Ireland 09-14 the recession years

Adamcp898

If ye get a spare bit of time and are interested; I'd recommend giving this linked article a read about the recession and the decisions we took. It was written in 2011 by Michael Lewis, who some of you may recognise as the authour of books like Moneyball, The Big Short etc., about the Irish economy and really refreshes your memory about just what went on. Randomly read it a few months back and it's very easy to follow with a couple of stark "**** me, we really did THAT" moments.

I won't copy and paste because it's just too long.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/03/michael-lewis-ireland-201103

theballz

Difficult.

I was in my early teens and on the dole. It was fairly depressing, I didn’t do a great leaving cert so I had no opportunity to go to college.

In the end it worked out for the best, I went back and repeated my leaving cert. went back to college got a good job and 5 years later im making more money then I ever thought I would.

jobless

theyoungchap wrote: »

If you think that is ironic you either can't understand irony, or don't understand the pitfalls of PCP.........

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2017/0721/892074-conor-brophy-whats-the-real-cost-of-pcp-car-finance/

I'd rather own a piece of junk outright than buy a car on PCP and not know what the end-game will be in 3 years.

i own a piece of junk for this exact reason..... cars are enough of a money pit without PCP!

theyoungchap

Augeo wrote: »

The end game, worse case scenario is the GFMV if you've stayed within the agreed T&Cs (servicing, mileage and not making sh1t of the car).

I've never bought on PCP myself and quite likely never will btw.

And in reality, if you need to borrow for a car, you will probably struggle with the repayments, and not making sh1t parts....and almost certainly won't be able to buy the car outright at the end.

So, where is my irony chief?

Sminkypinky

I was in an average job with average wages, going nowhere. Work hard all week, pay the rent and the bills, and spend the change in the bar.

The recession came and I was out of a job and couldn't find one anywhere. I didn't have any bills to pay off, but neither did I have any assets or savings. Better mention that I didn't have a qualification to my name either, so employers weren't exactly beating a path to my door.

Spent my paltry redundancy money on training courses which eventually got me short-term work in Yemen of all places.
Then I had some money to do more courses, which led to better jobs, which led to more money, which led to more courses, which led to more jobs, and so on.

The period from mid 2009 - early 2011 was particularly bad. I was trying to study and work, but steady work was eluding me and cash flow was a problem - on one occasion I was facing starvation while waiting for stamp money, but I looked under the cushions on the couch and found 4 euro in change - just enough to keep me in fried egg sandwiches until payout day (try them sometime - tasty, nutritious and cheap).

Eventually I graduated with a 1st-class BSc with Honours in my chosen field which is a requirement for most jobs in my line of work, only a lot of others don't have it, so it puts me at the head of the posse. Hopefully this means that the fried egg sandwich days won't return.

Looking back on it, the recession was good for me - it gave me the kick up the a---e that I needed.

But I wouldn't want to go through it again - it was a struggle and I felt like giving up at times.
I found out that not only do you have to work hard to succeed - you also have to have luck - I could fill a bus with people who've worked hard all their lives and have nothing to show for it - and I got lucky on a couple of occasions: just happening to be in the right place at the right time, etc.

dense

I'd just ordered a thousand outdoor hot tubs to flog at six grand a pop when the arse fell out of it.



Luckily, had a stash put by from my thriving decking business.

Sminkypinky

heretothere wrote: »

So true. One man I know must have loved every second of the recession, everything was the governments fault. Foreigners were taking all the jobs. He'd love to work if only there was something there. Still not working, but a lot quieter about it now!!

I think I know him. Either that or I know a lot of people like him.

ISOP

Left the country in 2013 and never went back

phill106

TeaBagMania wrote: »

I was in Ireland on holiday a couple of times during that period, one time stands out in my mind more than any other.

