Overt Displays of Wealth

Remember when conspicuous consumption was the norm? Logos all over everything, to announce the amount of money you'd spent, lasted a couple of decades. It used to be that it was, ahem, very personal products that were transported in plain brown wrappers. In fact, in my college town, the personal products store was called The Plain Brown Wrapper.

Now? Sex shops aren't under wraps anymore but high-end consumer goods are carried about in unmarked bags, so as not to identify the expensive purchases. In some malls and shopping districts, it probably doesn't matter; there aren't enough low-end stores around to fool anyone.

Debt

I'm not the only one worried about debt, but as most of mine is student loans, I'm in a much better situation than those who have sub-prime mortgages, who relied on being able to refinance later on, or those with variable-rate credit cards, or who relied on being able to transfer their balance to the next card.

I know a couple of people who played the credit card balance game and were successful in moving balances around to take advantage of low interest rate offers. What I don't know is whether they were able to actually reduce their debt this way; in any case, they found it shocking, after several changes, when the next card wouldn't play.

By that time, they had established the game on their credit reports and the bank realized they were going to keep the account open for six months. Of course, opening and closing accounts every six months likely had an impact on their credit ratings as well. I don't think that game exists any longer.

The credit card game people, at least those with good credit, play now is how to get the best deal on travel. Apparently, Capital One has better conversion rates. Which is fine if you use it and pay it off. My credit union card has a low rate for straight up transaction conversions but fees are higher for ATM's.

Not that I'm going anywhere.

Looking Busy

I've had several jobs in which I wasn't kept nearly busy enough. I hate not being busy; if they catch on, they might not think they need you. Plus, there's only so much time I can waste online.

Last year, when I was traveling, I wasn't nearly busy enough; when I started this blog, I had a lot of downtime and would write posts and e-mail them to myself, to cut and paste later. I was in a place with net filters that ruled out blogs, as so many do. Right now, blogs are filtered only if the system catches on. Meaning that I can read blogs, but the minute I post in the combox, it's blocked. I learned that the hard way and now have a different computer, with which I won't make that mistake.

While I'm not always busy now, I'm moving forward with a couple of projects and am going into a busier period. I don't know how long it'll last, but hopefully for several months. I'm fortunate in being somewhere that I'm definitely needed, even though the projects don't move as fast as I'd like.

Technology

While I'm not the first one on the block to acquire new technology, I'm well aware that people trade up for something new in seemingly ridiculously short amounts of time. One of my friends is always getting a new something; she has a good job, can afford to buy new toys and has plenty of people to whom to hand things down.

That was the trend for everyone for the last several years. Now it seems that people are waiting or buying fewer new items. Credit isn't readily available, nor are jobs, so people are being more conservative in spending, at least partly out of necessity.

Despite my colleague, whose husband gets a new cellphone all the time, the cellphone industry's numbers are going down right now. I know a few people who don't have a cellphone, but not too many anymore. There must be more people like me out there; my phone is three years old and I keep talking myself out of getting a new one. It's great to have something new, but I see no reason to take action when my current phone is good. My backup phone is also just fine.

Since cellphone manufacturers send their wares worldwide, it only makes sense that a worldwide downturn in the economy would have an affect on their sales. Existing markets are saturated with people who are off the consumer bandwagon for one reason or another; emerging markets aren't emergingi as quickly as it seemed either. As for me, I just don't want to incur one more bit of recurring debt.

Applying Myth to Business

And I'm not talking the patron saint of retail here, Santa Claus.

Businesses go through different philosophies, based on who's marketing what. Right now, at least in India, the trend is to apply Hindu Myth to business. I'm not sure whether it's effective or if it would be practical to export; I'm guessing it wouldn't go over in some parts of the country, such as the Bible Belt, but would be perfectly acceptable, if not preferable on the West Coast.

I haven't read about anything like this taking place in the US in a long time; perhaps because we've been in a bit of a cynical era and downsizing in large part for many years. Maybe a change in the way business is practiced would be a good thing; it seems that ethics right now are a quaint old-fashioned notion, or something that can be manipulated to achieve our desired result.

Networking Groups

Networking groups have been around for a long time; informal networking for those who are networkers by nature and habitually keep in contact with others, which proves to be mutually beneficial.

The rest of us? Not so easy. Some network via groups related to their college, whether it's a Fraternity or Sorority, sport team or some other campus group; small business owners may join formal networking groups designed to increase business contacts. Where I live, there are small business networking groups formed by geographic area and profession. Meaning there's one attorney in the group. And one insurance person. Along with one of whatever other business owners have joined. They sometimes limit their membership to one each of professions listed. Other groups are more general.

In addition to these, people have other affiliations, sometimes related to current or former employers, along with membership groups such as Lions Club, Eagles, Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo and the American Legion.

Lately, the trend has been for state unemployment offices and church groups to sponsor networking groups. A new twist is to have accountability. It used to be the only entity to which one was accountable, at least in my state, was the state unemployment office, which, in my state, has hoops through which one must jump in order to obtain unemployment benefits. Apparently people now must be accountable to others as they seek employment.

In the current economy, that's probably a good thing; it's too easy to become complacent, especially in light of the possibility of unemployment benefits being extended and/or increased. It's definitely preferable to be working, but taht isn't always a possibility.

4-6 Months of Savings

I've never sat down and determined what the dollar amount for 4-6 months of savings was; I've mostly been in a position in which savings was not a serious possibility, due to expenses and debt compared to income. Now that I'm working and finally have a paycheck that's stable for awhile, and have all the deductions applied, I know what my takehome pay will be; up until now it has fluctuated due to additions and changes to my deductions.

It took awhile because the pension fund is automatic so was a deduction on my first paycheck, as was parking, the amount for which changed immediately; these were followed by my benefits payments once I was eligible. Because there was a problem with a fax machine, my deferred compensation was added later, as was my healthcare savings plan as I didn't go into that for last year. Now that I know how much money is left for me to spend, it seems like it should be plenty to pay my basic bills; the trick is going to be maintaining my austerity program and getting the other stuff taken care of.

Housing, utilities, loans, cellphone, insurance, gas, groceries and haircuts are the typical expenses. I spend about $100 on gas monthly at the current rates; however, my grocery bills fluctuate and I don't pay close attention. My first objective will be to keep track of how much I spend at the grocery store and how I spend it.

I haven't been paying as much attention to coupons lately and need to be more diligent about that. Grocery prices seem to have gone up lately, but my store still has two for one meat coupons, which is good. Last week they had a lot of produce coupons, but for items I don't use or wouldn't use two of quickly enough that they wouldn't be wasted.