Round 1 - Job loss
It was an interesting time... My wife, married about 9 mos, was laid off from her position as an Architect (mainly multi-family residential/condos) in the 3rd round of layoffs spanning 2-3 mos in fall of 2008. The first round people managed to all get jobs but by the 3rd round, no one could find jobs. In total, her firm dropped about 70% of the staff that fast.
Thankfully, we were already pretty frugal and we were able to maintain saving via her unemployment plus my consistent income. There was stress but a lot less than there could have been were our spending levels not already frugal.
After about 9 months, we moved to Louisiana where she found a job in about the only place that was building. It was nice getting her earning income and feeling valuable again. It also presented an opportunity for a career shift that she'd been trying to make (still within architecture).
Oddly, my company set a record revenue in 2009 and was stable. We stopped hiring, expanding but all appeared well...
LESSON: Frugalness let us avoid any lasting damage during the layoff, funded our move across country, and let us buy a home in a down market even while not selling our prior home.
Round 2 - Trying to sell a condo in 2010
At the end of 2009, we bought a new home despite having not sold or even rented our condo we'd been living in previously. That condo was in downtown Minneapolis and bought in 2004 prices.
During 2010, things started well and we listed the condo. We were back at 2 incomes but now supporting two homes. Still saving but at a diminished level. We basically attracted tire kickers but little realistic interest.
And then, in fall of 2010, we could see that the pipeline for my company was getting pretty meager as our large enterprise software projects wound down. Before it got too bad, we got the condo rented at a price that was slightly cash flow negative but was creating positive value if you factor in the equity we were building. Not a great rental property but better than being forced to sell in a down market.
LESSON: Frugalness gave us the flexibility to market the condo and to even accept renting it as cash flow negative to let the investment recover.
Round 3 - My company tanks in 2010-2012
As mentioned, we saw our pipeline drying up... Thankfully we had some state work that was reliable but low rate and occasional other small work.
Revenues fell quite a lot. We burned some cash but prior experience led us to act reasonably quickly. Employees took a 12.5% paycut. Shareholders dropped pay to ~$2,000/mo with any profits being distributed separately monthly. Overall during the 18-24 mos we were in this mode, shareholders probably gave up an average of 30%-40% of total compensation.
BUT... we retained nearly all employees, kept the balance sheet positive, and came out the other side leaner and as a survivor.
Since then, we've been nearly continuously profitable and doubled in staff size with revenues in 2017 approximately 350% higher than 2010 with historically high profit margins.
LESSON: Frugalness let me take a large pay cut for a sustained period to survive the recession with the company relatively unscathed which aided in a speedy recovery while also creating opportunities to buy out other shareholders so not only is our company quite a bit larger now but I also rose from a 31% shareholder to 50% shareholder and our bank account is well funded.
A couple other thoughts
Throughout everything, dual income with a savings rate that was probably on the order of 30-40% (if all was going well), and some cash enabled us to weather ups and downs with less stress and to take advantage of opportunities we'd not have been able to otherwise.
One thing I regret was not having maxed our retirement accounts throughout the downturn and the recovery. We could have done better and, in hindsight, maybe taking a loss on our condo would have been worth it to spare the cash flow for market investments. Nonetheless, we didn't sell equities at all and did continue to put new money in as we were able to.
We also left with a stronger marriage I think - A nearly continuous flow of financial strain for 3-4 years plus a move to a city that was new to us almost immediately after getting married tested us a bit but we still built our new life together and came out stronger and didn't want for anything.
Final acknowledgement... It's worth noting that our nominal incomes throughout this period were around $70k each on average. DINK's with $140k nominal but often more in the $110k is not that great a challenge. On the other hand, fixed lifestyle inflation that we couldn't undo could easily have exacerbated bad outcomes or closed doors we otherwise took.