What was the worst ecomonic period you had to suffer through

I have had many hard times in my 59 years starting June 13, 1955 when I was 7. My dad was injured at work, we were living very poor then but he couldn't work for 4 months. My brothers were 6-8 and mom took us to get work. The 4 of us picked green beans from sun up to sun down to earn money. I earned about 50 cents a day maybe less. When we went back to school the teacher asked us to bring dimes or pennies for march of dimes and I said I wasn't going to ask we couldn't afford it.
I left home at 18 with $50 and a suitcase, no job lined up or anything got a ride to the city and someone I knew said I could stay with them until I found a place. I was pretty poor but not that bad.
I got down to my last 20 cents once in the early 70s but had a car to sleep in and got a job right away that paid daily so not so bad.
1983 has to have been the very lowest point in my financial life. Interest was 14.5% my mortgage was 930 per month with no equity. My ex was an alcoholic that took up drinking and was violent and didn't work. I would work all day then go to Alanon meetings then home where he played loud music all night so I couldn't sleep. I had to really pinch pennies to get money to pay the bills on my little paychecks and sell things for food money. Dec 27, 1983 my life took a turn for the better, I left him the house, his truck and started over with my old car that only had 5 payments left. My parents let me stay with them and I had an uncashed Christmas bonus and 3 days to payday. I was working a CPA firm so all the overtime I wanted so worked 435 hours by the end of April and got my first IRA before April 15.
I lost money in the 2001 crash and lost a great job in 2000, I will never earn that much again but have a decent job, no husband and I can pay all my bills.
This little downturn the last couple of weeks cost me 26K but I still have over 400K left.
Nothing could be as bad as the fall of 1983.
 
old woman said:
This little downturn the last couple of weeks cost me 26K but I still have over 400K left.
Click to expand...

Not to make light of the hard times you've been through but the above quote stuck out at me as I was thinking of 1987. If you look at a chart of the SP500 it went from about 315 down to 225 in four days. That drop ending on Black Monday is equivalent to the Dow going from
14000 down to 10000. Something to think about :p when mentally stress testing your portfolio. The newspapers for months later were showing parallel plots of the 1987 crash and the 1929 one.

Les

P.S. CFB -- I like your new avatar!
 
I'm fortunate that I have not suffered through any financial hard times.

In 73-74, I was still in high school and didn't notice much. I was working at a pizza place for minimum wage and there was this thing called an oil embargo, but I didn't have driver's license much less a car, so I didn't notice.

In the late 70's and early 80's I was in college in Houston working as a custodian to pay for it. I heard of some folks walking away from their houses, but I was too broke myself to really care. I had to eat expired food sometimes to get enough calories. Only years later when I read the history of the period did I realize how bad it was in Houston. In the late 90s some of my friends still had condos that were worth less than they paid for them.

In 1987, I had been working about a year in a job with a 403b and my investments tanked in October by what was it? 40%? , but since I didn't have much in investments it really didn't bother me.

In 2000-2002, I saw my investments (100% equities) drop by 25%, then more. I had a decent job, so I cannot recall any suffering.
 
Late 70s 13% interest on a home mortgage. Gag. Then 1987's downturn. However, neither ruined us and even made us stronger. The interest made my husband and I sit up and actively start to manage our finances. The 1987 downturn wasnt as bad for us as we look back as it was for others and showed us the true value of diversification.

We have exceeded every goal we ever set and are ready to retire with security in the bank and the portfolio. And since we stuck it out to the minimum retirement age, government health insurance and two pensions.
 
When we were paying 14.5% interest on a house in the early 80s was the first time I learned it was OK to live on future money. I had always avoided debt, never had a credit card and seldom any debt except maybe a small car payment. Suddenly people were buying things on credit because prices and wages were going up so fast. I was making 750 a month in 1978 and was up to 30,000 a year by 1989 so it seems I was wrong to wait and have prices on what I want go up faster than I could save.
 
Early 80's. I had just gotten my Builders license. We built our first home and lost our butts on it.Very scary times.
 
Reading some of the replies, it is hard to imagine the interest rates some of you all to pay for homes back in the early 80s. Then again, despite the crazy interest rates you paid and the pain it cause, you may have had the chance to buy an asset for a much more reasonable price than today assuming you refi'd along the way.
 
wildcat said:
you may have had the chance to buy an asset for a much more reasonable price than today
Click to expand...

I think homes vs salaries in some areas were a better deal back then, but my recollections from working in the late 70's were that if you made 20-25k a year you were doing pretty dang good, and if you could hit 40-45k you had godlike earning potential.
 
Yeah, I was just going by the general belief that low interest rates prop up asset values and vice versa. No proof to support it.
 
CuppaJoe said:
Is this the three word thread?

Starving college student
Click to expand...

I've never had so much free money as when I was a college kid. I had no responsibilities, good jobs, scholarships, and no concept of my future responsibilities. I lived frugally but could have easily spent more. I started out with a LBYM mentality.

I had everything I wanted but I didn't want very much. I think it was the classic case of measuring yourself economically against your peers.
 
2B said:
I've never had so much free money as when I was a college kid. I had no responsibilities, good jobs, scholarships, and no concept of my future responsibilities. I lived frugally but could have easily spent more. I started out with a LBYM mentality.

I had everything I wanted but I didn't want very much. I think it was the classic case of measuring yourself economically against your peers.
Click to expand...

