WASILLA -- Kathy Hayes knows firsthand that the country's economic woes have made it to the Mat-Su.
She lost her job Monday.
Hayes, an accountant for a new Wasilla home health care company, knew the balances in the books looked bad. Potential clients, especially in the middle class, can't afford to hire personal care attendants right now.
"It's pretty tough," she said. "The economy's definitely killing us."
The same wallet-busting factors hammering the Lower 48 are at play in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough: stumbling real estate markets, though things here aren't as bad as in some places; food costs driven up by higher transportation bills; high energy prices.
Few hard numbers are available. State labor economist Neal Fried said last month he expects jobs to grow in the Mat-Su next year, but at a far slower rate than in past years. Generally, Fried says, high oil prices tend to help Alaskans, at least in trickle-down from fat state coffers.
Some Mat-Su businesses say they're doing OK right now, though consumers are looking for lower prices and longer-lasting stuff.
But financial worries are chipping away at workers across the spectrum here, according to stories from four very different local businesses: a coffee stand, an insurance company, a credit union and the home health care company where Hayes works until mid-month.
Basically, those stories reveal, people are cutting out anything that's not essential, like that $3 latte, but they're also struggling to pay more important bills.
"It's obvious that the amount of disposable income is less," said Al Strawn, general manager at Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union. "People are reprioritizing how they spend their money. They're paying their utilities, they're paying the cost of gas, so something's got to give."
ESPRESSO STANDS AND EASY CREDIT DWINDLE
Shirley Barnes watched as penny-pinched customers cut back on the fancy coffee consumption.
Earlier this summer, running in the red, Barnes closed Blueberry Moose, the espresso stand she owns along the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. Her customer numbers had plummeted from upwards of 500 a day last year to barely 100, Barnes said.
"It went down significantly. It was bad," said the mother of three, who also owns Coffee & Cream Cafe in downtown Palmer. "When we started to use our family funds to support it, my husband said no more, it's just too much."
The stand is for sale, Barnes said. She's got a few people interested, but nobody's been able to come up with the money yet.
"It might just be fear; people are just afraid to even try," she said.
Well, small-business lending has definitely slowed at Mat Valley credit union, especially anything real-estate related, said manager Strawn. This time last year, the credit union probably had about 100 residential construction loans out; right now, that number is maybe 20, he said.
The 30,000-member credit union is doing fine, he said, but it's clear that some members are struggling.
"Especially in consumer finance, we have seen a pretty big increase in the number of loans we've had to turn down," Strawn said. "A lot of them are people that just don't have the capacity to comfortably handle this debt."
LIFE CHANGES
The pain of balancing family budgets is ripping into the Valley's social fabric in other ways.
Roberta Pyrah, a 20-year veteran of the insurance industry, has never seen so many "household splits" -- otherwise known as divorces.
"We've done more this year than I remember ever doing," said Pyrah, manager at Cederholm Insurance Agency in Wasilla. "In every different kind of aspect the economy is hitting people and businesses everywhere. No doubt."
This is one of the company's slowest years, she said. "People are not buying the toys; people are not going out and buying a new house."
Clients are calling, e-mailing or stopping by with questions, Pyrah said. A typical one: "Can you see anything we can do to scale down without losing coverage?"
For her part, laid-off accountant Kathy Hayes has plenty of home health care experience and is confident she can find another job, though it might take time.
"I'm going to go home and I'm not going to tell my husband until he gets back from vacation," she said when asked her plans for the future. "I'm just sitting here trying to figure out my own personal budget, to tell you the truth."
By ZAZ HOLLANDER
zhollander@adn.com