This is part of a series of personal accounts about how people are surviving the recession. The writers are contributors to Associated Content. For more stories in this series, click here.

by Eloah James

My husband, Jason, an employee at a Saturn dealership in Texas, says co-workers are experiencing “short-time fever.”

Jason has worked for Saturn and GM for nearly 15 years as a service technician. For the last 10, he’s worked at the Saturn of Austin dealership.

With a steady decline in repair work over the last year, GM’s looming bankruptcy is not a big surprise for our family. With Saturn’s demise coming two years earlier than we anticipated, and the announcement of 1,200 GM dealership closings, it looks like his job may be a lost cause altogether.

At my husband’s dealership, folks are not bringing in their cars for repairs as frequently. And when they do, the repair work is often under warranty, so Jason is paid less for his work. This means he may only get paid for two hours worth of work for an eight-hour job because most of the work is under warranty. That leaves a technician like Jason making $50 or less for a day’s work.

Unlike autoworkers in Detroit and at plants, service technicians at Jason’s work are not unionized. If the dealership closes, he won’t receive a severance package or other compensation; he’ll simply lose his job. He told me he thinks about doing something else “all the time.” He says he knows if he sticks it out until Saturn of Austin closes, he may have to rely on unemployment.

“GM used to have more money than anybody,” Jason told me. But now his income has dropped off sharply over the last six months. His current year-to-date salary is around one-third of what it should be.

We do see some reason for optimism, however. If Penske and Nissan-Renault bought out portions of Saturn, the new company could rebadge Nissans under the Saturn brand. It’s not ideal, but it could protect many Saturn jobs, including my husband’s, as Nissan would utilize existing Saturn dealerships.

Jason said this was the best news Saturn service technicians had this year. But with GM’s news that it’s shuttering dealerships, it may be too late.

This is part of a series of personal accounts about how people are surviving the recession. The writers are contributors to Associated Content. For more stories in this series, click here.

By Steven Bryan

For years, I clung to the “Leave it to Beaver” business model, in which the breadwinner worked at an office for 40-plus years before quietly retiring with a gold watch and pension. Unfortunately, the eroding American economy has made that particular fantasy more of a pipe dream than ever before.

But recent economic news isn’t all doom and gloom. For me and other working Americans, it took, as Jimmy Buffett is fond of singing, changes in latitudes plus changes in attitudes. After working 12 years for A.G. Edwards, a brokerage firm with headquarters in my hometown of St. Louis, I abandoned the security of a permanent position to become a contract employee at a new firm.

My hand was forced a bit. Wachovia Securities purchased A.G. Edwards and made massive staff cuts, including yours truly. My original “out date” was March 31, but I chose to leave early to become a contract employee at what is known as a “pharmacy benefit manager.” My co-workers and I like to joke that we are legal drug dealers, making sure that people who are injured on the job get the proper medications.

I was one of the first new contract employees to come into that firm. Within the past two months, at least seven technical specialists have joined our department, each with an employment contract.

Flying without the safety net of a salary and benefits is not all bad. I’m paid by the hour with a generous amount of overtime thrown my way; my monthly income has seen a sharp increase in recent months. I’m also constantly learning new things that look good on a resume.

Traditionally, contract employees have been the “paper towels” of the work force — use a few times and then get a new one. In 2009, though, I have seen the contract worker evolve from a disposable employee into more of a “Soldier of Fortune.” At my current job placement, I go where I’m needed, lending my expertise and talents to various managers.

For my efforts, I have money in the bank, credit cards with decent limits and enough spare cash to help out friends who need financial assistance.

For publicly traded companies, contract employees make good sense for the bottom line. We are listed as “variable expenses” and not fixed costs on the corporate books, which looks good to investors.

For me, it’s been an interesting experience. There’s a weird sense of detachment and of not fully belonging. But I’ll keep coming back as long as the paychecks clear.

This is part of a series of personal accounts about how people are surviving the recession. The writers are contributors to Associated Content. For more stories in this series, click here.

Written by Sylvia Cochran

Bills are piling up, creditors are calling even before the grace period has elapsed, the kids’ college funds are virtually zero, and I hear a drum roll whenever I open the IRA statement.

Welcome to a day in the life of a Los Angeles-area stay-at-home mom.

After my husband made it through the latest round (third round? fourth round?) of the cable industry’s layoffs, we were relieved. Nevertheless, California is hit hard by the sudden loss of home-equity capital, rising food and gasoline prices and state sales-tax rates that just went up by 1 percent — now about 9.25.

Frugality started small. I learned to ferret out money-saving billing options from the utility companies. For example, Southern California Edison offers customers the opportunity to apply for a level payment plan. Summer electricity use is higher, and winter use is significantly lower. SCE takes a year of charges and averages the amounts, making the monthly bill predictable and easy to budget for.

Then something interesting happened. To pinch pennies, we learned to go green. We rarely glanced at the Home Depot and Lowe’s displays about energy-saving innovations. But with the cost of energy going up (SCE announced in March that it would raise rates by 2 percent), these displays suddenly held great interest.

