Corporate Belt Tightening Means Tighter Belts at Home, Too — Are We Scared Yet?

(www.bizchicksrule.com) — I got this thought-provoking e-mail from reader Lori Widmer (whom you may remember from the What I Want to Be When I Grow Up comment contest earlier this year) and share it with her permission:

I was watching the news this morning about GM cutting benefits. What’s scary is they took away health benefits for retirees. While I’m obviously closer to this affecting me immediately than you are (if I ever stop working, that is), it’s an interesting area. Jean Chatsky of Money magazine was saying it’s worse because we saw it coming (Ford did the same thing last year) and most people who work in publicly traded companies also have a lot of their 401(k) funds in company stock. If the company tanks, your job AND a big portion of your 401(k) are on the line, not to mention the retirement benefits. Her message – get your money out of company stock (10% max of your investments in company stock, in her opinion) and put it into what could be your health care fund. She has a blog on the Today show site, so it may appear there later.

Newsworthy for you? It got me thinking – [DH's] company [redacted] is tightening its financial belt right now, too. If he loses his job and then his benefits, we could survive. But if one of us is hit with a long-term illness, he could lose the house due to the medical bills. Again, it got me thinking how we could avoid that. Maybe putting the house in the kids’ names jointly so even their screw-ups, if any, wouldn’t cause him to lose the house.

First, I want to thank Lori for sharing this with me, an for allowing me to share it with you. Second, Lori, are you trying to give me a heart attack? I’m kidding, I’m kidding…kind of.

In all seriousness, this is scary stuff. The economy is in the tank. Prices at the pump are still holding steady at $4.11/gallon according to AAA (or "through the roof" if you prefer) despite the fact that the price for a barrel of crude oil has dropped about $16 in 5 days to $129/barrel as of Thursday afternoon. The big news today was that Wachovia Investments is potentially in big trouble (though JP Morgan lost only 2 billion in its quarterly earnings statements, which apparently was far better than analysts were expecting, frighteningly enough.) And as if that all weren’t enough to worry about, now those of us with corporate benefits need to worry about losing them, and our retirement savings.

How are you dealing with the stress of the current economic situation? Do you have a recession-proof job, or are you, like so many Americans, really feeling the pinch? What about our non-US readers? How are things going for you? What advice do you have for Americans facing economic hardship?

If we’re going to get through this without losing our sanity (not to mention our savings, our houses, our jobs, and apparently our benefits and retirement funds), we need to TALK about these things and not just sit on the stress. So, let’s talk. What’s on your mind? Let it all out.

Contents © Copyright 2008 Kristen King

Tags: womens business blog, women in business, women and business, recession, economy, corporate benefits, 401k, retirement savings, retirement account, finances, money, stress, depression, advice, biz chicks rule, kristen king, lori widmer