Recession Resistant

Call me a fortunate son. My last job was as an IT specialist at a manufacturing plant. This company never made much of a profit, even under the best of circumstances... that's the rub of working in a commodity-based business. Their biggest profits were all accounting-based profits... when the price of their raw materials went up, their net worth increased accordingly. Well, now the prices are dropping like a rock. And furthermore, their products are heavily tied to the automotive and housing industries, and we all know how these areas are doing. In other words, I got out just in the nick of time.

Now that the recession is really building a head of steam, I'm even more pleased to be out of there. I'm doing semi-freelance IT work for some very recession-resistant businesses -- doctors, dentists and attorneys. I'm making a much better hourly rate than I made before, I'm working fewer hours, and no night/weekend emergencies. Yeah, I still work the occasional evening or weekend, but it's at my convenience, and it's from home.

To make matters better, my wife's job is also recession-resistant.

And have you noticed the gas prices lately? Man, it's absolutely cool! I filled up my truck's tank yesterday at $1.95 per gallon. To put this in perspective, I drove by a gas station this morning that was closed due to the flood, and it had the price being charged just before the flood... $3.85 per gallon! The price has dropped almost two dollars per gallon in five months. With the price falling that far, that fast, other commodities such as food, plastic, rubber and other petroleum-based products should also drop soon. This would definitely help us recover from our current mess.

It's not all pretty though... my 401k has lost about 50% of its peak value in the last 18 months. Oh well... I guess I had to suffer somewhere, right?