Was in Limerick city center at a pub\restaurant having lunch and during that short period no less than three girls walked in looking for work, all turned away.
Also, lots I mean LOTS of shops were closed in the city, sad times

Was back last year and glad to report Limerick was thriving

Worked in Limerick in the hotel industry during that time, maintaining their IT systems.
Made redundant from their, out of work for 9 months, worked as night manager in same place for another year as there was no IT jobs about, dell had closed in limerick, and everyone was looking for jobs...made redundant again...
Wife also let go from her own job while on maternity leave, got another IT role, in it a year before the place let me go to keep the doors open, but managed to get a good job after that, where I have been ever since.
Thank goodness for mortgage insurance is all i'll say.

theyoungchap

theyoungchap wrote: »

And in reality, if you need to borrow for a car, you will probably struggle with the repayments, and not making sh1t parts....and almost certainly won't be able to buy the car outright at the end.

So, where is my irony chief?

Many PCP were 0% after negotiating the sale price, why wouldn't people avail if they were in a position to change the car?

You're presuming all who borrow need to borrow and will struggle with the repayments. That's a lot of presumptions. Your view is presumptive, not factual.

You claim anyone buying in pcp doesn't understand personal finance. The irony is that it's you who seems to not understand personal finance.

You'd want to be daft to spend 30k of saved money when you can pay it off at 0% over the following 3 years.

If you don't make the repayments car goes back. Can't pay the balloon payment at the end you hand the car back after paying 60% ish of the new price.

Anyone who can afford to pay 55% if the value of a car off over 3 years should be able to afford to pay the remainder over the next few years. If they can't they hand it back. Do you understand?

theyoungchap

Augeo wrote: »

Many PCP were 0% after negotiating the sale price, why wouldn't people avail if they were in a position to change the car?

You're presuming all who borrow need to borrow and will struggle with the repayments. That's a lot of presumptions. Your view is presumptive, not factual.

You claim anyone buying in pcp doesn't understand personal finance. The irony is that it's you who seems to not understand personal finance.

You'd want to be daft to spend 30k of saved money when you can pay it off at 0% over the following 3 years.

If you don't make the repayments car goes back. Can't pay the balloon payment at the end you hand the car back after paying 60% ish of the new price.

Anyone who can afford to pay 55% if the value of a car off over 3 years should be able to afford to pay the remainder over the next few years. If they can't they hand it back. Do you understand?

So you bust your chops for 3 years at a couple of hundred quid a month, only to own about half of the car and hand it back if you can't afford it. Do you not think that's a poor return on that investment?

badtoro

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater wrote: »

I'm a Civil Servant and worked in Social Welfare during the recession. It'd be fair to say the recession left its mark on me. We took a fair bit of abuse both in our jobs and in the media, and came in for some incredibly unfair criticism from some quarters. However, I had my job for the duration, so I was by no means an example of someone who the recession profoundly affected.

That 4 or 5 years has made me an awful lot more conscious about the economy and society in general than I otherwise would probably have been.

Not related to yourself, but your post reminded me of a radio programme (one of the talky ones I can't remember which) when things went to sh1t initially where a Social Welfare worker went on radio complaining they were all burnt out with the extra burden of more unemployed people to deal with.

Interview was going grand until the interviewer decided to do a bit of probing and asked "With all the newly unemployed how many hours are ye working now?"

Standard working week for that job at the time. It was hard not to throw a few ****s into the radio that day tbh.

theyoungchap

theyoungchap wrote: »

So you bust your chops for 3 years at a couple of hundred quid a month, only to own about half of the car and hand it back if you can't afford it. Do you not think that's a poor return on that investment?

A car isn't an investment. To describe it as such suggests you know nothing about personal finance.

Again, you are presuming folk are busting their chops to pay a couple of hundred a month (which is 2400/year) ...big everyone who gets pcp can't afford it, you maintain otherwise and that availing of PCP is insane. Your viewpoint is ludicrous.

What do you drive & what did it cost & how long do you own it?

theyoungchap

Augeo wrote: »

A car isn't an investment. To describe it as such suggests you know nothing about personal finance.

Again, you are presuming folk are busting their chops to pay a couple of hundred a month (which is 2400/year) ...big everyone who gets pcp can't afford it, you maintain otherwise and that availing of PCP is insane. Your viewpoint is ludicrous.

What do you drive & what did it cost & how long do you own it?

Do you not agree that owning half a car after 3 years after paying a few hundred quid a month is absolute insanity considering it would have depreciated so much?