1964-1970 were the toughest years of my life: I didn't qualify for any college financial aid: scholarships, loans, even on-campus jobs that went begging, because my parents refused to fill out the forms, they understandably did not want to reveal their financial information. I worked my way through and sometimes operated ditto and mimeograph machines for my classes (without pay) as they couldn't fill the jobs and I had learned how to operate the machines during my "drop-out" semesters. The second time I dropped out, the college sent me a questionnaire asking why. The rules were changed the semester after I graduated: students who could prove financial independence (another definition of that expression!) could qualify without parential info.

I cannot describe the migrane I had when I realized my parents would never fill out those forms; they pressured me to finish and my dad even bragged about having three children in college at the same time. Those were frugal days but I had friends who were even poorer; catsup soup, anyone?
 
CuppaJoe said:
I cannot describe the migrane I had when I realized my parents would never fill out those forms; they pressured me to finish and my dad even bragged about having three children in college at the same time. Those were frugal days but I had friends who were even poorer; catsup soup, anyone?
Click to expand...

My out of work, broke father filled out the forms. I had good high school grades and a very high PSAT score which I think was used more than SAT for scholarships. I never took the SAT.

If your dad was poor why wouldn't he fill out the forms. If he was rich why didn't he help. In any event if I had heard my dad bragging about his kids in college when he did the one thing that made their lives worse off, I'd have told him to shut up.

My jobs were engineering internships not directly linked to the school although I'd never have gotten them without being in the engineering college. I made enough every summer for the next year but then I got scholarships on top of that. I graduated with several thousand dollars in cash and I started with $500 and a tuition scholarship for my freshman year.
 
Worst ecomonic period; the market or my own worst period?

Some years back I was going through a divorce, for a while had sole custody of my then 18 month old son. Money was tight and I got to buy my ex out of the house at the RE market peak which it didn't get back to for 10 years. Nothing but debt & a negative net worth. As much as this a financial board, I gotta say, at that time I didn't give a rats @ss about the market, you do what you gotta do to go on. But some 4 years later got remarried & acquired my other son that way, I just refer to them as 'the two boys' they're both mine as far as I'm concerned.

'My cup runnith over'; DW retired last year and I expect to retire in 152 days (but whos counting?;)) House is paid off, younger son is 18 and off to college this fall. And if I am so happy coworkers suspect there are drugs in my bloodstream.
 
2B said:
My out of work, broke father filled out the forms. I had good high school grades and a very high PSAT score which I think was used more than SAT for scholarships. I never took the SAT.

If your dad was poor why wouldn't he fill out the forms. If he was rich why didn't he help. In any event if I had heard my dad bragging about his kids in college when he did the one thing that made their lives worse off, I'd have told him to shut up.
Click to expand...

Your dad sounds like the dad in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn!"
 
The only time I went hungry (three days w/o food) was as a college student and if I'd known then what I know now about how to cook cheap eats that wouldn't have happened.

The two times I was most stressed about money:

in 1984 in Alaska when housing prices dropped precipitously, and at the same time they decided to drastically widen a road and remove the houses between our house and it. It was stick it out in the house or walk away, which felt morally wrong. I felt really dumb because we'd just bought the place less than a year before, and a house is always a good investment, right?! We could make the payments ok (11.75% interest!), but it just seemed like flushing good money after bad and I got really tired of seeing all those ads and articles that said "Buying a house is the most important investment you'll ever make". I felt not just stupid, but doomed.

In March 2000 when I ERed (actually just quit my job due to FI). That big plunge in the stock market that started that month? That's my fault.

But we're still in the house and it's paid off, and our investments recovered (note past tense - we'll see what happens now).

By the way, I don't have any big changes planned so this latest drop is NOT my fault.
 
My divorce, bar none, when my porfolio dropped more than 50%. Oh...never mind.
The Carter years were bad, but I think I had a negative networth then and my thoughts were only on girls.
The dot.com bust was pretty depressing. I watched all my stock options vaporize although eventually some cameback. Lucky for me, I rode the housing boom.

This time may be different: Housing, credit, infrastructure repair and war.
You should see Cramer went ballistic in appeal to Uncle Ben to step in to prevent economic armageddon.
 
The energy bust in Texas in the mid 80's. There was a ripple affect throughout the region's economy. Went though a layoff in 87 after my company consolidated sales territories and I was odd man out. Forced unemployment sucks.

2soon
 
CuppaJoe said:
1964-1970 were the toughest years of my life: I didn't qualify for any college financial aid: scholarships, loans, even on-campus jobs that went begging, because my parents refused to fill out the forms, they understandably did not want to reveal their financial information. I worked my way through and sometimes operated ditto and mimeograph machines for my classes (without pay) as they couldn't fill the jobs and I had learned how to operate the machines during my "drop-out" semesters. The second time I dropped out, the college sent me a questionnaire asking why. The rules were changed the semester after I graduated: students who could prove financial independence (another definition of that expression!) could qualify without parential info.

I cannot describe the migrane I had when I realized my parents would never fill out those forms; they pressured me to finish and my dad even bragged about having three children in college at the same time. Those were frugal days but I had friends who were even poorer; catsup soup, anyone?
Click to expand...

In the late 1960's my father (a millionaire) refused to fill out the financial aid forms as well, for the same reason. Also, he felt that if I worked my own way through college and supported myself, that would build character. I got nothing but the clothes on my back from him and my family when (or after) I left home at 18.

He has been dead for 27 years and I have not one but FOUR college degrees. And it may sound corny, but like Scarlett O'Hara, "As God is my witness, I will never be hungry again!" LBYM, yes, but no more catsup soup for this girl. :)
 
Ketchup soup was way better if you swiped some sugar packets at the same time. A little sweetness helped offset the vinegar.
 
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