It has been quite some time since I have had the heart to sit down and write anything about being thrifty or budgeting. And not because I haven't been following what I write myself but because I have been in kind of a depressed slump over not being able to find a job over the last 7 months. With unemployment paying roughly $200 a check less than what I am used to bringing home the family budget needless to say has been stretched pretty tight at times. But the key word in that sentence is budget, we have held to our guns and kept working towards our goals even with less income coming in and roughly the same amount monthly still needing to go out.
Lucky for my family and I we did not wait until the bottom fell out to try and get a budget together. Since we had been on a budget for the past year before I lost my job we hit the situation in a state of preparedness. We were able to live off of my 401k (something that I do not recommend if you can live by any other means) until my unemployment was approved some 4 months after I lost my job. Since that point we have stocked the cabinets full of food by couponing, ad matching, and just looking for the best deals. Saving money has become a hobby as well as a lifestyle and when I make my payment tomorrow the only credit card I have ever had will be paid off permenantly. We still have our $1,000 in the emergency fund, we still have a couple hundred in regular savings and all bills are paid and on time. We have cut the eating out to just here and there and that is usually just when we get the hankering for pizza.
Being off of work has been an eye opener for us that is for sure, while we were never well to do we were definitely above poverty and on track to have our bills paid off and working towards our future. Now, even though we don't have the extra money to do much, I have used the time to catch up with my children. I have seen them more in the last 7 months than I had seen them the entire 4 previous years, which to me has been a blessing. Without a proper, thought through, and followed budget the household finances would have collapsed long ago and I would have been struggling to take any available job at any pay rate. Thankfully that has not been the case and I have been able to keep up the search for something at least marginally close to what I was making previously.
Keep your head up, I know I am by far not the only one out of work right now, with unemployment at one of the highest levels in many many years but life is still manageable and you can still fulfill your obligations to your creditors if you really want to, it just takes a no nonsense approach to your finances and a well thought out plan.
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