You can always go to an officiant, then announce that you are married three days later to a group of family and friends at your 50th birthday party. You will already have cake and gifts and a grooving party-vibe going and being able spring the happy surprise will be AWESOME.

Hey, worked for me!

My thinking is a recession is a fair possibility, but no one knows what the odds really are.

I could be wrong, as I don't follow the economic news super-close. There are a number of scary signs about our economy besides the sub-prime credit fiasco, but those other things have been scary for a while now, so who knows....

House prices around here are going down. There are a lot of homes in south Jersey that I could actually afford. I think I'ma buy a house. Fer reals this time.

Susan, I'm so very not an expert, but "underpaying public sector job", "much higher salary in a fairly stable corner of the private sector", and "clearing some nasty debt" sounds to me like, go for the higher-paying job.

Anyway. I had a very good wedding. If I get married again, though, it'll be on a beach somewhere with only a few people. Yes.

House prices around here are going down.

Susan, if people knew when and how bad recessions will be in the future, then they wouldn't happen in the first place.

I tend to be pessimistic about things, and I do think there will be recession soon. But even if I'm right about that, there's no way to know how bad it will be, and how long it will last.

Furthermore, recessions affect the economy in general, and tell you very little how it will affect particular individuals or companies. There are lots of companies that make out nicely during recessions.

And paying down your debt and having a diversified portfolio is always a good idea.

Susan, my thinking is that a person in their mid-30's is still looking at another 20-30 years of work, so I would count on being able to ride out any possible future recession.

Our 401Ks are based on age, so they're typically more agressive. We're planning on switching them when we hit our late 40's, but we're also hoping to be able to retire in our late 50's based on our short mortgage, combined with DH's pension and his substantial 401k.

Bad enough that a person should hang onto his steady but underpaying public sector job when there's a chance of something with a much higher salary in a fairly stable corner of the private sector, and the raise would *really* come in handy for clearing some nasty debt left over from the LAST economic downturn?

If the private sector job is pretty stable, then it sounds pretty good, but I wouldn't want to give advice with so many variables.

I don't know what the basis is for a long term recession. The subprime lending market is collapsing which might lead to a housing downturn, but I don't know that means there will be a big recession. Energy prices are going to go up driven by demand for oil, but that will also mean investment in other types of energy which could be good. The U.S. is the Middle East of coal. I'm concerned about the outsourcing the jobs to other places, but the statistics don't seem real alarming there.

Of course, everybody sucks at predicting the economy.

Are billytea and I the only two people on the planet who don't wish they'd eloped?

Nope. Our wedding was great. I kinda wish I'd had a bachlorette party (none of my friends felt like organizing one, and no, Pete didn't have a bachlor party either), but otherwise, it was wonderful.

I think that if we attack Iran and Iran succeeds in bottling up shipping in the gulf (which they've threatened to do if we attack) I think there will be huge world-wide oil shortages leading to a pretty bad recession.

But supposedly Bush had said he won't attack Iran this year....

I'd stick with stocks for the 401k. You are decades out from retirement and if the stock market dives in the short-term, you are buying in low.