The economy seems to have left its mark on everyone in some way. For me, I don't go out as much, and I walk to places. My family buys less groceries and we eat a whole lot less. We've even lost some weight! It's been so long since I've gone to a fast food restaurant, though.

It seems that you benefit something from economic crisis. Do you think economic recession has lots of advantages too? Anyway, in my case, I have a bigger savings nowadays because I don't spend too much. We buy the necessities only. We still eat in the restaurant but I think once a month.

My husband lost his job, so naturally we are trying to spend as carefully as possible. Most of the money goes on the necessary things like house payments and such, then groceries and gas. I have always cooked at home a lot, so that hasn't changed. Eating out is always a treat.

Well its affected my family, being a single mother is not easy and on top of that the expenses going up. All i can do is start increasing my services, as that's the only way to be the recession going on and keep up with things!

The situation we are all in has not helped any of us, it seems. We have cut down quite a bit on our expenses as well and we try to limit our purchases to a minimum. Hopefully, we will be coming out of this rut pretty soon though - there are just so many things you can cut down in a budget and what's next?

When you have less money, you learn that you can live without a lot of stuff. We have always used coupons, but we use them even more now. We buy a lot of clearance-priced food, and we take advantage of all the free food offers that we get. I have reached a new level of frugality.

I always check out sales and clearances, too, trying to catch a good deal and perhaps stock up on some always-needed items that can be stored for a while. It helps. You have to economize and spend wisely these days.

In my family, we eat more bread. It's cheap where I live; we can buy it for seventy-eight cents. I've always picked up change from the ground, but now I'm looking for it more actively. My mom, who didn't used to pick up pennies, picks them up now.