Because of the recession, we learned to reduce energy consumption. Now the thermostat on the water heater is set to warm not hot, and one night we turned off all the lights to be surprised just how many blinking status lights were still on.

Since then I have hooked up virtually everything to kill-all switches that I can hit at the end of the day, when I really do not need to have the radio, TV, VCR, DVD player and all the other appliances sucking energy from the wall in exchange for being ready for use.

Being green also means setting up a container vegetable garden. Growing veggies in containers is so easy that it makes me wonder why I hadn’t thought of it before. Seeing how nutritious tomatoes are and how much a single watermelon vine will produce, it’s a no-brainer to grow these in the sunny Southern California climate. I like to take full advantage of the sun and the convenience of the container garden. I am now experimenting with artichokes. Who knew that they come back each year?

In some ways, it is a sad testimony that going green did not happen until a recession virtually forced it on us.

This is part of a series of personal accounts about how people are surviving the recession. The writers are contributors to Associated Content. For more stories in this series, click here.

By Heather K. Adams

Living in a small town has its advantages, especially during an economic crisis.

Take a walk down the main street of Harvey, N.D., and you will find a menagerie of small businesses that are thriving. When the town has only the essential businesses, what’s left to close? Despite the recent economic downturn, Harvey manages to survive.

How does Harvey remain unscathed in a recession? Residents shop locally. When money is tight, who wants to fill up the gas tank and drive 75 miles to the nearest big city to go shopping or go out for lunch? In turn, local shops are stocking a wider variety of goods so consumers stay satisfied.

As a community-conscious consumer, when I made the decision to purchase a newer vehicle with my tax refund this year, I went car shopping here in Harvey. I spent $3,200 at Country Motors for a 1999 Buick LeSabre. Maybe I could have found a better deal in a bigger town, but I know the car dealer. I knew I could help Harvey’s economy and his small used-car dealership by spending my tax refund locally.

I work for the local weekly newspaper as a bookkeeper. In that capacity, I have noticed that local businesses are advertising more. They aren’t relying on word-of-mouth methods. Instead, the shops are getting more aggressive, trying to draw outside money into the community.

Thanks to the “Making Work Pay” provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, my take-home pay has increased by approximately $25 every pay period. For the first time since high school, I was able to open a savings account and invest in my future. Twenty-five dollars may seem a paltry amount, but over the course of just one year I will have saved $650. For a single mother of two children, not having to live paycheck to paycheck and being able to set aside money is a powerful feeling.

I have also seen an increase in the amount of county assistance I receive. Last year, making less money per month than I do now, I received $250 to $265 of monthly food stamps benefits. This month, even with the additional income, I received $350 to feed myself and two children. My friend’s food stamps benefits jumped almost $200 from last month to this month.

While the national economic crisis wasn’t felt as hard here in Harvey, I can say I have been breathing a little easier these past few months. For a community to survive a recession, it has to pull together, something in which Harvey excels.

This is part of a series of personal accounts about how people are surviving the recession. The writers are contributors to Associated Content. For more stories in this series, click here.

By Kristen May

It worries me how oblivious I was to this recession. I knew bad things were happening. But then I blinked and suddenly this country is in the worst recession in my lifetime.

I do have something to blame my lack of attention on: I’m in love.

I got engaged Dec. 24, and my fiancé and I are planning a wedding for June. This is not the best time to be making big changes intentionally. But I’ll be giving up a paying job and moving to a city where he’ll be in school. Then I’ll have to find a job. We’ll be dealing with the intricacies of being married while trying to pay the bills with nonexistent money. Maybe it’s just the rose-colored glasses, but I’m confident it will all work out.

My parents are graciously paying for the wedding, but my fiancé and I have been keeping costs low for their sake, knowing that they are living under financial stress. (They had retirement accounts that were hit hard, and we haven’t started saving yet.)

We decided to reduce costs by serving cake and hors d’oeuvres at the reception instead of the traditional sit-down dinner. That way, we can still send out 200 invitations and expect 150 guests without too much cost per person.

In addition, we are planning to use recorded music during the wedding and reception, to hire a friend with experience as a photographer and to have fewer bridesmaids and groomsmen. Our dress scheme for the wedding party is also cost-sensitive. We gave them basic colors they need to stick to rather than requiring them to purchase or rent specific elements.

In addition to moving our belongings a few thousand miles from Northfield, Minn., to Columbia, S.C., my fiancé and I are responsible for the honeymoon and wedding bands. My parents have a timeshare and his have frequent-flier miles, but the two of us are saving for a rental car, food and additional expenses for our honeymoon.

Our wedding bands are a bit trickier. We want them to match my platinum heirloom engagement ring, and platinum is far more expensive than gold. Because of this, I have been especially cautious in my spending and especially quick to take any money-making opportunities I can find.

The last thing I want to do in this economy is to go into debt. That’s much of the reason we’re in trouble.

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.