The Great Recession

Good News! For one of our businesses (Business #1 I'll call it) we were able to modify our SBA loan. We had tried months ago to get our bank to refinance our loan since we are having a hard time making our $9500/month payments. That's right....that is a freaking lot of money. Our sales have been down between 25-30% in the last 6 months due to the lack of construction around here. The bank said "No way". We finally called the SBA and they had to call our bank and strong arm them into adjusting our loan. The SBA basically had our backs. This to me is just another example of how the banks are hoarding money and until the government (SBA) called them out on it there was no way they were going to help us. We got our loan extended 18 months and our payment will be reduced to around $6300/month. Yea! SBA!
This week we have another meeting with a bank for our shipping business. We'll see if they are interested in loaning us $200,000 to expand our business. That should be an interesting meeting.

Just to update you on how over all the Great Recession has affected us...
1. I've lost all of my architectural clients due to bankrupt projects, and the unwillingness of banks to fund any new ones.
2. I'm taking my daughter out of day care since I can no longer afford the $500/month and also see above.... I have no projects and a lot of free time on my hands.
3. I have upped the deductible on our health insurance to $5000 so that the payments are not $750/month but a more affordable $450/month.
4. We are giving up our luxury automobile leases. When the lease expires in June we will not be leasing another Audi, but will resort back to driving our 1990 Ford F150 pickup.
5. I am giving up my cute little office down town due to reason #1 and to save the $1200/month.
6. We've let go all of our employees at Business #1 and are staffing it solely with family members which makes for lower overhead, but long 6 day work weeks for everyone.

Oh yeah I'm gonna give you all the facts and figures. I have no secrets when it comes to money. I love to see what things cost and assume most other people do to. If I'm going to put a personal face on how the economy is affecting people then I can't do it with allusions to figures. I've got to be real about it. Keep reading....it's only gonna get better....or much, much worse.