Community poll forum: Has the financial crisis crippled your tech spending?

The hard truth is that the more we cut back on expenditures the worse the financial crisis will become. We're spending as usual because this is the best way to keep people employed. Just finished remodeling a bathroom and bought a Blu-ray player to celebrate.

Because of lost or postponed orders.
1) Meeting with my employees, because I do not want to remove anyone
it has been agree by all that a temporary slight reduction in our take home pay. My employees know how much we make and as the boss they also know how much I take which is the same as my imediate juniors. Yes! we share, that is what I do.
2) our family spending has been adjusted.
3)our 2nd car has been warehoused.
4)our pleasure out food dining has been stopped and grocery has had all been screened and reduced to essentials only.
5)Entertainment has been reduced by 1/3
6) My evening 3 beers NO MORE
7) Our daughters allowance has been voluntary reduced.
8) My wifes weekly trip to the hairdresser NO MORE she does it herself
like she used to do when much younger.
9)Any new purchase re Clothes is the subject of a family disscussion.
10)A few other minor changes are also now in effect

Regards
best wishes for a super Xmas and hopefully a better 2009 to all of the Cnet personel and to all members of CNET
God Bless

I had issues with the credit bureaus before the financial crisis hit. And seriously, there needs to be a lot more government oversight there, and easier ways to deal with them when they screw up. And they should not have that much power over people's lives. And it wasn't even like I wasn't paying my bills; my parents helped a lot when it came to planning for the future. In fact, I have no debt and my student loans paid off well before I graduated. Of course, perspective employers could have done more as well. Instead of just saying that I wasn't hired, they could have told me that when they ran a background check on me that what came back wasn't enough to verify who I was. That would have gotten the ball rolling faster than having to find out on my own that all that was in my credit report was a name and social security number. So compared to what I went through two years ago, this "financial crisis" is a cakewalk. I have nowhere to go but up.

I have found that the service industry has reached a point where individuals and corporations really want to get their money's worth for the services they really need. Being part of a quality vendor for on-site services has caused an increase in requests for our services and this has meant an increase in the number of calls. No, the financial crisis has not had a negative impact for us and the corporations were provide for still need the service but want more for the same price or better quality for what they do buy. If anything, they are less likely to run out and buy new equipment when fixing the old stuff remains cheaper even though that gap has narrowed a bit, it is still more costly to buy new instead of fixing the old.

I wasn't affected by the financial crisis. What I do is budgeting and I make sure I don't go above the budget. Good financial advice is also very useful. My goal is never go get in debt... As soon as I spend something on my credit card I repay it just-in-case I get charged interest (better being safe than sorry). If I know I don't have enough money in my bank account to pay the credit card, I do not spend anything until I indeed have enough money.

Besides, when I shop for electronics I never impulse buy. I always research the electronic well before hand until I know mostly all of its components in it (i.e. my laptop...shopped around and learned about laptop technology for ~6-8 months before actually buying one... Same for TV, etc).

So my hint? Keep a very (VERY) strict budget and do the absolute BEST you can to not go above it. When you see a computer, don't buy it straight away. Always wait until it goes on sale (might sound cheap... but you can save hundreds of dollars).