My Main Street

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the planet... but a couple of things have kept me from blogging since late last week... granted I still have been busy with other online activities (like Twitter), just haven't had the time or been in the "mood" for a blog entry.

If you have been keeping track of my updates in the upper left hand corner, you could probably figure out some stuff was going on as I hinted around the "Wall Street" was affecting my "Main Street." 

One of the nice things about having your own business is that pretty much how hard or how much you work is how much $$$ you make... for as long as I have been doing this (about 8 years), things have been pretty good... so you probably guess where thing are going here... when things aren't good, less/no work = less $$$.  It has already been a bit of an "off" year for starters, so given all that went down last week had us thinking about how to avoid our own financial demise.

It also made me realize how far down the economic food chain our company is... most of our work comes from one other company -- which, as of last week, was already suggesting we may be seeing less from them -- particularly if their clients start cutting back or able to stay in business themselves. 

Then in our own little 3-person operation (that's me and 2 others), we have our own little "what's wrong with the country" microcosm -- one person dealing with real estate woes, another with a medical situation... and then there's me, thankfully in pretty good shape given the conditions on the ground.

So long story short, I made the executive decision to take a pay cut - and a significant one at that - to try to take the pressure off a bit and keep things solvent for the foreseeable future.  Funny enough, I have my serious financial woes of the past to thank for putting me in a position where it didn't really wasn't a difficult decision to take a pay cut... as I no longer carry any debt and have made an effort to save for both the short-term and retirement (which granted took a serious hit last week, but good news/bad news - that I am not close to retirement age). 

I think the future of our company is safe in the big picture/long run... we had a rough time after 9/11 and while I think this is a more serious situation with regards to the "fundamentals of the economy" (and no, I don't define that as the American worker)... I think it will be similar in that it will be something that we'll just need to "ride out"/survive... and again, I am glad I was in the position to be able to do it for the company with the bonus being that it won't dramatically affect my day-to-day life for a decent length of time (and likewise quite grateful to be in a dual-income household situation as well)... though that won't stop me from taking a second-look at expenses or future purchases... since who know how long it will last or how deep it will go. 

Ironically enough, another reason for my absence here at W&C has been that I have been really busy with work... in fact, I think busiest I have been at any one point this year.   Again, this burst of work (from one client) will probably keep things a bit less scary through the remainder of this year -- but I still think it was wise to be conservative and pull-back a bit now to avoid more drastic measures a few months out.

Ok, now back to work!

Comments

[Scott K]

Well, at least there has been a little good news out of Wall Street these past few days so hopefully things will pick up and be alright.