I drive a 10 year old car, bought in 2011 for 5k sterling, still looking great and driving great. If I wanted to change it I could in the morning with money I've saved, rather than paying a few hundred quid a month for a brand new car to depreciate.

Wouldn't trade it for a car on PCP anyway, that's for sure you seem to think I know nothing about personal finance - if you are justifying PCP finance and saying I know nothing about it, I think it is you who doesn't.

Pac1Man

theyoungchap wrote: »

Do you not agree that owning half a car after 3 years after paying a few hundred quid a month is absolute insanity considering it would have depreciated so much?

What's your opinion on people who buy a new car outright?

theyoungchap

Pac1Man wrote: »

What's your opinion on people who buy a new car outright?

I wouldn't do it myself (the depreciation would gall me) but if people want a brand new car enough (like the man talking about the Merc above) and can afford it, knock yourself out.

hobie21

Loved the recession. Dirt cheap property. Retired in the Med now.

Pac1Man

theyoungchap wrote: »

I wouldn't do it myself (the depreciation would gall me) but if people want a brand new car enough (like the man talking about the Merc above) and can afford it, knock yourself out.

I wouldn't do it either for the same reasons but people availing of PCP at 0% are no different to those who buy new outright. After three years both would have paid the same price for the car.

Royale with Cheese

I graduated in 2010 and immediately started a graduate program for a large IT company, I've been working ever since. I guess I was one of the lucky ones from looking at the youth unemployment graph earlier in the thread. I know of people who had to emigrate and have been away so long that they no longer feel of Ireland as home, which kind of upsets them. What happened in the teaching industry in particular was a fúcking disgrace, I want to thump the head off any of the older generations when they talk about the current two tier pay system being unfair. YOU put it there to fúck over the younger generation and protect your vastly inflated salaries.

On the other hand I've played in bands for years and the recession was the best thing to happen to the live music scene in Dublin. All the "promoters" charging young bands to put on gigs in shít venues on a Sunday night, having to charge your mates €10 in to try and break even. That disappeared over night, and you were left with plenty of free gigs with good bands that people could just rock up and see. Venues were just happy to have people buying pints, which is how it should be.

Poor_old_gill

Finished college in 2008 and landed out with no jobs on the go, etc- folks wouldnt be overly wealthy either!
Went and worked in a hotel for 2 years and saved money to do a Masters- working in the hotel was the making of me and a completely different experience to sitting in a college course with your relatively homogeneous group!

After the Masters- headed to Oz for a year (but couldnt stick it for any longer as I miss the family too much) and came back to do a short term Jobs Bridge- then used this and my Masters to get a grad role and have worked my way up to a relatively good position over the last few years.

I've ticked most boxes in recession bingo there and its funny looking back at how broke I was- the hotel job was great for that as I was fed there all the time and could save as much of the money as possible while trying to live the rest of the week off tips.

My story is nowhere near as harrowing as some people had it but was prob fairly reflective of how many my age found themselves

Edit: also did odd jobs for cash like painting, gardening and fixing things- has come in very handy now that i have my own place

Viscount Aggro

A few anecdotes from my life during that period;

2009: a group of 25 people were called into a room, for "management update"
All of us were laid off. Meanwhile, on the floor directly above us, people were were getting notice of annual bonus.
There was whooping and cheering.

2010: could not a job - i mean nothing. Decided to offer my time, do voluntary work at a local urban farm. Basically, I was told to F*ck right off - they wanted Garda clearance, references, and already had people doing it.

2011 - 2012: various contract roles, including one that nearly sent me to the JOG
(St John of Gods). Bullying of the worst kind, micro-managing, listening in to taped lines, criticism of my personal attributes.
Verbal, written warnings.
Low pay, high stress, complicated work.
I had to leave, or self-medicate.
Another contract role - came to the end of the 6 month contract. I was hoping to be kept on, when I asked the manager about it - he just started laughing. I mean uncontrollably, and didnt say anything to me.

2013 onwards: back on track, but scarred for life.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Myself and my wife bought a house in 2010 and had our first child. Our second child was born in 2012. We struggled big time as constant wage cuts coupled with rising mortgage rates, extortionate child-care costs and the rising cost of living in general meant we had absolutely nothing left at the end of the week and both of us are in what are considered well paid State jobs. We came through the other side and thankfully things are easier now and both children are in school and so were immediately over €1000 a month better off on that point alone.

