chell
Mushu's Best Friend
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2001
- Messages
- 19,859
How have you and your family dealt with being laid off from your job? Did you have advance notice? If so, how did you change things ahead of time to make it easier?
Monday my husband found out that his plant will be closing by the end of this year. Luckily the lay-offs will not start until June so we have time to prepare. We are very thankful to know that we have time to prepare because it could have been a no notice type situation.
Thankfully one car, even though it is old and falling apart, is completely paid for. Our second car, the one I drive typically, will be paid off by the end of this year. Right now we are focusing on paying that car off. We are thinking of putting our tax refund towards that balance, which would leave us a balance of about $1,300. Sadly we don't get back tons of tax money.
Larry carries our health insurance because his coverage is much better and MUCH cheaper than what my company offers. His coverage is less than $150 per month for medical, vision and dental. My medical only is nearly $500 a month for the two of us.
But we need to keep insurance, especially on me because of all the meds I take.
What I've decided to do - which would make my dad pass out because I'm not putting all the money in the bank - is to have some envelopes in our safe with different labels on them. Each pay check the amount of my health insurance will start being divided among the envelopes as well as another bill we luckily got paid off this month which totaled $120.
We figure that if we can get the car paid off by the time he looses his job then the car payment with the $120 payment will come close to the insurance money and we won't hurt too bad. But we also need to adjust to living on only a portion of his salary.
Does anyone know the amount you get off of unemployment? I was thinking it was around 2/3 to 3/4 of your normal bring home pay. Is this correct? We also want to start putting aside an amount of his pay reduction in the envelopes. We figure if we can start doing this now the adjustment won't be so difficult and so traumatic on us when it happens.
We are making envelopes for the following: Groceries, Gas, Spending Money, Car - maintenance, taxes, etc, Medical Expenses, Misc Expenses, Pets - grooming, vets, food. We are trying to think of anything else we may need them for. We really haven't had time to think through every little thing.
How are you adjusting and how have you adjusted? Any tips you want to share?
Monday my husband found out that his plant will be closing by the end of this year. Luckily the lay-offs will not start until June so we have time to prepare. We are very thankful to know that we have time to prepare because it could have been a no notice type situation.
Thankfully one car, even though it is old and falling apart, is completely paid for. Our second car, the one I drive typically, will be paid off by the end of this year. Right now we are focusing on paying that car off. We are thinking of putting our tax refund towards that balance, which would leave us a balance of about $1,300. Sadly we don't get back tons of tax money.
Larry carries our health insurance because his coverage is much better and MUCH cheaper than what my company offers. His coverage is less than $150 per month for medical, vision and dental. My medical only is nearly $500 a month for the two of us.
But we need to keep insurance, especially on me because of all the meds I take. What I've decided to do - which would make my dad pass out because I'm not putting all the money in the bank - is to have some envelopes in our safe with different labels on them. Each pay check the amount of my health insurance will start being divided among the envelopes as well as another bill we luckily got paid off this month which totaled $120.
We figure that if we can get the car paid off by the time he looses his job then the car payment with the $120 payment will come close to the insurance money and we won't hurt too bad. But we also need to adjust to living on only a portion of his salary.
Does anyone know the amount you get off of unemployment? I was thinking it was around 2/3 to 3/4 of your normal bring home pay. Is this correct? We also want to start putting aside an amount of his pay reduction in the envelopes. We figure if we can start doing this now the adjustment won't be so difficult and so traumatic on us when it happens.
We are making envelopes for the following: Groceries, Gas, Spending Money, Car - maintenance, taxes, etc, Medical Expenses, Misc Expenses, Pets - grooming, vets, food. We are trying to think of anything else we may need them for. We really haven't had time to think through every little thing.
How are you adjusting and how have you adjusted? Any tips you want to share?
Never had the babies, but I still lost my job and knowing we could do it on 1 paycheck helped. Of course, I still had to sit down and see it on paper just how it was going to happen, but it was doable.
