We had an emergency fund and it saved us during my DH's 1.5 yr of unemployment '08-'10. And praise the Lord we sold our house with slight profit in fall of 08. The call to our realtor was the first one after hearing of my DH's job loss. So we were fortunate. We put our furniture in storage and hit the road (I had been laid off in 07 and turned it into an 'extended maternity leave' -- my biological clock was running out for Kid 2.)
And part of that 1.5 yrs was with various family taking us in - for our pride we all played it off as extended holiday visits and a house sitting job
And super praise the Lord that our in-law's have a rental home that became available to us for a while.
But another jobless stretch is always in the back of our minds and we do not have an emergency fund for another 'double dip' quite yet.
We're not buying a home because we don't want to get stuck and we're not in an area of the country that we see ourselves long term.
Thankfully unemployment benefits kept us afloat (and I found a job in the Public Sector, directly Stimulus related) until my DH finally found a job comparable to his previous one. It's in an area of the country that we never thought we would live, far from family-which is hard with 2 small kids, but we are grateful. We totally felt like his shelf life was on the verge of expiration.
It just burns me up because either I'm just listening to too much lefty news or the Repub. controlled House really is just a bunch of obstructionist pigs.
It just seems like the TeaParty strangled GOP is willing to watch our country go over the cliff, just so Obama will fail. And I am no super backer of Obama, I thought his lack of fist-a-cuff political experience was a real negative - I was going to go McCain until he brought Palin on board.
I'm particularly hot under the collar tonight because I heard that Republicans don't want to extend the Payroll Tax Cut (please correct me if this is not right) -- So let me get this straight... You guys are for tax cuts, just not ones that help regular people?
I just have to believe that there are some big brain economists out there that can map a way out of this that both sides can swallow. I mean we can't just sit around and wait from election to election and not get any real work done. And so, sorry Tea Party -- but ever since the Moral Majority took over your movement, the whole country does not march your drum!
I would love a new party to form called Compassionate Calculator Owners -- take out all the social agenda b.s. until we have the luxury of arguing over those things, crunch some #s, delete inefficiencies, cut spending that isn't giving ROI, tax some people or corp.s that can take it, make trade policy and tax code conducive to real job growth (Not MickeyD Jobs), keep people safe, air clean and encourage new tech sectors, keep the impoverished from bread riots in the streets
I've only worked for a gov. organization once and it was a total joke -- people wouldn't get fired no matter how much they stunk and the mentality was just foreign to me. The whistle blew - it's time to go home, I don't care that this time sensitive project is teetering on collapse, it's not in my job description, see sub-section A. You will have to take this before the pro-active whatever committee. Huh?
At the same time private entities are charged to make money for their share holders, not look out for the collective good of a nation.
It's not black or white, either/or -- it's a fine balance of the two.
If they flat out kill the American Dream -- that anything here is possible through hard work and/or education -- then we are all screwed because that is the opium that keeps this country going.
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