Austin economy looking up in 2010

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The Flores family brought ten of its members to the Barton Creek Square on New Year’s Day. In 2010, they looked for what they just couldn't manage at Christmas 2009.

"You spend less obviously,” said Carlos Flores, “so you get better deals."

"After the holidays,” said his sister-in-law, Casey, “less people are in there, and you do get good sales."

The sales were indeed up, while the lines were down. The shoppers who wanted to wait until now had their reasons.

"I think everybody's just cut back a little bit this year at Christmas time,” said Tammy Pietcsh. “Not spend quite as much."

Financial experts said it would not be like that for long, especially here in Texas.

"We think the Texas economy is going to do better than the rest of the U.S. economy,” said Michael Brand, University of Texas professor of finance. “We hear a lot about the growing unemployment rate across the use but Texas is in a much better place than rest of the country."

But it will be a slow pace to improvement.

"We struggled,” said Kelly Sloan, an Austin consumer. “We struggled hard. My husband lost his job. Christmas was hard for the kids, but he's got a job so it's going to be better.

“Financially, we did get hit as a family,” said Luisa Piette, “In the previous year, I lost my job, so I started a new non-profit that's actually not making any money yet.”

The best bet to bettering your economic outlook - if you're living right here in the Austin area.

“Then when you look at the Austin and Round Rock area,” said Brand, “we have even a lower unemployment rate than the state of Texas."

But even with uplifting news like that, the Flores family is making its own resolution to carefully consider each purchase from now on. While dad Carlos still has his residential maintenance position, jobs were slim even for him in the last year.

“(We will) try to spend less and be careful where we spend,” he said.

Financial experts also said consumers make up about 70 percent of the economy. As people are looking to pinch pennies, that will be one of the biggest problems for recovery.