CIP4

I was on the young side for it to have had a massive effect on me currently 23. Went to college in 2012 finished 2016 started a grad role immediately. With a mix of hard work and tbh a lot of good luck right place right time have managed to get a few promotions within the same company so am now in a decent well paid job that probably should have taken me a few years longer to get to than it did.

However it did have a big effect on my parents as they had a construction business since I was a child so didn’t just jump in to make a quick bob in the boom and both are very good business people and ran it very straight. However by 2009 it was struggling big time more so down to other companies constantly going bust and leaving them unpaid as well as businesses pricing outrageously low to get jobs. In 2010 they changed fields and still have the business today although scale wise it is far far smaller and has nothing to do with construction. So it meant going from them being very comfortable with a successful business to now having to work well into their 60s to have an ok retirement. However they are very much back on track now.

To be fair in the grand scheme of things it was no where near as bad as many in the fact they always had work and managed to pay bills, mortgage and send me and my brother to college. I do often wonder what it would have been like if the business was still as big and successful today.

A family business is often so central to the family as I remember when they really were winding it down and completely changing fields and I felt this great sense of loss as I was so used to being involved in it from a very young age.

I feel sorry for the people that led very normal average lives during the boom and never massively benefited from it and still ended up screwed over in the recession.

Pac1Man

Pac1Man wrote: »

I wouldn't do it either for the same reasons but people availing of PCP at 0% are no different to those who buy new outright. After three years both would have paid the same price for the car.

Indeed.
He doesn't quite seem to understand that.
He reckons all who PCP can't afford the car.

theyoungchap

Augeo wrote: »

Indeed.
He doesn't quite seem to understand that.
He reckons all who PCP can't afford the car.

I know loads of people in the motor trade who have told me that the vast majority of people who buy on PCP shouldn't even be sold the car as they don't understand the full implications.

Probably because clued in people understand depreciation, etc better.

I have heard it is something akin to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su_3x4jsv6w

circadian

Emigrated in 2010, came home in 2013 with some cash in the bank. Not to mention the Bitcoin rig I had going in the parents gaff the whole time, paid them a nominal amount for electricity every quarter. The 2013 Bitcoin boom was epic and was able to make enough to put down a deposit for a gaff from that. I also reskilled upon returning and have been working ever since. I was fortunate enough to be in a minimum wage job in 2010 to be able to scrape together to move off and work in an industry that paid well.

A lot of my friends are still at the bottom rung but I think a big part of that is because they're in the North West where there is a perpetual recession anyway.

Although it's rarely if ever mentioned, I still think that young men without university education got the toughest time of all as a result of the collapse of building/the recession. There are a lot of unspoken mental health issues from that time - and a huge amount of anger among many of them that the developers who didn't pay them or let them go were essentially saved by the Irish taxpayer and are now making a handsome profit once again.

Then there was all the advice from "experts" not to be risky with the money they earned during the boom and to invest all their money in "blue chip firms like banks". "Experts" promoted non-stop by a media that was making millions per annum by promoting a property bubble. The same media which promoted immigration - immigrants who arrived to undercut the same local Irish guys in building - knowing full well that an immigrant would not, for example, be challenging any of them for a job in The Irish Times or other network-laden positions in the upper echelons of Irish society. Easy to be pro-immigration when you're not in a menial or lower trade job that will be the first targets for immigrants. More hypocrisy and economic self-interest dressed up as moral righteousness by our self-described "liberals" in media land.

The wonder is there aren't far more men hostile to the cliques in this society. There are so few supports available to those men, and culturally it's just expected that they get on with it without any of the emotional supports which culturally we make available to women.

That old Christy Moore song from the early 1980s with the line 'He still drives his car and smokes his cigar, still he takes his family on a cruise; he'll never lose, he'll never lose' is strikingly apt for how the legal system in this state looked after one group over another. It's quite sickening how the legislators of our state have allowed people who bankrupt so many others to transfer assets into the names of family members and continue being multi millionaires in reality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIh5dUOz824

Ush1

I doubt Christy is short of a few bob.