A small business owner and a working mother concerned with health insurance costs, two working parents satisfied with their jobs, a pair of women concerned about retirement savings.

This is a sampling of Muskogee area residents and how today’s erratic economy affects them.

Their stories — as well as the observations of area real estate agents, bankers and financial experts — indicate a mixed picture of Muskogee’s economy.

There’s less of the doom and gloom here than reported from other parts of the country. But not everything is rosy either.

Here is a snapshot of area residents living under a changing economy.

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Print Mart owner Bill Tibbles has a barometer of sorts to tell how well the economy’s going — the number of cards, brochures, invoices and other business-related material he prints at his shop.

“A lot of times, when the economy is good, people are going to start a business, and they need cards, they need invoice forms,” said Tibbles, who has owned Print Mart, 232 East Side Blvd. for 18 years. “When there is a downturn, there is a lot of caution and fear and not nearly as many people starting new businesses or ordering business cards.”

He said that in the past three or four months, he has not done many new-business related orders.

Tibbles said he has seen ups and down since opening his shop in 1990.

“The printing business is constantly changing,” he said. “In the old days, we had the old presses. Now, everything is digital and that has revolutionized printing. We can do more short orders: One copy, 10 copies, 100 copies or 1,000 copies, we can do it, almost on demand.”

Tibbles said that with competition from corporate printers such as Kinko’s or Office Depot, “We have to work smarter.”

“They have so much networking a little old print shop like me doesn’t have,” he said. “You have to find your niche.”

He also faces competition from people who do their own printing on home computers.