Genuinely curious, not wanting a ***** waving competition. And I'm talking in general terms or percentages not absolute amounts. Personally I was unscathed for the first couple of years but the last few years things have changed

My income is split as paye govt employee and self employed private income.

1) My paye govt salary has been frozen for the last three years and will be for the next two at least. With RPI averaging about 5% pa over that time my purchasing power has of course decreased ie it's a pay cut in 'real terms'

But I'm not quite sure how to do the maths on this. If RPI averaged 5% pa over three years and I don't get a pay rise in that time does that mean that the purchasing power of my income has fallen by 15%+ (ie 5% compound)

On top of that pension contributions have risen significantly, tax and NI risen also.

2) Due to the economic downturn my self employed income has probably dropped by about 20%. To be fair I could probably compensate for this by working 20% harder/longer but have decided that I'd rather spend the time with my family and accept the pay cut.


It's difficult to do the maths accurately but I must be at least 25% down on my real income from 2-3 years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really complaining (apart from the tax rises) as I still consider myself to be very lucky.

 

You are doing better than me as you have a private income and all that entails....... Still not complaining as I still have a job.

Strictly your maths are correct if the goods and services you buy all rise by exactly inflation. Only they don't as the basket of goods for "essentials" tends to be ahead of inflation.

Shaun

 

I left my decent salaried job and setup on my own

things are tighter but we are holding our own and doing ok, more importantly bills are covered and I am a lot happier

 

Things are a bit tight for us, but that's because we have a 12 week old baby and my wife is on maternity pay, nothing to do with the recession. Still there's people out there far worse than us so should count ourselves lucky really.

 

It is a difficult one to work out with any degree of accuracy for myself, as my circumstances have not remained constant over the past three years. Twins born and wife stopped working.

I do keep a record of how much I put into savings or investments each month, this amount has dropped by on average 22%, but the other factor is since my kids were born, I work less overtime than before.

I reckon I am at least 15% worse off.

 

Every year I threaten to go and find a 'proper' job
For years now I've chased jobs/ chased cash....every year it gets harder

Ah well never mind...........maybe next year I'll try for a 'proper' job

 

We built steel-framed buildings like farm sheds and industrial units and factories. That was me and my dad, both self employed. Demand for buildings was probably about half this year what it was in 2008. We were still getting on fine though. Now, due to a completely unrelated change of circumstances I will not be continuing with what we were doing. Going to take a job doing it for a company instead, which will work out about the same annual pay as this year, but this year I only realistically worked half the time!

 

Be nice to get that Friday feeling though bud

 

You're right there!

 

I'm skint

 

I describe myself as independently poor

 

Fortunley for me we lost 2 salesman and the company don't bother replaceing them so the
Pot for sales in our store got bigger for us by 10-15% and sales for the store have went up 15%by loosing a competitor so I'm okay wages wise

The biggest thing I've noticed is the cost of living has gone up lots
Car and house insurance has come down slightly ( thanks to Gary Mouslon )
But petrol costs has risen so much for me living out in the sticks and despite the boy and his gf moving out the food budget has risen along with gas electric water etc by I would estimate £100. -£130 a month
And of course savings ,well. They are a disaster with the investment falling in true terms due to poor interest rates so I'm not getting rich any ore with those

So really I'm about the same as I was 4 years ago as living costs cancel out slight increses in salery which is a shame as I still need to save a bit more money for retirement

 

Doing ok.

Taken on another employee as I'm getting a fair bit of work coming in, but I know it'll quieten down in December.
Probably on par, cash wise, as the last 15 years of self employment.

The wife's also doing better this last 12 months than ever before, which ultimately means I don't have to work as much (but I end up working more for some reason)
The 10% PRP bonus helps....

Overall, we work hard and at the moment feel that we're doing better in this period of austerity than ever before.
We also know there are others not so fortunate.

 

I'm soo pissed of as I mus be down £30k a year, good thing is when it picks up my wage will rocket

 

I know when the recession hit alot of peoples jobs went belly up
but fortunately the industry I am in rocketed , I have been extremely busy
in the oil business and over the last few years have been working mainly
in the north sea also abroad , Israel , Kuwait , Holland , Denmark to name a few
dont know in terms of financially around 45k at senior level that I am at
but soon I am aiming to go for a rank at work of General which will be around 55k and we have not had a pay rise for around 3 years but
TBH the wages are really good already but I think my company is
feeling pressure as all the highly trained people like myself are leaving to
go to other oil company's for more money.

my best mate who got me this job left a few years ago and went to work for a Norwegian company is now working one month on and one month off
in Saudi Arabia and gets 65k for working 6 months of the year
he is trying to get me a job doing the same as they need people of my skill set
so hopefully I will get over their doing the same as I have about 6 mates I worked with at my current job that are over their and they all
put a really good word in for me with their boss in saudi.

also planning to start up my own small company in the next 6 months
as a side line as my line of work give me plenty of time off and the best part they pay me for the time off as well as I got home from
a oil rig three weeks ago and have been sitting at home being paid to chill out so I reckon I could put my time off to use and open my own little company.

when the recession hit I was initially very concerned as I bought a house the week before the recession hit
also having a child and getting married through the recession and the wife stopping working due to being a stay at home mother
and the cost of living sky rocketing but luckily I have been good.

I feel very sad for the people who were affected by the recession as it was not a good thing to happen to
so many hard working people and hopefully over the next few years things will improve.

 

Doing well.

Redundant from National Grid in March 2011 after 33 years so luckily got my final salary pension at 50 in May this year. Spent last summer doing up my daughters new house whilst signed on the dole, then set up a Limited Co with a mate and were now subbing to a large energy utility and doing very well out of it so far, though we know this could finish any time.

