When frugality isn't enough ...

[ilovemygirl]

DH just lost the job he has had for 12 years. It was never a great paying job (pretty crappy actually) but it was close to home, had great insurance and flexible hours.
Long story short .. we have a massive debt load from a lot of really bad decisions we made early on. When I was pregnant with my now 2.5 year old, I lost my job to outsourcing. We took it as a sign that I should be a SAHM and committed to a frugal lifestyle. We have done everything possible to be frugal since then and have paid down a lot of debt .. tens of thousands of dollars worth. However there is still 13k in credit card debt and 10k on our car left.
I know it's crazy to say in this economy but we really didn't see this coming and barely have 2 months worth of rent/utilities in savings since we were throwing everything into debt reduction.
Things were looking so hopeful just this weekend. We were talking about having the credit card paid off by the end of this year and maybe trying to get pregnant again. Now I don't know what's going to happen. To be honest, I'm pretty terrified. I'm not quite sure what my question is ... maybe just advice on what to do next or someone who has "been there done that" can tell me it's going to be okay somehow???

[Hedgehog Mtn]

HUGS mama. It seems like these things always happen right when there is a light appearing at the end of the tunnel.

I wish I could send you a solution or great advice. I can tell you to take it one day at a time. Don't try and chew the whole thing.....just one bite at a time. Somehow things will work out - maybe not how you plan/expect but we always get to other side one way or another.

I'll leave it up to the mamas with great advice for specifics.

[dachshundqueen]

If you don't have any other substantial assets, I would apply for aid through all agencies that you can. If you need to take the monies in your "emergency account" and hold them in cash, I would do that. It is better to do that then to be homeless. Apply for TANF, WIC, FS, unemployment - everything! Call all of your creditors and explain your situation if you don't think that you will be able to make payments - blood from a turnip - to hopefully stave off collections calls.

We will keep you in our prayers!

Liz

[Smocked]

I hope that this is just temporary for you guys If he hasn't yet, he needs to apply for unemployment now because it takes a bit to kick in. I would also apply for food stamps so you may be ably to keep the cash you have.

[shayinme]

Originally Posted by dachshundqueen

If you don't have any other substantial assets, I would apply for aid through all agencies that you can. If you need to take the monies in your "emergency account" and hold them in cash, I would do that. It is better to do that then to be homeless. Apply for TANF, WIC, FS, unemployment - everything! Call all of your creditors and explain your situation if you don't think that you will be able to make payments - blood from a turnip - to hopefully stave off collections calls.

We will keep you in our prayers!

Liz

Totally agree with this advice. This happened to us in 2007, my dh saw his income drop by almost 50% but I was working so we were able to manage. Well I lost my job, the department I worked in was closed so I was let go. Our income dropped to a pretty low point but in our case we still had too much to get any benefits (barely) so we had to go into super frugal mode. I ended up letting my credit cards go into collections, scaled down to the bare essentials. I agree you should call your creditors but at the end of the day your concern is your four walls.

Definitely apply for unemployment benefits asap. I know in my case my checks started coming within 3 weeks of applying. Its been 2 years now and things are slowly starting to come back around. My credit is toast but I will rebuild it but the important things are we never went without the core necessities.

I would also suggest trying to sell anything that is not needed, we ended up getting rid of a lot of stuff via ebay and Craigslist and that helped too.

Good luck!

Shay

[ArtsyMomma]

My only advice : Just take it one day at a time.

Do what you can to get some assistance - food stamps, unemployment, etc. Every little bit helps.

Don't forget what a great job you did paying off all that debt already! You are making much wiser financial decisions! You would be in a much worse position if you hadn't paid off all of that debt.

[midwestmom]

Originally Posted by ArtsyMomma

My only advice : Just take it one day at a time.

Do what you can to get some assistance - food stamps, unemployment, etc. Every little bit helps.

Don't forget what a great job you did paying off all that debt already! You are making much wiser financial decisions! You would be in a much worse position if you hadn't paid off all of that debt.

exactly, mama. I am so sorry. Sending strength your way. Hugs.

[RosemaryS-F]

No words, just hugs and prayers.

[enfpintj]

I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this. I'm praying for you.

Can you sell your car or are you upside down? Selling it and getting out of the note would be great. I'm not sure what you could use to buy a beater, but the 10 k would be off your back. DH sold his old car recently for $600. It was still running fine, just looked terrible after 18 years.

Of course, go for the unemployment, etc.. I think your child could still be covered for health insurance under the state CHIPS program. Also, there are federal community health clinics that will cover all of you too, since cobra may be out of the picture. http://findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov/

I would not worry about the cc for now. Dave Ramsey always says housing, food, lights, transportation come first. You need to focus on the basics. You have done really well over the recent past. You will again. don't get down on yourself about it. Hope is hard to find in times like this but can make all the difference in your quality of life right now.

