Tag: unemployment

the austerity program, day twenty-six–still wishing and hoping and praying

The saying goes that no news is good news, but to those of us with a strong sense of reality, no news can just be bad news put on hold. Still no word from the people my husband interviewed with for a job. And nothing else has come close to surfacing. It’s unusual to even get a ding letter these days, as most prospective employers are overwhelmed with applications and resumes and don’t even bother–or don’t have the time or resources–to get back to everyone.

So we wait.

In the meantime, I’m trying to keep our expenses down. I had to fill both vehicles with gasoline last week, but I’m garaging the gas guzzler except on occasion. And I’ve been able to keep our grocery bill down to around $70 to $80 a week. I did have to pay for my son’s college tuition the other day, which will set us back, and my husband had to see the doctor for a bad cough (it turned out to be bronchitis, which required a couple prescriptions, an over-the-counter drug, and an X-ray to analyze and treat). Now I’m sick, but I’m trying to fight it with OTC meds unless my sinuses feel ready to explode. It’s not easy looking at every trip to the store (or doctor) as a grab at your pocketbook, but that’s how it’s going to be for a while.

Yesterday, I talked with my friend whose husband lost his job recently. He’s applying all over the West Coast, trying to land anything he can, even if that means his having to move away from the family and getting an apartment in another city. That scenario has crossed my mind too, as there appear to be more jobs in certain cities for my husband. San Francisco, for one, which, ironically, is where we lived when he launched his career. I wouldn’t mind living there again, but moving no longer means packing up a diaper bag and a few boxes and small pieces of furniture and vacating one rental home for another. Owning a house, having adult children who have settled into homes in this city, having another child in college here and yet another in middle school, whose entire life has developed inside this house, is a whole ‘nother story. Add into that two elderly parents who need attention and one of whom has no other family in town, and things get even more complicated. I’m sure our friends feel the same way. They’ve moved around more than we have, but that was when the kids were not yet born or were just little ones, when the roots to friends, schools, and activities hadn’t yet taken hold.

I don’t know how things will turn out for us (or for them), but not knowing is so difficult. No news may mean that there is still hope, but that doesn’t make the wait any less painful.

the austerity program, day one

After many months of ups and downs in his current job, my husband found out two days ago–and let me in on the not-so-joyous noise just yesterday–that he will be without a job in thirty days. That’s two more paychecks away.

I work, but what I bring in is less than one-fifth of what he makes and what he makes pays all the bills, with a little left over, usually, to save. The maximum that unemployment insurance will pay out in this state is $1,800 a month, which to some may seem like a lot, but for us will only cover our mortgage and real estate taxes on a quite modest home. In other words, we’re screwed.

When he was in school and we had one baby and then another and nothing but part-time jobs, we were able to live off what little we made plus the student loans he got for attending school. But that was when we had no mortgage, had one car, had no other debt, and were young and stupid. Now, we have four offspring, a mortgage, four vehicles (the newest being seven years old, the oldest being twenty-one), a gas-and-electric bill, a water bill, a basic cable bill, a golden retriever, an overweight tabby cat, homeowner’s insurance, health insurance (which costs over $1,100 a month alone), auto insurance, and life insurance, plus expenses for the newspaper, gasoline, food, church donations, doctor’s visits, etc., etc. That’s a lot more than we had to manage, even with two babies, back in the late ’80s. What to do?

First of all, my husband has to not only look for (which he’s been doing for the past twenty months), but now find a job. And I have to go full force into an austerity program to try to stretch the minimal amount of dollars we will have coming in until his next paycheck.

So, I am setting in motion a full-on Austerity Program, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Great Depression, World War II, or modern-day England, whichever is worst.

Austerity Program, Day 1. What did I do to make or save money so far?

I grabbed the last few purchases I made and looked at what, if anything, I could return. I was able to gather three tops from Target (one at $9, two each at $5) and a pair of shoes I’d bought over a month ago for a special occasion, but that never fit quite right, and returned them to Target and Payless (another $18.30 returned to my MasterCard). I have another T-shirt to go back to a sporting goods store that I didn’t have time to get to today. I also drove the twenty-one-year-old non-air-conditioned car, which I will continue to use as long as possible to avoid putting gas into the family-sized vehicle.

We have two birthdays coming up in the next few days: my husband’s and our youngest child’s. My son needs some clothes, so while at the mall, I ran into JCPenney, because I know their Arizona brand shorts fit him well, and “purchased” a pair of those shorts, using a gift card I had received for Christmas. (Fortunately, I’m not much of a clothes horse–as can be witnessed by the above-mentioned thrifty clothes and shoes I’d recently purchased–nor am I much of a shopper in general. Therefore, I still have from Christmas or my birthday another JCPenney gift card, a few small ones from Target, one from Macy’s, and one from a movie theater, which I will probably use on my son’s birthday, so I can treat him to a little something special.)

My next step is using up all the food in the house before buying anything else at the grocery store, save for vegetables, milk, butter, and other perishables that will need restocking. Tonight, I plan to take inventory of what I have and what I can do with it.

I’ve gone through austerity measures in the past, and I can do it again. If the queen of England can freeze her salary for the sake of the kingdom, then I too can do my part to save. I just wish I were saving what the queen makes.