So getting redundancy was good in my case as it gave me the kick up the **** to do something for myself.

Chip

 

I work for a firm of financial advisers 2008 was a big worry for us. Although we have no direct influence on exactly how the money is invested we are on the front line and take the flak when a fund we recommend doesn't perform as expected. As you can imagine 2008 wasn't much fun - my MD and I were even working on Christmas day due to one of the investment companies doing naughty things with one of their funds.

Our industry has a big shake up on the horizon in 2013 - RDR, transparency and the banning of commission - some of you may have already seen the media and newspapers which vary from worthwhile info for the punter to ill-informed "death of the salesman" articles which border on the idiotic. I can't think of the last time anyone at our firm actually "sold" anything to anyone.

My wife has her own business as a hair dresser and the salon has absolutely bombed this year. From making a decent amount every month to losing hundreds of pounds every month with the wife not being able to take £100 at the most a month! Yet working 6 days a week. She's also 24wks pregnant and we've no idea how we are going to manage when she can't open up. The only saving grace is that the landlord has allowed us to reduce the monthly payments - he still wants the difference but we've basically kicked the can down the road for 12 months.

We aren't in danger financially just yet but its close and won't take much for us to be in trouble. This year has been very trying.

 

Two pennies, ****,scratch

Recession has improved matters if anything

 

What recession? Only thing I have noticed is petrol going up and up and up. Nothing else has changed.

 

I was going to say are we still in a recession,it seems to change every few months or so.Do people have less money because for the past few years,wages have not kept up with the cost of living in this Country,people have less so are spending less,or keeping it for a rainy day.
I've not really been affected by it,but that doesn't mean the thought don't cross my mind if things suddenly went **** up..

 

Income dropped about 25% so compensated for by working longer hours.

Cost of living seems to have rocketed so think figures we are given are bollocks to be honest.

Fuel including petrol and food up massively on 5 years ago.

No light at the end of the tunel either and personally I think it will get a lot worse before it gets any better .... unless of course you're a politician!

 

I'd like to be busier, but I've just got a client who looks like being a repeat customer every year.

I've also got loads of really good feedback for another corporate job, so they look like being a repeat customer.

On Friday, I potentially found a strategic partner, who will push my services and give me access to a commercial kitchen, in return for me pushing their function room. That would really help me out.

Word of mouth is spreading and bringing in more jobs.

Overall, not bad for a start-up with under 6 months trading. I'm looking forward to being in a position where I can start taking a decent amount of wages myself.

 

Had to let two of the kitchen staff go but I've assured the butler and the rest of the household staff that they are fine for the foreseeable.

 

Not bad I guess, we were skint all through the pre downturn times, three kids, only me working, was living pretty hand to mouth but very lucky not to have any debt of any kind.

I decided 6 years ago to leave local govt, went to a retailer who were in the process of going bump so I jumped ship, double or quits went contracting and ended up clearing over a grand a week for a year which was fantastic after being skint, then went perm with the same company, have been promoted and the wife is now working so we have a decent amount coming in, pays not to get complacent or spend like it will always be that way.

I dont owe anybody anything, I pay all the bills and we have money left over which is a novelty, gives us possibilites, we had a big holiday to the states which cost the price of a new hatchback, job going ok, am in the states again, tooling round in a V8 Mustang.

Dont get too hung up on the future and getting richer, enjoy the now, it may be the good bit !

 

Same as most people here, only I've moved up and increased wage with every extra .. Just by pure luck, so I'm basically where I was 6 years ago, on more than twice the money .. Crazy how your life style adapts and you don't really notice.

6 years ago I wouldn't have dreamed to be on as much as I am, which is no where near what some of you lot are on. I'm 30 now, two cars, house, two kids and living month to month... Ask me in ten years

 

Interesting spread of experience. Though it seems that plenty are like me in that wages have stayed the same but obviously we are all 'poorer' due to inflation, (which we all recognise is a lot more than RPI/CPI implies) and taxes/reduction of allowances.

It also seems that some can compensate for an absolute drop in income by working longer.(ie F1 Fan) This is something I could have done with regards to my self employed income but chose not to do due to the negative impact it would have had on my family life/health.

And as always there will be those that continue to actually grow/prosper despite the economic circumstances (ie Nizmo and Chip). Probably a coincidence but they both seem to be in the energy sector.

 

Had a promotion two yrs ago and a good review last yr. So although bills have gone up I've been lucky to have more disposable income to cover it off.
Decided to treat myself back in April and buy a brand new car as I've always previously gone with second hand.
Went for an M3 with competition pack. Amazing machine, if a little twitchy in the wet..

Nick

 

Yea the thing with the type of job I am in is that even in a recession
we still need petrol and oil and gas
so there will all ways be a market for this type of industry
Aberdeen where I am from in my opinion was one of the city's least
affected by the recession in the uk as we are the oil capitol of Europe
also because we have a lot of technology in the oil exploration and extraction
in Aberdeen there is a massive amount of highly trained
people and other company's in other country's want that experience
and offer high wages and excellent rotation to work abroad.
so even if the oil industry slowed down in Aberdeen there would be
a lot of people getting work rotating abroad.

 

Lost overtime last week so I'm down about £4k before tax. Although can't say I'm finding it tough at all.

 

I'm on less money but that is partly through personal choice. I was working on a 30 day rolling contract which was good money but I was always looking over my shoulder as to when I would be laid off. Now I work 37 hours a week max, finish at 12 on a Friday and do not have to worry about work until Monday.