Feelin the economic squeeze????

Jason Adams

Jason Adams

Section Moderator
The past few months our slower than normal. Nothing too serious. I just signed a record setting deal for my company but it seems like a lot of the quick smaller gigs are not as plentiful.

Any other freelancers/Business owners seeing any slow down.
 
yes and no... less small clients IE Films..... but more "big" ones.. IE corporate...
 
For me, it's hard to tell how much is the economy in general, how much is the economy in particular of a city that just went through the worst flooding in its history, and how much is due to the fact that some people probably think we're out of business completely just because our building was under 11 - 12 feet of water. :) It's been an interesting couple of months, to say the least. :D

It's also hard for me to tell because this is typically our slow time, because nobody wants to do much of anything in the height of an Iowa summer. "Well, we could have our annual meeting in August, but then we'd have to leave our air-conditioned office to go to some hotel ballroom that probably will be too hot... how does October sound to you?"
 
For me, things are typically slower in the middle of Summer as many clients are vacationing, etc. Things are beginning to pick up a bit now.
 
Well, 2008 will go down as not a good year for me...

Due to the drop in the stock market, I've lost about $75,000. Given that these are just "paper losses", but it wiped away about about 3 years of gain. :crybaby: No one can say for sure, but by late 2009, the market MAY turn around and it will take about another 3 years to see everything recover...

As for my job at the college, I'm all scheduled for the classes, BUT I have no tenure, and considering the current problems with the California state budget... I have no idea if I'll have a job or not come the Fall semester.

The real killer is that I did try to line up another job, but that was a case of strike one, strike two, and strike three. The last one was painful, it was a job in a small TV station in Lewiston, Idaho. OK, the pay wouldn't have been much, but it would have been a blast to work there. (Some of my wife's family lives in that area of Idaho.)

The good news is . . . . . I'M NOT DEAD ... yet. :)


Bob Diaz
 
Slow? Oh man... some days I think my chimney has a giant funnel stuck in it and gold dust keeps pouring down it... I have mornings when I can hardly make it to the coffee maker because I have to duck under the ceiling fan from all the gold mounded up... it's a common misconception that you'd WADE through gold dust and doubloons... but nope, you walk on top of 'em... no matter how deep they are you always walk on top.
 
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the only income i've earned this year is from one day i had jury duty. in retrospect, i probably shouldn't have tried to get out of it on the first day.
 
Well, many local factories are going under and downsizing due to the GM/Ford products being uncompetitive. So that affects the general local economy.

On a personal level, I've been picking up work for a change. Yet to see the promised checks though. Supposed to be in the mail.

That's a good thing because I said I'd give it until the end of this year. No money, I'm done. That the economics of that. :)
 
So far, this has been a miracle year. Not that we're rolling in dough, but: First, the kiddos arrived in January. Second, because they arrived earlier than expected (even for twins), I turned down two out-of-town job offers as moving would've just been too hard on the family. Third, when my wife's maternity leave was up, we decided she should stay home even though that meant going the Cobra route (did I mention I'm still freelancing?) Fourth, despite what seem like a trail of stupid economic decisions to many outsiders, we've been beyond okay. The last two months have been incredible, even after taking into account the insane self-employment taxes. Will it continue? I don't know. That's why we shift whatever we can into our money market. I would say this is all God's doing, but I don't want the thread to get locked down. :) (Do I need to use Matt's green color on that line?)
 
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