harder than ever. In times like these, we’ll come up with the best marketing ideas, with the best new business ideas and take on the world. So, F-U recession. F-U.

Thankfully, we’re still doing OK by most standards. Paying our bills on time, keeping a roof over our heads and our child fed. But to do so in the most responsible manner, we’ve cut unnecessary expenses and are maximizing our money as much as possible.

I wanted to share some of the ways I’m saving money every month:

Magic Jack. Forget your $100 a month bill for phone and long distance service. With Magic Jack, you have phone service with all the little add ons like voicemail, call waiting, etc for about $30 per YEAR. Yes, per year. You do need a fast internet connection, but most of us have this already. MagicJack.com

Downgrading the car, possibly going down to just one car. The lease on my Mercedes 500E is up in April (thank G-d!) So when I turn it in, I will not be getting another expensive car. In fact, since Dave and I work together, we’re going to test how it works with just one car. If it doesn’t work, I’ll be getting a more economical car. Between lease payment and insurance, I’ll be saving about a grand. Chaching!

No more cleaning lady. This was hard. It takes some discipline, especially with a 2-year old, but because I have a flexible schedule, I clean a little bit everyday and believe it or not, the house is actually cleaner than when I would let hell break loose in the house for a week until the night before the cleaning lady was due to come. I would then proceed to spend a couple of hours, picking up the whole house for her. Yeah, I know. It makes no sense. With this, I’m saving about $400 a month!

I’m also paying the minimums on my credit cards. It is important to conserve as much cash as possible while keeping up with your bills. I got this one from one of the many “money experts” on CNN or the Today show, or one of those.

This next one, I’m not sure about yet, but I’m considering cutting down Emily’s pre-school to part time – which would save me about $400 per month. The truth is, she’s 2. She doesn’t need to be in school, and my schedule is flexible enough. I’m also lucky enough to have my mom’s help.

We’re also spending A LOT LESS on lunch during the work week. For the most part, we go home and eat leftovers from dinner, or if we go out, making sure we spend a reasonable amount of money. No more $50 lunches between the 2 of us. And yes, it seems ridiculous to me too now.

So I have figured out that with just these changes, we’ll be saving more than $25,000 of post tax dollars a year, so about $30,000 of our hard earned money that we don’t HAVE to spend. I feel really good about that. In fact, I feel great about that!

Anybody have any other ideas or things you’re doing to save money during these tough economic times?