Michael Janzen

This bubble burst is one lesson I will never forget. Today I got my monthly report from Zillow in my email inbox. It brought more bad news. On the positive side I can already see some good indications coming in from elsewhere that say the economy is beginning to turn around. It just doesn’t look like it by looking at my home’s recently reported value.

Below is a screen shot of a report on Zillow.com for the Sacramento, California housing market. Looks pretty bad. You can also read the full report.

Below is a snapshot of my home, local market, and the national market. As you can see the Sacramento area has been hit very hard. My take is that this is what happens when McMansions go up like mushrooms and then the roof figuratively caves-in.

I’m no economist but while we see positive trends in consumer confidence and in other areas I don’t expect to see any real economic rebound until all our homes get a little less upside down. Too many Americans feel like they are stuck in debtors prisons. When people begin to feel less stuck I’m certain that overall consumer confidence will rebound and spending will return.

While this is sad for the rest of America, (more spending means more debt), it will have a positive side effect for those of us that are looking to downsize. We will be able to make our move, literally. Until then we sit patiently paying the piper for our past presumed prosperity.

(Sorry… I couldn’t help the allure of an awkward alliteration.)

As money tightens Julia and I are changing our habits. Shopping at our familiar grocery stores (Raley’s and Safeway) is now a thing of the past. We decided to try shopping at Save Mart today and walked out with our jaws dragging on the floor, figuratively speaking.

We were able to pretty much buy all the normal name brands we usually get for what seemed like half the price. HALF THE PRICE!!! Right now that is going to really come in handy and I’m kicking myself for shopping at the price gougers for so many years. I’m not going to dwell on figuring out how many tens of thousands of dollars have I wasted shopping at those places. Instead eyeballs are focused ahead on savings and simplicity.

I guess this is one of the many silver linings of this Great Recession, learning the benefits of frugal choices and not simply continuing old bad habits. I’m also a pretty good bagger

(Photo snapped on the way out the door with cell phone.)

I was just reading the news this morning on Google and ran across another sad story about our collapsing world economy. This time it’s Nissan announcing major cutbacks. 20,000 jobs will be lost. But that’s not the part of the story I wanted to point out. Take a look at what the CEO of Nissan said:

“In every planning scenario we built, our worst assumptions on the state of the global economy have been met or exceeded, with the continuing grip on credit and declining consumer confidence being the most damaging factors.”

Get it? Even the people running the most successful corporations are getting blind-sided by the collapse. Their worst case scenario planning is being surpassed. Has your worst case scenario planning been surpassed yet? Do you have a worst case scenario plan? No matter what your plan is, or your prediction for the future, you might want to spend a few minutes thinking about what you’d do if you lost your income.

I know that’s a dark topic, so don’t dwell on it, just ask yourself what you’d do differently today if you knew that you might loose your job or house in the near future. It’s not paranoid anymore; it’s prudent.

I ran across this little post on Inhabitat via materialicious this morning. I’m glad more people are beginning to think that less (consumption) is more (freedom). It’s too bad it’s taken the worst recession since the great depression for many people to figure it out.

I don’t think boycotting the holidays is the answer though. Why rob ourselves of tradition, memories, and time with family? Why not simply choose not to exchange gifts or better yet make/do something for each other! I bet Christ would approve.