Is anyone else feeling the crunch of the economy like me? With gas prices at well over $4.00 a gallon, home heating oil above that, and the increases at the grocery store, and at all other realtors my layout has not been touched in a month. I just don’t have the $$$ to spend on my toys like I did before.
I’m very depressed.
Try being over a year out of college and still not be able to find a job.
I hear you there. Last night on the way home from work, I had to gas up my truck. I only needed a little over half a tank, and the total came to $88! Even riding my bike to work as much as I can is getting pricy, the last tankful there was $17.
I get really depressed when I look at my 401K fund. At this rate, I won’t be able to retire EVER! I’m starting to think I should save all of my money in a couple of Mason jars out in the backyard. I try to keep an “allowance” from my paycheck to limit my spending. It has been $100 a week for years, and this winter, it will take all of that to buy gas to go to work (probabaly and then some too). I’m trying to save up some money to buy a couple of locos from a guy, and I can’t seem to get any put back.
The only nice thing is that I do have a lot of stuff put back to work on when I can’t afford to go to work any more! At least I won’t be bored.
It’s like the prototype railroad for me. I have been working on the layout to get it into shape for an operating session. I am not employed right now, but had previously stocked up on supplies for this anticipated time off. Sorry to learn now that I did not purchase enough track or turnouts. I have a staging yard at each end of the layoyut and do not have enough track and turnouts in the inventory to reach one of the staging yards. Like the prototype, construction has halted until the railroad management can raise more funds.
Interesting you say railroad management & raising funds. At the rate I’m going right now, my B&M layout will go the way of the original. Bankrupt…
I’ve been out of work for almost 1 1/2 years![banghead] That leaves ZERO $$$ for the layout![:(] A can of paint or a copy of MR is a cause for celebration for me.
I’ve got 10 years management experience and I can’t even get a job stocking grocery store shelves on third shift! I’ve applied at about 50 places in the last 3 weeks. Got ONE call for an interview. A job I was REALLY qualified for. I got 2 sentences out of my mouth and the woman interviewing me called out to the rest of the people in the office-LOOKY HERE! WE GOT US A OHIO YANKEE LOOKIN FER WERK!!![banghead][banghead][banghead]
I REALLY frickin hate living in the South!![:(!]
Aw, c’mon, Loathar - the South ain’t all bad! There are idiots like that all over the world, and just as much discrimination “up north” as “down south.”
I’m sorry about your bad luck, but don’t hate the game - hate the player [;)]
What was your major?
Folks:
Things are rough now but just remember, this will pass.
(If people would have remembered that when THE BOOM TIMES WERE GONNA LAST FOREVER we wouldn’t be in this mess now, but nobody ever does).
And that includes oil prices. It’s a bubble. Bubbles pop. I know this is cold comfort if you oil-heat the house, but it will happen.
I just hope this present price problem motivates us to take a good look at our transportation system. It could be the best thing that ever happened. Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Labour, Conservative, phooey. Give me Economics for a party that really drives progress.
(Again, I don’t want to be unsympathetic. Our Taurus and our battered old Cavalier cost half a bill to fill now. Holy speculation, Batman. I just want to present some perspective. Bad times, like good times, never last forever.)
Maybe it’s time to move away from thar’ …come to Houston…There are jobs everywhere here. They need 80,000 truckers in this area alone to move the goods. I don’t know what it is, but when the country gets in an economic slump, Houston becomes a boom town…Of course most of the oil refineries are here which my have a lot to do with it…chuck
I would if I could.
A-No money to move.
B-Taking care of my “ailing” mom here.[:-^]
C-Diabetic…Can’t get a CDL license![banghead] Trucking is the one thing that has a lot of openings here and I can’t do it.[V]
I’ve been offered my old jobs back in Oh. and Fl. if it weren’t for the moving money and the “mom” thing.[banghead]
Sorry. Didn’t mean to vent. I’m just at my wits end these days.
I’m on a fixed income of $627 a month. It costs $85 to fill my cars tank. Guess where the money has to come from. That’s right, from the train budget.
Try living on a fix income…Thankfully my Union disability retirement pays far more the Social Security Disability…I just don’t see how those on SSD lives with the high cost of living we face these days.[%-)]
My Mom and Dad went through the great depression. When I was growing up, I saw them save everything. My Dad used to get used lumber and pull the nails and straighten them out. I thought he was crazy. But guess what? I’m doing that now at 64. I am saving EVERYTHING.
Take the hobby in a new direction. Start scratch building. Modeling is still modeling, it just takes longer and costs less to scratch build. I have been on a $60 per month hobby allowance for 20 years. I have learned a lot about scratch building.
The only thing I think I have done right in the last three years is I bought a Civic Hybrid almost three years ago, just before gas prices started going up bad. I get 50 MPG City or Highway. I just love it. However, five years ago we switched our heat form Propane to oil. That’s a bummer. I am now fully retired on a fixed income, so far so good. We are getting ready to expand our garden again. Every little bit helps. Glad I stuck it out and retired from the Navy.
May be that’s even a better direction. You are really doing railroad modelling and not railroad collecting. You earn all my respect for your scratch building projects.
We’re on a fixed income and last night I sold a nice camera on eBay to raise some extra cash. Fortunately we are able to use public transportation and don’t even own a car, but the high cost of gasoline will start having a ripple effect on many consumer products.
Wish those folks in DC could get together for a change and start doing something constructive instead of blaming everyone else for the economic problems we face.
I’m gonna be scratch building some more buildings and rolling stock, and maybe practice some weathering techniques. But there are no major purchases planned for the railroad.
Wayne
This recession and inflation is breaking the backs of many families, it is very sad and very madenning also. Those of us on Fixed Income are really getting clobbered. Heating oil here in the Northeast is at $4.25 a gallon for #2 heating oil. Propane and natural gas are all headed UP as well, and if we have an early Winter, or a severe cold Winter, hold on to your wallets. I have 4 cords of wood ready for Winter to keep two woodburners going. Last year I used 520 gallons of oil for 12 month period, and I am going to try to reduce that use even further.
And guys, the REAL rate of inflation is between 8 and 10%, NOT the phony 4% that Fed is trying to tell us, so don’t look for a COLA of over3.5% for SS this October. BUT, you can bet your life that Part “B” deduction for Medicare for those of us over 65 will be raised, and take away a large chunk of SS COLA increase.
I guess we will be buying more kits and Blue Boxes…“hear that Athearn???”
It’s not really a bit off topic, it’s right on, and going to be a lot worse, everyone says the “30’s” can’t happen again (SURPRISE) This will not concern those with those golden pensions or the people that were making $80-100,000/year, but to the ordinary stiff trying to survive on $6.00/hr, times are tough. Predictions in the future are for some sorry times, we all can’t just pack up and go west to some $100,000 a year magic job. So surviving by scratchbuilding instead of hitting the hobby shops and coming out with armloads of stuff you already have 20 of, will be the order of the future. (The 1.5% interest on your 401K doesn’t help either)
Went through this in the 1970s. The cost of gas reached the ungodly price of $1.00 or more.
Deal with it. You will survive. Stuff happens.
Rich