I haven't been on alot in the past week. The economy is starting to scare me, and we've started making changes. I'm trying to quit smoking, we just changed the dogs food, I'm trying to learn how to become a coupon queen and cut my grocery bills in half (www.couponmom.com is a great site!), I quit having my nails done, we dumped my dh's cell phone, since he has a work cell phone too, and we've already been on a strict budget since the beginning of the year. We don't spend anything until we spend it on paper first and use cash only.

But, everything I've been watching has me scared. The amount of lost jobs just last month alone is frightening. dh works for a Fortune 500 company and it's a huge company, and we're feeling the effects of the economy there too. They're restructuring. He got a new boss and they're cross training alot of their employees. So out of my husbands group of inspection engineers, which only consists of 3 of them, they are being required to learn each others jobs and lines. Scary.

So, in dire times, if things get worse, what can you do or live without? I've already decided I wasn't purchasing the kids school pictures this year. I found an ad in the paper yesterday of a local studio that has great packages 4 times cheaper than the price of the school pictures, which aren't that great anyway.

If things get real bad, I guess I can do without a landline phone, taking our eating out to 0, cutting back on the satellite tv, letting my hair grow out, I can switch the dogs food again to a notch down the premium ladder, possibly switch to dial up (Oh Dear Lord, NO!). Selling our house probably wouldn't be an option, since nobody is buying, but I would definately put in on the market. Speaking of selling houses, I've heard of the raffle option which I think is a novel idea!

ok, your turn. Perhaps we can give each other some ideas of how to cut back, save, etc.

ETA: We're also prepping for a garage sale to earn extra income for Thanksgiving travel and Christmas.