[zebra15]

Is it possible for you to go back to work. In this economy I think everyone should be at least looking for work. At this point if DH is home any income you bring in is better than nothing.

The answer to 'when frugality isnt enough' is more income.

[lilyka]

Honestly it sounds like you guys are on the right track and have been doing really well so far. Well done!!!

So you have at least a month worth of income in your emergancy account. this is an emergancy. Don't feel bad about using it. That gives you a month to go out and get all the aid you can. Get part time jobs for now if you can. Even if you are working 20 hours a week for minimum wage that should keep you afloat with your husbands unemployment. you might not make any great strides in reducing debt but it will keep you from digging deeper.

hopefully this will be a very temporary situation and your husband will find work soon.

I don;t know how much he made but if it was pretty crappy income thats kinda good news. Would he be willing to work overnights? I did that for a while (still two two weekends a month) and it was good money, easy work (actually love the work as well as the people I worked with), and there seem to always be openings for some position. Especially for a good worker. We are overstaffed right now (always happens after Christmas and a lot of the guys, this was their second job and the plant they worked days at shut down, so we had a bunch of part timers suddenly begging for full time....) but because my boss likes me so much he squeezes me in. the pickins are slim for good employees who want to take that shift. Even if positions are full, room can always bee made for someone who is smart and hard working (I work on the stock crew at a grocery store. the pay is not great but it starts at $9 an hour). anyway, be creative and be willing to take the sucky shifts. its not bad once you get used to it.

[RiverSky]

Well, it sounds like he probably has a wonderful resume and that's a great thing. Will he get some severance pay? He'll definitely be eligible for unemployment, so that's great.

When my DH was laid off and we were shocked when he couldn't find another good job right away, I went back to work and he spent 6 months being a SAHD while he looked for a job. It took 6 months (with him getting unemployment and myself working full time), he got a great job offer, I finished working my job and went back to staying home. It was hard for me leave my little ones all day, but then it became rewarding and it felt good. It was an invaluable experience for my DH to be fully responsible for the children during the day and now he SSSOOOO appreciates every bit of my time at home with the children.

Of course, you should both job hunt, but if you get a job offer first, since he will be getting unemployment, it won't be as important that you get a high $ amount working, and you can work just until he gets a good job again.

Good luck!

[ilovemygirl]

Thank you for all your kind words and support. We have been trying soooooo hard and were finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel ...

We already do so much to both save and bring in money. I just don't know what else we can do.
DH has a part time job on top of his full time job. It isn't great pay and they only have work on occasion but he takes what they offer. I have been watching a child at home with my dd for some extra cash the last couple of months but that ended this week. I have put word out through friends and craigslist to try and find another child/children but nothing yet.
We already only have one car that we share and live in a suburb where walking and public transit is not at all possible so going out of the home to work is not really an option for me. I never had a "career" so there is really nothing to go back to. Even if God forbid dh had to take a job with half with salary he makes now it would still pay more than anything I would ever be able make. I would have no one to watch dd anyway. I have never left her with a babysitter other than a couple of hours once in a while with a family member in my own home.
As far as cost savings, we share a car, both have prepaid cell phones, never go out, never eat out, shop sales, buy in bulk, eat vegetarian so we don't pay for meat, cook breads, muffins, pancakes in batches and use those for breakfasts & snacks, keep the thermostat at 60, open all the blinds/shades and use natural sunlight until the sun goes down, shop at consignment, and on and on... My only extravagances are $18 a month to rent dvd's and $14 a month we have on auto pay to sponsor a sick kitty at our local shelter that dd is in love with but we can't bring home because we already have two.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm ranting on and on. I'm think I'm still kind of in shock. I'm sure we will make do somehow but things will never be the same. On top of it I feel really guilty for feeling that way. I know I should be grateful for what I do have because it is still so much more than so many others but I'm just so sad right now.

[lilyka]

[claddaghmom]

My parents are going through this right now. He had a lower than industry average job b/c it was good for a family life. They had debt from awhile back when they transitioned through some life difficulties. They just paid off the cars. They chunked down the house. They knocked out thousands and thousands of credit debt. Things were looking good...I heard mention of a family vacation later this year when blam...he lost his job the week before thanksgiving.

It just hurts I think to be working so hard and to see the end is so close, and then fate grabs you and tosses you back at the beginning to start over.

I'm sorry for your job loss and I hope you guys find help and a resolution. You mention the car is 10k...anyway to sell it or trade it in and get a different car?

