How has the world financial crisis affected you personally?

[Calaber]

Minux's recent post regarding the financial crisis was very well supported. As a separate issue, what affect has the crisis had on you personally? Are you reliant upon self funding for retirement, and watching your superannuation being eroded by the day, or hoping to get finance for a home, but putting it off until things improve?

Are there other ways in which the crisis has affected you, and does anybody have any positive outcomes from the current situation?

[minux]

Minux's recent post regarding the financial crisis was very well supported. As a separate issue, what affect has the crisis had on you personally? Are you reliant upon self funding for retirement, and watching your superannuation being eroded by the day, or hoping to get finance for a home, but putting it off until things improve?

Are there other ways in which the crisis has affected you, and does anybody have any positive outcomes from the current situation?

It has actually benefited us, moreso with the Dollar slumping the way it has. As with my parents they have a lot of money tied up in the US, they are about to remove it all now and basically add some very tidy profits(or so I could tell eavesdropping yesterday while I was there ).

We have some friends though hurting a little, they fixed their first home loan for 3 years, they have another 12months until it drops back, no one likes to see money go for no reason, again we were lucky we decided to hold back on fixing our mortgages until we seen what would happen with the first interest changes under Labor, glad we did now lol. I am sure there are many people with self funded super and with stock portfolios hurting a little now too. This is why I only deal with property, shares might be great to make a quick dollar, property is stable though, best of all they can't make anymore of it so it only keeps going upward in value.

[Scooter79]

We bought our house in December last year and fixed our rate for 3 years. Even with the rate cut we are still in front. I honestly don't think anyone could have seen this coming.

[minux]

We bought our house in December last year and fixed our rate for 3 years. Even with the rate cut we are still in front. I honestly don't think anyone could have seen this coming.

Considering they are predicting up to 200 full points reduction within next 6 months, I do not think anyone seen that coming at all.

Another 2% would be amazing, will certainly have us looking to have one of our other mortgages paid off much sooner.

[hsvpunk]

huh?.... financial crisis...... i work nights, so i dont see tv or read much of the papers.

[LightningVP]

I buy alot of my collectable items from over seas (mainly England and US) and with the AU$ changing, it's costing alot more to get these items

[LightningVP]

huh?.... financial crisis...... i work nights, so i dont see tv or read much of the papers.

I work days but yeah I only know there is a crisis and the dollar is changing...dont know anything else, it isn't really concerning me :S

[AirStrike]

My share portfolio dropped a combined 1900 points...........per single share for each company

[Tree cutter]

I hope interest rates don't drop before my term deposit is due for renewal in December. I was hoping that house prices would drop so it would be worth buying a house to rent out. At the moment house repayments are more than you can recover in rent money down here so it is not worht buying an investment property.

[Scooter79]

Would be a very good time to buy shares in one of the major oil companies. I'd take a guess and say our home has lost $30,000 in value but I don't really care. It's not an investment property and we're here for the long term.

[Calaber]

I guess I'm in a very fortunate position compared to many. Retired in July and paid the mortgage off only last two weeks ago. My superannuation is paid from a scheme which is tied to your final annual salary and is not an accumulation scheme. You have the option of taking a lump sum, part lump sum and part fortnightly pension or just the pension. I took the mix, which enabled bye-bye to the mortgage and left enough over for a reasonable level of comfort and security, without being affected by the current crisis.

[Keepleft]

WAS gloing to add this to M's thread, here will do. A bit of history.:-

From Whirlpool forum, an interesting post:-

The Dow was 381.17 on September 3, 1929. The Dow then crashed for a month, losing 17% of its value. Prices then recovered before heading back down again. The stock market crash of 1929 was actually a number of crashes and slow declines. This decline in the market did not end until 1932 when the Dow closed at 41.22 on July 8, 1932 (89% decline from the peak at 1929).

The Dow in 2008 has lost more than 17% in the last month. Therefore it is worse than the 1929 crash (the initial first downleg). Whether it then keeps going or turns around is the question. If it keeps crashing then to be worse than the great depression crash it would need to be at 1210 or less by 2011 (assuming my figures are correct)

Interestingly, the Dow did not return to pre-1929 levels until late 1954

Over the last eight years since G.W. Bush got in the Whitehouse, it's easy to see who are the most responsible for the current credit crisis: necocons in their roles as greedy bankers and CEO fat cats.

WELL, actually its NOT GWB's 'fault' per se, - from the NY Times in 1999:

"Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...8260&sec=&spon=

Bush proposed pulling the lenders into line in 2003:

"Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry."

But it was opposed by Democrats. Here's Barney Frank (Dem) in reply:

"'These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. 'The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.'"

