Thursday, July 10, 2008 Talkback Question:
What is/are your major financial concern(s) right now?
*My major financial concerns are: economy getting worse; mainly with bigger decreases in the stock market and the increasing cost of gas and food.
I want to hear from you. Be sure to leave a comment with your answer.
The cost of food is my biggest concern. I barely drive due to living in the city, so gas doesn't affect me as directly as some other folks. But I'm feeling the pinch in my food budget, for sure.
Taking a long-term view, I'm concerned about job stability. My field could be affected by a big economic slump, as the agency I work for operates on many government contracts. For now, I feel very stable, but things could change.
I am also concerned about the rising cost of food and gas. It doesn't seem to be slowing down, and when I think about what I was spending six months ago compared to now it just blows my mind!
My husband and I are trying to sell a GMC Envoy, and the cost of gas is making that very difficult to do so. Now I also worry about not being able to sell the SUV.
My wife is going back to school full time in the fall for two years. We have lived off my income before, but with prices on everything going up, it's getting to be difficult. Looks like we'll be relying heavily on her student loans.
In addition to the economy, my big concern is, like fitwallet, is job stability. I am going back to school next year for nursing, an area I'm pretty sure will always be in demand. Following that it's having money put aside for emergencies and retirement.
My biggest concern, why keep my money in equities when the dollar is really moving. Has anyone heard of the World Currency Dirivitives Fund. They pay %12.55 a year on IRA's? Please advise me if you have some insight, I am getting quite convinced I need to move SOME money there...
http://www.wcdfund.com/
Thank you-Ben
1. The housing market needs to rebound. Too much equity lost and inability to refinance even when both people are working. It almost feels like the banks and government WANT us to fail. Ugh.
2. The price of food, although we've become healthier eaters when closely watching the budget
3. Gas. I'm not as impacted by this and while it does hurt many people... in the long-run it's the slap in the face our society needed to move towards mass transit (demand better transit) and decrease overall consumption. It stinks being forced onto a diet though!
Taking a massive paycut next year as I take on a fellowship. Trying to manage my condo from overseas!
HOME HEATING OIL!! I just paid to fill my tank--it was not even half empty and the bill was equal to what it used to cost to fill the whole tank. It now costs about $1000 to fill my tank--something I will have to do probably 3-4 times this winter.
We just bought a house, and so I am worrying about all the expenses that go along with that. We've budgeted for everything I can thing of, but I worry I'm forgetting something, or that we'll need to do some major unexpected maintenance work.
Oh, and the price of gas too, of course.
I'd like to point out that in Canada, we've already been paying the equivalent of $5/gallon for gas for quite a while now, and it hasn't wrecked our economy. And it isn't allowed to distort the real picture, that oil has always been this expensive. Sometimes I think that many of the reports in the US media "emotionally exaggerate" the situation. It's because the US dollar has been debased so much by the Fed that oil's "price" has risen. Now it's time for the US to catch up to what the rest of the world has already been paying. As one woman I spoke to in Denver said, US consumers have been spoiled.
My biggest concern is the possibility of losing my job before paying off my CC debt and having a 3- to 6-month emergency fund in place. I have only 1K in my emergency fund right now and almost 6K still on my credit cards (down from over 12K).