[mitchntx]

Just curious how many have scaled back, scaled back considerably or outright had to park your car because of the economy?

And along with that, how many have done any of the above, not based on actual events, but fear of something happening that would make curtailing your "fix" inevitable?

For me, my regional race schedule hasn't changed, but the TnT days and out of region events have been scratched. And not because of being laid off or anything, just burying my coffee cans in the backyard in case I do.

If I didn't have a great group of sponsors and wasn't able to trade instructing for registration, then the story would probably be differnet.

[killer_bluebird]

Let me see, In 2007 seeing that things where not looking good for the future, my wife and I decided to start to tighten our budget. A college course that I was teaching and have been teaching for the last 12 years is canceled due to low enrollment. So our income was starting to shrink.We didn't have much debt other than medical bills due to my wife's ongoing medical condition. So after getting rid cable tv and any other luxuries, I decided to sell the CP firebird. In February it was sold and in March it was on it way to it new home in NY. We bough a used car cash, payed a few bills and bought a few parts to prepare my wife's stock Z28 to compete in ESP so I can keep my racing going on albeit in a very limited fashion. At this point Racing was limited to 1 Auto-X a month and no Track days for this year. My department at work goes through a re-organization and the new Boss kicked out 12 or so people after reassuring everyone that there would be no layoffs. So in May I was out of work. House goes on the Market for a Short Sale as we can no longer afford the payments since our priority had to be to keep our medical coverage to the tune of over $600 a month. Beat's paying for $6,000 treatments every 3 weeks out of pocket without it. Get a new part time teaching work at a different college teaching 2 classes and try to work as much freelance as I can get under the table. On January still no Job and now due to a screw up unemployment stops. February we move to my mother in law's house. Still the house sale is cough in Paper Limbo at the mortgage company in spite that we have a cash buyer ready but since we could no longer afford the utility bills on $100 a month we moved. Good new is that we got a grant that will pay for the medical insurance premium. Bad new is that we are still living on about $100 a week. Soon as much as I hate to do this Race Rims & Tires and anything that we can sell will be sold. With Luck will be able to keep the car but who knows.

I've been building my freelancing company during all this time but that is a slow process that with luck will start paying off soon. I've also been applying to jobs all over the place for full time positions, including out of state (Canada, New Zealand and Australia) to no avail. I may decide to go back to school and try to finish my degree but don't know for sure yet as this would help me if I want to continue in as an educator and not as a Graphic Designer /Animator/ Multimedia Specialist (portfolio rules over degree in those areas). So it looks like there will not ba any racing in my future for a couple years.

The funny thing is that I really don't know how we have managed the last few months apart from God's grace and provision. I mean every time we have been really up against the wall somehow we have gotten an unexpected freelance project or a gift from a friend. So I'm filled with Hope! not because of the president on the white house but because of he who presides over my life, Jesus.

This post has been edited by killer_bluebird: Feb 20 2009, 12:16 PM