I admit to surfing on my iPhone during my photography class this morning. I'm such a bad student. One of the articles that I came across was this Bloomberg article, which describes the impact on Wall Street workers who haven't gotten a bonus in the past couple of years. 

It's gotten a lot of ire on the blogosphere today. Those stupid, rich people! 

Megan sort of defends them saying that it is tramatic to pull kids out of private school. Maybe they could use a little sympathy. The rich, like the middle class, invested in expensive mortgages than can't be cut back in lean years. So maybe it is better to rent, than buy a home.  

I don't know if the rich deserve sympathy or not. I do know that a lot of people at my husband's firm are hurting this year. They bought homes and created lifestyles for themselves a few years ago, that can't be sustained anymore. 

A few years ago, we did quite nicely. Steve got a bonus, and I was working. Since then, we've had a substantial drop in our income, but we haven't felt the pain, because we only made small changes to our lifestyle during the flush years. We still drive a very old Toyota that leaks oil on the driveway. I don't have a housecleaner (savings of $1,500 per year) or a landscaper to blow out our lawn. We do it ourselves. The couple of years that we did well, we dumped the money into our mortgage. 

In these times, I think it is always better to be prepared to live on less and to assume that your salary could be cut in half at any time. Could you do it?