Average King County family "pretty solid"

Meet Jill and Gordy Bentler, 33 and 34, respectively; their daughter, Natalie, 5; and their pet dog, Hank, a rather pampered 7-year-old yellow Labrador retriever.

In these scary economic times, how is this statistically average family in King County doing?

Well, their answers might surprise you.

"To tell you the truth, I'm not nervous," Gordy said. "I feel pretty solid. Maybe it's because of my upbringing. I've always worked. My folks taught me the value of a dollar."

The thing is, if you're the Bentlers, you never have been in the big bucks, never had that high-paying Microsoft job, and always have lived frugally.

According to Chandler Felt, King County's demographer, if you had to pick a typical middle-class household in the county, it'd be a two-adult, one-child household, with a combined annual income of $67,000, likely owning a home in Renton, since it is right smack in the middle of the county.

"That's us," Jill said.

How they live may have a familiar ring to those of you in the same category — or even if your household income is $30,000 north or south of that $67,000 figure, Felt said.

You worry, he said, and you have "a degree of anxiety" you haven't felt for a long time. But that anxiety is muted.

The fact is, said David Wallace, labor economist for the state, "the large majority of workers in this state haven't been laid off, and if you're not laid off, you're not going to feel the downturn as much."

For most of us, life is pretty much the same as last year, and the year before.

We don't build cars. We have high-tech, aerospace, agriculture and global trade. Income produced from those jobs filters into the rest of the local economy, Wallace said. That doesn't mean we'll escape a recession, he said, "but we're going to survive it better than the country as a whole."

Frugal habits

Gordy Bentler uses Entertainment Book coupons for the times the couple go out to eat at places such as Vince's Italian Restaurant.

Jill calls herself "the Coupon Queen." Clipping coupons from the Sunday newspaper, she takes a stack on her weekly shopping trip to the Renton Highlands QFC.

The other day, her coupons saved her $15. QFC says more customers are using coupons.

It's not like the Bentlers have started a Victory Garden in their backyard, the kind families had during the food-rationing years of World War II.

Groceries still are bought, vacations still planned.

The Bentlers' daughter still attends a prekindergarten class at a nearby church for $144 a month. The couple still commute to jobs they've held for years and expect to have for years to come.

Eight years ago, they paid $162,500 for a modest, 1,300-square-foot, three-bedroom rambler in Monterey Terrace, an older Renton neighborhood. Their backyard view is of Interstate 405 below.

The home now is appraised at $351,000, which enabled the Bentlers to borrow $40,000 so they could remodel. Their mortgage is $1,047 a month.

Even when times were good, the Bentlers have watched their budget.

The family is planning a Disneyland vacation in December. That's where the couple went on their honeymoon. As always, they've budgeted carefully. The four-night vacation: $1,500.

And as always, they bought three round-trip airline tickets early at $180 each.

They do much of their shopping on their Best Western credit card and accumulated enough frequent-shopping points to pay for their hotel at Disneyland.

They've budgeted $40 to $50 a day for food on the Disneyland trip, which means IHOP for breakfast, or sharing an entree.

The Bentlers charge about $2,000 a month on the credit card, which they promptly pay off. That's something that puts them out of the norm. Only one-third of American households pay off their balances every month.

Working couple

Gordy works as a salesman for Pro Golf Discount at Southcenter. He earns $9.50 an hour. Including commissions, his annual income amounts to about $37,000.

Jill works in fundraising for the Delta Society, an international nonprofit headquartered in Bellevue. It's known for its program in which volunteers take their pets — usually dogs — to hospitals, senior homes and to help children. She earns about $30,000 a year.

The nonprofit is starting a year-end fundraiser, and Larry Norvell, president and CEO, worries that bigger donors who would write a check for $5,000 or $10,000 might cut back.

But Delta isn't hurting right now. It took in more than $500,000 from a donation mail campaign in the first half of 2008 — one of its best showings in years, Norvell said.

Over at the golf shop, Gordy keeps flexible hours, sometimes working weekends and evenings. Sales are down a bit, he said, but not tremendously so. Golfers still golf.

The economy was brought up with customers on a recent evening at the store.

There was Gerald Sousa, 61, a retired aircraft mechanic. He paid $326.99 for a Lady Ping driver with a "confidence inspiring" 460 cc titanium head. It was a birthday gift for his wife.

Sousa said his financial adviser pulled him out of the stock market before it tanked, and he now has his money in a money market. He has his pension.

"You keep going," he said about the grim headlines. "What else are you gonna do?"

There were Tom Beyke, 37, and his daughter, Amanda, 14.

The dad spent $137.88 for shoes and gloves for the daughter, who is on her high-school golf team.

Beyke is a salaried employee in the parts department of Titus-Will in Tacoma. He said the car dealership recently had let go two people in his department.

Sure, he said, he was worried. Beyke has a 401(k). "I've been trying not to check it."

At home for a recent dinner, Jill had bought some chicken thighs and cooked them up with a can of mushroom soup; the latter bought with a 40-cents-off coupon when buying two cans. The meal included white rice and a can of green beans.

They talked about how the economy had affected their lives.

"I'm still shopping, but I shop the sales," Jill said.

At Ross Dress for Less, she snagged three pairs of work shoes for $70 total, and she bought a couple of winter coats for Natalie for $100 at J.C. Penney.

"I could be laid off next week, and then what happens? We still have our mortgage payment," she said. But, she said, she's not particularly worried about a layoff.

Really, they admit, the cutbacks haven't dramatically affected their lives.

On Sundays, they used to drive to the Marymoor Park Dog Offleash Area in Redmond.

They decided that cost too much in gasoline. Now they go to a Renton park.

So no big drama in the lives of this average household, despite the headlines.

In this average household, the husband announces: "We're pretty good survivors."

In its own way, that's a headline, too.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com