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...agewanted=print

[Julie]

We recently bought a house in July, we split our loan, part fixed for 3 years part variable so that kind of sucks. Have some of our super tied up in shares which ahve obviously dropped. Gone are the plans of buying more stuff from the US but on a positve note my sales in the US are up and expected to climb with the US$ exchange rate and xmas. Probably the biggest impact has been with my hubbys wage, gone are the days of overtime. With the economy being so slow his company hasn't been getting enougth work to justify overtime. The lack of overtime means he will earn $50-60k less this financial year

[And_ROOS]

What does he do for a job/?

[Full Spectrum]

I feel pressure has been tighter over this past year as the crisis worked it's way forward, But i have just added them factors into the whole and went on pretty much as normal.

But I'm guessing the true impact of this crisis will be felt in months, Right now it's just panic and when that settles down we will see if the sky is clear or cloudy.

I'm not running to my bank to get my money out and stuff it under my bed or in a safe any time soon. But i do consider others that might be in a worse situation and hope we recover fast enough, But outcome looks good, As long as we keep carm and move forward circumspectly.

[BANKS]

Need to get rid of the credit card...NOW

[greenacc]

so far it has been good for me. got a big martgage and variable rate so the recent cuts saved me bout $250 a month. Petrol is also getting cheaper so its all good, apart from my super ( too scared to look ) but i don't need that for 30 years so not panicing just yet.

[VXdarkmagic]

I can't say the crisis has affected me much as yet, I have been watching the markets slump which kinda makes me think now would be a good time to buy up on some of the stronger shares like Telstra etc but I've never even dabbled in the share market so I may be wrong. Apart from that fuel seems to be slightly cheaper so that's always a plus, and my car loan hasn't really changed much with the amount of interest etc so in all I'm currently not too worried bout it myself

[Rufus®]

If you've got a super fund, you've more than likely been affected..... I lost about 3k in my super last (financial) year.

We locked our mortgage in about 18 months ago, at 7.54% ( i think, will have to check) so we've got a bit of leeway. If rates continue to drop, we'll have to look at the pro ands cons of opting out of out fixed rate. The amount of money we've saved over the past 18 months will certainly cover us if it drops below what we are fixed at for some time.

Will this be a wakeup call for local banks to look elsewhere for borrowing / investing money. I hope ****en so!!

[Joey_21]

We recently bought a house in July, we split our loan, part fixed for 3 years part variable so that kind of sucks. Have some of our super tied up in shares which ahve obviously dropped. Gone are the plans of buying more stuff from the US but on a positve note my sales in the US are up and expected to climb with the US$ exchange rate and xmas. Probably the biggest impact has been with my hubbys wage, gone are the days of overtime. With the economy being so slow his company hasn't been getting enougth work to justify overtime. The lack of overtime means he will earn $50-60k less this financial year

have a sook most people dont make that in a year y do people buy houses they cant afford y not wait anoither year or two and save another 30-50k ur gunna blow it on the interest anyway.im sick of people complaing on the news ,newspapers etc if u cant afford it fkndont buy it or start small and work up

[Skitz]

I've lost everything, I give up.
I can't even afford baked beans on toast.I guess you could say I'm up **** creek without a paddle.I will just hit the road and see where I end up.

[Julie]

have a sook most people dont make that in a year y do people buy houses they cant afford y not wait anoither year or two and save another 30-50k ur gunna blow it on the interest anyway.im sick of people complaing on the news ,newspapers etc if u cant afford it fkndont buy it or start small and work up

Pull your head in, I am not complaining. A question was asked, I answered it. If you don't have anything relevent to say on the topic then rack off before you get an infraction for trolling

[nicko]

the slump has abviously reduced the value of the shares and managed fund i have but that money will be invested for another 30 years until i retire so im not the least bit worried.

[VrWagz1]

Directly the crisis hasnt hurt me at all.....yet. But it has shaved a nice slice off the value of my properties, but that dosnt affect me here and now unless i wanted to sell them.
Besides that interest rates are coming down and oil has dropped a bit so thats a positive for me, bad thing is general day to day stuff is going up and will possibly go up some more too which is bad.
The aussie dollar has dropped heaps so thats tops for me as my line of work relies on exports and it gives the company a more competitive edge now than compared to before, but if the big bust strarts to reduce demand then it could possibly mean my job too. Theres more to come yet i recon, i think after the next 6 months we will start to get some clarity on the situation.

[Calaber]

Those of you who are still quite young have the right attitude. Sure, your super/investment properties/whatever, have dropped in value at present, but these things ALWAYS recover. The recovery will probably take a lot longer this time round, but in a few years, the world economy will be back on track. If your retirement is years away, there is no point losing sleep over the current crisis.

The people who are most affected are those who have either retired on self managed super schemes or accumulation schemes, and have seen their weekly incomes take a belting, or those who were planning on retirement shortly. The papers seem to have a few articles each day about some poor ol' bugger who was due to retire, and has had to put it back a year or two. One bloke in our local rag retired as a butcher earlier this year, but has to go back to work now for a couple of years to re-build his finances.