Yep, it hits here, too. Not the job, thankfully. I’m grateful every day to have the job and to be able to do it reasonably well.
But for the last six months the business has not been good and isn’t going to get better any time soon. When other businesses are struggling to keep afloat there’s no way mine will thrive, and I’m sure you don’t need to imagine what someone in financial services feels like these days (BD’s profession).
We’re giving up our office space this month. I hate it. It feels like divorce. For the last 12 years BD and I have shared the same office space, had coffee at the same time every day, covered each others’ phones and faxes, and just generally had a nice go of it. Now he’s moving his office to his parents’ house and I’m moving mine home. Shutting down business phone lines ($500/month), the extra internet service ($40/month), getting rid of the office rent ($700/month).
You’d think it would feel good to get rid of the expense but it doesn’t. It sucks. I absolutely hate the idea of shoehorning office space into a house where I get no peace, where there are too many people, too many drumsets and too damn much stuff. I hate the idea of sorting through 12 years of paper to send stuff to shredding, storage and home. I hate the idea of cleaning my garage so I can pile more boxes of paper in it and I hate trying to figure out which furniture I can move or get rid of to shove my desk in our already-crowded living room.
Today I don’t see anything good about it. I see lost quality of life and no corresponding benefit, not even financial, because that money will probably go toward making up lost ground in other areas of finances.
We’re a family who owes on our mortgage. No credit cards, no car payments, no extravagant living, and yet, here we are.
It sucks. I’m pissed about it. I’m pissed that we’re suffering because…why? Why ARE we?
And we have it better than many, believe me, I know. And am grateful. But my 401k is down 35% from last year and I’m giving up the place that was mine, that represented my own personal success, that now represents my failure.
This economy sucks.
