Recession Diary - 2nd March 2009

Welcome to my Recession Dairy, these will be a series of posts on how the recession is hitting me and my observations on it hitting other people. These are unstructured rambles of the moment like most diary's are!

So, I have two jobs now. One of them is my former 40 hour a week job which is now down to a 30 hour week job. The other is a part-time job, which normally is only covering my sister working the door on a club (taking the money on the door, not being a bouncer).

Last Saturday night I was working and I could really see how the recession was hitting people. One guy came up to me with the entry fee in coins!!! €10 in €2, €1, 50c and 20c pieces, I was like Jesus Christ! I have to count all those! But working the club is grand, I know a lot of people that frequent the club so its a laugh. My sister is thinking of giving up the job, so it could be me there every week.

I have noticed, even before my hours were cut I had taken steps to rein in my spending. I stopped buying a daily newspaper. I used to buy one at least 4 times a week. I started cutting down on the amount of coffee I bought in coffee shops. I try to limit myself to one day a week, normally Saturday. I have started buying monthly bus tickets. I worked out today that if I use the bus twice a day for 5 days a week it will cost me €64, while the monthly ticket only costs €62 (I get the bus 6 days a week, so I save more!). What I have noticed since I got that ticket that I am getting less taxi's as I am getting the bus into town, meaning I am getting moneys worth from that ticket and saving on taxi money!

I am drinking less. I wasn't a huge drinker before, but lately when I go out I am noticing that I am drinking less and therefore spending myself. I also find myself availing of offers to get into clubs, for example my usual Friday night haunt is normally half price before 11:30, I normally get there for 11:20!!

So that is some of the ways I am noticing the recession hitting. I will try and do one of these posts very week, but no promises!