[velochic]

I think you need to step back and take a good hard look at where you've managed to come from. Your kind of resolve to work on debt is not often found and you've done a marvelous job of getting as far as you have just getting out of as much debt as you have. There was nothing you could have done to prevent the job loss and there's nothing to do to change it. The same resolve that got you through reducing that amount of debt will see you through this downturn as well. I think you have a lot to be proud of, and I think when this is over, you'll have even more to be proud about. You are doing everything you can, and while it might not seem like "enough", you are doing the best you can. Get help anywhere you can, keep looking for work (even if that means you going to work temporarily for a low wage, trading off with dh so he can job search). I'd look to your recent accomplishments to give you fuel to get through this rough patch. Best of luck to you!!

[Mommabean]

momma!

We were there last spring, we had worked HARD for years and I had planned out in January the last five months of our debt pay off....we only had a little over 5000 to go and I had it all marked out and budgeted to the penny so we would be paid off with every medical debt, CC debt, and one car. Then we would start on the big things like our second car then our house. Then BAM without warning the last week of March dh got a call to get things together (they were nice enough to give fair warning so we could get last minute refills on meds since I was post op, and for our sons asthma needs). Then April 1st dh's birthday he was laid off.

I was so upset and we only had 3500 in our savings because we had put every thing we could into our debt and 3000 of our savings was our tax refund we had just got 2 weeks prior that we hadn't spent on the debt. Thank God we hadn't done that yet. The little bit and his last check kept us going for all of 2.5 months.

We had to get food stamps, put ds on WIC, and dh got unemployment. It was the worst year for us ever. DH finally got a job delivering pizza's in late August and that kept us afloat for a couple months, and his mom was giving us 500 a month as well.

It was awful and we're still in the thick of it. The best and worst of it all was a surprise unplanned pregnancy and we found out in the middle of September. So I had to go onto emergency medicaid.

I don't know how we managed to keep going with so little. Our mortgage is 1500 a month and we fell months behind, not just on that the cars, loans, and all the debt we worked so hard on all has now gone into collections. I fought tooth and nail to stay out of collections did so good for 2 YEARS and I couldn't keep them from collections come this last December as it had been over 6 months since I'd been able to pay a penny.

s momma I feel your pain I wish I could help you, but if you need advice on the things we did to stay afloat I can try to help. If you need to talk I'm here too.

We got rehired with another company on January 1st. DH is working day and night and hasn't been home but 5 days since before new years....I'm talking he's out sleeping in his truck stuck on rigs because he knows the more rigs he works the more money it brings in. We are finally caught up with our mortgage but it cost us in lots of charges on the CC's so now we're back up to 4000 on them alone, not to mention the medical bills that are still holding at three grand.

I pray everyday it will shine brightly on our house, that we WILL catch up again and FAST, and that I can use the midwife instead of the hospital. Because now we're about to lose medicaid in another two months and our insurance will cost us 5000 just for the deductible for that.

Sorry this is so long. I just want you to know you are NOT alone!! YOU WILL MAKE IT!!!

[maciascl]

Did he apply for unemployment? Did you apply for food stamps, TANF, cash aid....whatever is available where you live? If not, do it NOW! My DH lost his job in Aug & we have been living on unemployment & food stamps since then. It is rough, but it can be done! Remember this is temporary & it will not be this hard forever!!!

[p1gg1e]

((hugs))

Id look at a prorata plan ( google it you get examples) and the CC's get only what is left over. You pay for rent, lights ,food, gas , car first. Any way you could work or babysit ?

Make sure you tell the CC companies that your DH lost his job and that you may only be paying small amounts. Even if they tell you , you can't , just send them what you can IF you can. Again they should be last on the list. Make sure you screen you calls if they start calling to bother you and make it clear you won't be talking to them more then every other week.

I hope your DH finds work soon and things look up!

[momofmine]

I would really actively advertise and see if you can take on some more daycare children. Our town has a childcare registry that is run through the hospital or the wellness center, where you can register yourself, and even take classes like CPR and child care education classes, and then when people need child care, they can register with that and look through and see if someone is a good fit for them. You might call around and see if there is something like that in your area.
You could also put up flyers at local midwives/OBs offices, because there may be pregnant women coming in who looking for childcare when they return to work. A lot of WOHMs start looking for childcare when they are pregnant, knowing they are going back to work when babe is a few months old. You can make up some really nice brochures or flyers and see if you get anything that way.

You said you only have one car, but you could still work a part-time job at times that your DH is at home with your LO, even if it's just for a couple of months, it's something.

Hugs to you and good luck!