This is part of a series of personal accounts about how people are surviving the recession. The writers are contributors to Associated Content.

By Cheryl Williams

I never thought the economic crisis would affect me. I’ve never had a lot of money anyway. My home is paid for. I paid off my debts a couple of years ago. I have no IRA account. I figured my life would go on as it always had despite the worsening state of the economy.

I was wrong.

Bit by bit, the economy’s woes crept into my life.

First, my 24-year-old daughter moved back home with her dad and me when she was laid off from her job. I converted my office back into a bedroom for her, which meant my work hours were compromised. I thought her stay would be short-lived, but the job market in Charlotte, N.C., is not good right now.

Goodwill and The Dollar Tree stores are now where I shop. If I need something, I check at these places first before going elsewhere. I bought a new sweater from Goodwill for $3. The Belk department store tag originally listed it for $60. Once-expensive handbags can be found at Goodwill for $2. I buy my health and beauty products and cleaning supplies at Dollar Tree.

And the downturn has affected my health. Neither my husband nor I is able to afford the health insurance plans our employers offer. It would cost more than half of our paychecks to purchase company insurance. We have tried purchasing health insurance through private companies, but they will not cover my husband because he has Type II diabetes. The cost to cover me is the cost of a mortgage payment because I am 60 pounds overweight. Health insurance is not an option.

But we’re not defeated. We’re now living healthier lives. There are no more YMCA gym memberships, but I can just as easily walk in my neighborhood as I could around a walking track. I lift weights at home just as easily as I could in a gym. It takes more self-discipline, but I know the end result is worth it.

Grocery shopping has changed, too. I always make a list before shopping, and I always stick to it. I never shop while hungry. I never realized how much money I was spending on junk food, convenience foods and impulse buying.

Since making these simple changes, I have lost 40 pounds and two sizes, resulting in many of my clothes being too large for me.

The economic crisis has forced us to get creative. As a result, I am healthier, and so is my family.

This is part of a series of personal accounts about how people are surviving the recession. The writers are contributors to Associated Content.

By Jim Jones

In 2006, I lost my job at the Florence, Ala., VF Jeanswear factory when the company decided to outsource jobs to India.

I had worked there 26 years as an all-around laborer, manually placing zippers, laces and more into clothing before our machinery attached them.

I had built up a large pension. When 2,000 co-workers and I were laid off, there was panic. How were we going to raise our kids and pay bills?

President Obama’s decision to go after companies that ship jobs overseas is a first step. In one of his campaign speeches, he said he will “restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.”

That is the right direction, helping the lower and middle classes bounce back, regain jobs and support our economy.

Since the layoff at VF Jeanswear, I’ve been doing odd jobs, working as a bartender and retraining as an electrician. But I have had no steady income. I don’t have many options because my VF Jeanswear job caused damage to my shoulders. Most of the cartilage in my left shoulder is gone. Now, I can’t perform any repetitive motion or lift anything heavy.

In my small Alabama community, this severely limits my job choices. Florence has been hit hard as many of the large companies have closed shop here. My former co-workers have been retraining in different fields, but I’m beginning to question if that will do them any good. One of my friends finished a two-year community college degree, but she still cannot find a job in our area.

Despite Obama’s promises, I am still in a downward spiral. Paying my bills is hard. Last month, I almost lost my house. I was able to stop the bank’s foreclosure by borrowing money from my family, but they can’t help much more. They’re struggling, too.

This is the first in a series of personal accounts about how people are surviving the recession. The writers are contributors to Associated Content.

By Meaghan Ringwelski

The auto industry’s problems are nothing new to the people of metro Detroit. The economy’s impact on Michigan hit close to home more than a year ago, when the small Plymouth company I’d worked for closed.

My co-workers and I saw it coming. Microdine, our small-parts distribution company, was struggling badly. As 2007 drew to a close, it was becoming obvious we would have no choice but to shut our doors.

I experienced what so many others in the Detroit area were going through: watching a company, despite cutting as many corners as possible, fall victim to the hideous state of the local economy. Driving away from work on that final day at the end of February 2008, I knew I was going to have my work cut out for me in finding a new job.

At the same time, the news around the country grew bleaker. The economy became one of the focal points of the presidential election season, and I began drawing unemployment. Knowing that it would take a while to find a new job, I decided to make the best of the situation and began figuring out ways to improve my lifestyle for myself and my two children.

Rather than dwelling on the depressing news stories and stump speeches or wringing my hands at the desolate job listings in the Detroit Free Press, I decided to keep busy with some self-improvement activities. In the past, I’d never paid too much attention to watching my budget; but out of necessity, I began learning how to stretch a dollar. I clipped many coupons and hunted down deals. No penny went unaccounted-for.

I will be able to use those valuable budgeting skills the rest of my life. One of the biggest ways I began saving some money, though, was by finally kicking the smoking habit. Within weeks of quitting smoking in June 2008, I saw a huge difference reflected in my finances — and in my overall well-being. Additionally, it felt good to do something that would set a good example for my two kids.

I don’t think I would have accomplished so much in such a short amount of time without things happening the way that they did. Sometimes, I even feel like losing my job and dealing with this bad economy have been valuable lessons. I am confident that things will turn around; and when they do, I will enjoy them that much more with my fresher outlook and healthier lifestyle.

