Recent gov't shutdown cause you to re-evaluate spending habits?

[Anonymous]

I read about someone eating through their freezer on here, and even though we aren't feds, decided to try to do that some this week. sorta ridiculous to have all that food sitting in there anyway!

[Anonymous]

We are saving 4K a month. I think we do pretty well with our spending. We did try to cut back during the shutdown. We had all the time but we didn't go to Target or the mall. I just didn't want to buy anything. We were going to get some estimates for home improvement that we've been putting off and decided not to do them either. Just wasn't a priority right now.

What the shutdown made me think about is how this is going to ripple everywhere. Our salaries have grown nicely over the years and now I'm thinking paycuts, layoffs, and a tighter job market are on the horizon. Those are the things that may affect our savings in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you sell the car and not buy a new one? Just go car less.

+1. Don't you get a transportation subsidy as a Fed? You could walk or ride a bike to the train station. Win win. Good exercise and money savings for you and good for the environment.

Not everyone lives within walking distance, or even easy biking distance, of a train station. Some people (gasp) live in the suburbs and are many miles from a Metro station. Also, even if they live near a Metro station, not everyone works near a Metro station. For others, it's much quicker to drive. Metro is not as convenient and far reaching as some other subway systems (i.e. NYC).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you sell the car and not buy a new one? Just go car less.

+1. Don't you get a transportation subsidy as a Fed? You could walk or ride a bike to the train station. Win win. Good exercise and money savings for you and good for the environment.

That subsidy to be used to and from work. If you use it for anything else and get audited, you could get in serious trouble. I know my job is pretty serious about making people pay back the transit subsidy if they misuse it.

[Anonymous]

OP, you might be better off keeping the car and just mentally committing to keeping it for another 8-10 years unless it's a really high end acura. I assume you bought it new so you've already paid the premium and unless you're going to do a private sale you'll take a hit on the trade in.