So as you may have guessed by my lastest Monday Morning Mention, we may be facing a layoff.
My husband does not work for Boeing, but he works for a company closely associated with Boeing. When Boeing can't work, their work slows to a trickle. Boeing has been on strike for 45 days, and things are getting pretty tight around my husband's workplace!
Last week, the CEO sent out a memo saying that layoffs will be coming in November if the strike is not resolved. Scary!
We have responded to this by stopping our massive debt payoff. We usually send all of my salary plus a decent amount of his towards our debts, but this month we just paid the minimum. (It's a student loan and our house payment, not a credit card thank God!)
We do have emergency funds, but we want a little extra padding just in case. We can always send it to the debts later if the layoff does not happen. We don't have as much as we'd like because some of our emergency funds are in mutual funds, and we all know how the stock market has been going lately. We still have a decent amount, but it's still alarming to see that number go down so quickly!
I'm also thanking God that several items we were starting to run low on had GREAT deals this week- toilet paper, laundry detergent, and a few staples. We always keep extra food in the pantry, but it is nice to have an abundance of our needs taken care of.
We're also thanking God that our roommate did not buy a house! He was thinking of it, but decided to stay with us for the time being. Having his rent will help with the mortgage quite a bit.
We're hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
Tell me your layoff stories! What did you wish you had prepared for? What was the best thing you did? What mistakes did you make? Spill in the comments!
3 comments:
We have never been through a layoff, but we have been through a 5-month strike. Long story short, my husband found employment elsewhere, and began working there about 2 weeks before they called him back.
There was a lot that we did to prepare: cut spending dramatically and didn't eat out at all for 2 months prior, sold a few things, saved every extra penny we could get a hold of, and of course we stockpiled when we found things on sale. I'm thinking with a lot of people facing the possibility of layoffs, that I will blog about that whole experience and what I did to prepare.
Lisette
http://couponqueenofcorning.blogspot.com/
I don't have a layoff story, but I wanted to say that I really liked what you said about being able to put (some of) your emergency fund money back to debt later if all goes well and you don't face a layoff. We've been working really hard on one of our student loans, but we only have about 1 1/2 months saved in our emergency fund, so we've been re-thinking that strategy. It will help me to remember that I can always unload some of the money back over to debt when times get a little better (although I want to have more than 1 1/2 months saved in an emergency fund regardless!).
I just found your blog and I am reading through some of your archives.
We have gone through two layoffs during our 9 year marriage.
The first one was the year after we were married. Luckily we both worked and my husband did get severance for a few months. He found a job rather quickly and so while things were tight for a while it worked out.
The second layoff was last year and this time it was my job. I worked from home, the price of gas had risen immensely, and we have two more children so we decided I would stay home. My husband has a much higher paying job now that worked out for us.
We are going to start doing the Total Money Makeover in January. I am hoping we will not have to worry about my husband getting laid off but you never know.
However, I know that God will take care of us and everything will be okay.
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