The idea that a job in the government is a safe place to ride out a recession clearly doesn’t hold if you’re working for a government-owned bank. Royal Bank of Scotland, which was largely nationalized following a bailout by the British government, warned it would cut up to 9,000 job cuts over the next two years. If you’re among the people who might be affected by the news we reported here, let us know the reaction to the announcement where you work.

Markets might have rallied on relief that the jobs data this morning wasn’t worse than expected, but there’s no getting away from the fact that an 8.5 percent unemployment rate is an ugly number. The March jobs figures showed U.S. employers slashed 663,000 jobs in March. The unemployment rate was the highest since 1983. Here is some reaction from the market:

ROBERT MACINTOSH, CHIEF ECONOMIST, EATON VANCE CORP, BOSTON:
“It’s telling you we’re in a deep recession and it’s still going to be a while to get out of it, especially on the employment side of things. But you have to keep in mind that this is a lagging indicator, we’re going to get bad employment numbers, along with the employment rate, even if the economy is starting to turn.”

PIERRE ELLIS, SENIOR ECONOMIST, DECISION ECONOMICS, NEW YORK:
“The report does not contradict the growing notion that the economy is finding a bottom. Employment will not turn on a dime and certainly there’s no sign of strength, but at least it’s not getting worse and worse and worse.”

PETER KENNY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, KNIGHT EQUITY MARKETS, JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY:
“It gives the market a sense that we dodged a bullet in the very, very near term. It’s positive in that it wasn’t a blowout number of more than 750,000. All the indexes are higher because the market is breathing a sigh of relief because it wasn’t a blowout of market psychology. It indicates a slackening of the rate of decline and leaves the bear market rally intact.”

Do you agree the economy has found its floor? If you’re an employer, have you done cutting jobs? If you’re employed, do you feel secure? If you’re unemployed, are you seeing any improvement in the jobs market? Let us know in the comments below.

There’s been no official announcement but our sources tell us that IBM will cut about 5,000 jobs in the United States. The move adds similarly large cuts in the past few months, the sources said. The job cuts will account for over 4 percent of IBM’s U.S. workforce and will mostly be in IBM’s global services business, which includes outsourcing and consulting services.

An IBM spokesman declined to comment but readers close to the story are welcome to do so below.

HSBC, whose advertisements play on how one image can have different meanings in different cultures, appears to have settled on a single view of the U.S. consumer: you’re not worth the risk. The global bank, whose billboards proclaim the importance of local knowledge, said it would shut most of its U.S. consumer lending business with the loss of 6,100 jobs.

“With the benefit of hindsight, this is an acquisition we wish we had not undertaken,” HSBC Chairman Stephen Green said of its 2003 acquisition of Household, which was renamed HSBC Finance.

At Trading Places, we like to give people hit by job cuts a place to share information. So if you’re an HSBC employee, tell us what’s happening in your office.

Taking back banker bonuses — known as “clawbacks” — has been mooted in the U.S. bailout of the financial industry, but Microsoft briefly broke some new ground this week by introducing the concept to severance payments.

Citing an accounting error, Microsoft notified laid off employees that they would need to give back part of their severance pay. The company graciously offered to accept either checks or money orders.

“An inadvertent administrative error occurred that resulted in an overpayment in severance pay by Microsoft,” a letter obtained by the blog TechCrunch reads. “We ask that you repay the overpayment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you.”

Late on Monday, the software giant realized that its request may have seemed just a teensy bit insensitive, and dropped the “clawback” request.

“This was a mistake on our part,” said a Microsoft spokesman. “We should have handled this situation in a more thoughtful manner.”

If you lost your job and your former employer asked for some of the severance money back, what would your response be? (Reminder: this is a family-friendly website, so keep it clean!)

Postscript: The NYTimes had a truly inspired photo illustration to go with its story on clawbacks on Sunday.

The pain in the auto industry keeps getting worse. General Motors has just announced that it will cut its global salaried workforce to about 63,000 from 73,000 this year. The remainder of its salaried staff face pay cuts.

In the United States, approximately 3,400 of GM’s 29,500 salaried employees will be cut. The temporary pay cut for most U.S. salaried employees runs May 1 through the end of the year. Executive employees will have their base pay cut by 10 percent, with others seeing cuts of 3 percent to 7 percent.

If you’re among those likely to be affected, tell us about the mood where you work. What severance terms and other assistance is the company expected to offer? How will you cope with reduced income?

(Picture: General Motors employees hold signs and chant before a vehicle reveal during press days at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, January 11, 2009. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook)

UBS, the biggest banker to the rich, announced a second round of job cuts after posting the biggest annual loss in Swiss history. The cuts to investment banking jobs come on top of 7,500 jobs that the bank has already axed as a result of the economic crisis.

It’s not all bad news, however. UBS hired nearly 400 financial advisers in the United States in the last quarter and sources have told Reuters it is aggressively poaching advisers from rivals including Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney.

If you work at UBS, tell us where the cuts are falling, what the mood is like and what severance you’re getting, if any. And given that the bank is still willing to hire in some sectors, give us some good news about where the opportunities lie.