What Would We Do if My Husband Lost His Job?
We’ve been talking about recession-proofing your family lately, and it’s mainly because we have so many readers asking this question: What will I do if my husband loses his job? (or wife, if she’s the main breadwinner). If you haven’t been following our series on How To Recession-Proof Your Family, catch up with it now by reading how one SAHM recession-proofed her family.
Although not all subjects we talk about at Home Ever After apply to all people’s situations all of the time, sometimes they really hit home. In this case, this topic may be hitting my household and my family. Let me explain.
Layoff News While Shopping
A week ago, I was at the grocery store doing my stock up shopping when my cell phone rang. Since my husband is the only person who knows my cell phone number, I knew it was him before I even got the phone out of my purse.
First, I have to give you a little insight into my mood while I’m doing grocery shopping. If I’m hunting for deals and it’s not a busy time in the store, I enjoy my shopping time thoroughly! I love using coupons, I love finding bargains, and overall I just love frugal shopping because I know I’m adding value to my household. I bring a big cup of coffee in my travel mug and cruise up and down the aisles with my coupon organizers. It’s heavenly!
So back to the story about my husband calling: I was in a great mood when I answered the phone. My husband told me he had just been called into his boss’s office, as had other employees, and been given a briefing on the current state of their department. A hiring freeze was keeping them from hiring new people to fill empty positions. The recession and the current state of the economy are causing many companies to evaluate what they are spending money on and if they can really afford to pay the employees that they have already. My husband’s employer is no exception. We knew things were shaky, so the hiring freeze wasn’t really news, but what came next was.
They may have to lay off one person in the department. It might happen, it might not happen, but if it does -nobody knows who it will be. It could be anyone. It could be my husband. I hung up the phone feeling unsure how large of a grocery stock up I should do that day. What lies ahead for my family’s finances?
Prepare For the Possibility of Losing Your Job
My husband isn’t the only one in his section with children to support and a stay-at-home wife. No matter who is laid off, someone is going to have to deal with an immediate financial hardship for their family. Will they be ready?
I’m lucky in the respect that my husband and I live a very frugal lifestyle. We’re cautious, we plan for the unexpected and take actions very deliberately. We weren’t always like that though. We went through many years of financial hardship during which being frugal was an absolute necessity to allow us to make ends meet. Losing our income during that time period could have destroyed us financially. With this experience under our belt, I feel that we may be better equipped to handle a layoff than many other people who would be completely caught off guard.
No one should be caught off guard! With the uncertainty of jobs and the economy in the United States right now, there should be no reason why anyone is not recession-proofing their family. With simple planning and very small, easy changes to your lifestyle, you can get your family prepared to get through the hard times in case there is an unexpected layoff.
And what if the layoff never comes? Then you’ll have a nice little monetary cushion as a reward! You’ll also have the peace of mind that comes from knowing you can take care of your family in the worst case scenario.
Recession-Proofing Your Family
Next week’s installment of Recession-Proofing Your Family features Amy from The Finer Things giving practical tips on how to live a great life on less money. The week after that I’m offering my comprehensive strategy for preparing for your husband to lose his job.
Would you be ready to make changes and sacrifices if you knew this could happen to you tomorrow? Do you have a plan to prepare for the unexpected as far as your primary income is concerned?
22 Comments
Dave Roller (Home School Dad)
Great post. I lost my job last July. Within 3 days, my wife had a job offer. It would have been sooner but I lost my job on a Thursday and she did not get hired until Monday. Her working was always a good back-up plan as her profession pays almost double as what my job paid. That is how I became Home School Dad.
Mama Bear
We’re in that very tight frugal is a necessity to make it stage so when I think about what would happen if my husband lost his job, I get nervous. We are anticipating a large (for us, anyway…it’s under $3,000) tax return and we’re putting it right into the bank (ING, high interest!) for our Emergency Fund. Thankfully we’re used to living frugally and have already prepared a What If budget…scary times, these!
Susan
Hi! I follow you on twitter 🙂 I think this topic is so timely as it is affecting so many right now!!! I have been writing about it in a series on my blog as well. http://tinyurl.com/b2z7zk I hope you will check it out!
In addition to the financial aspects you mention, I would also add that if you or your spouse lose your job, it is so important to keep a positive attitude! Job loss is so hard to go through, but staying positive and looking at what you CAN do instead of what you CAN’T doreally makes a difference!!
Brooke
my husband is self employed, so he could never be officially “laid off” but as a salesman, the economy is something that is always in the forefront of our minds. as well as my job, which doesn’t contribute much monitarily, but we rely on for the insurance.
this is a great series!
Suzanne
This did happen to us in 2007. My husband was out of work for 6 months, and though he is now gainfully employed, we are far below our old standard of living (which was pretty low to begin with!). I am a sahm and it was an incredibly stressful time! I have blogged extensively about it, if you’re interested! 🙂 I would have to say, being prepared is important. Thankfully, we were not caught off guard and we had several months living expenses in place, which helped keep us afloat. You lose a lot of pride being out of work and having to ask for help, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I am far less judgmental now! Prepare mentally and spiritually. Realize that the job loss may bring up other issues that you will have to work through. It’s not just about the loss of income.
BarbaraLee
Where my hubby works they cut hours, 40 to 32. Our business is hurting big time. As long as he is working we will be fine but if he looses his we will be hurting in a months time. I babysit for my dd 3 days out of the week for a little extra.
Other then that we wouldn’t feel the pinch. As a matter of fact we are planning a bigger garden, more chickens for bucthering & laying, a few cattle in the pasture from a friend who will exchange meat for rental.
I feel God will bless us if we follow Him.
The Happy Housewife
So if your husband lost his job, could we call him Homemaker Ken? Just kidding, but I couldn’t resist that one. We went through something similar after my husband was injured in Iraq. There was a good possibility that he would be discharged from the military with a medical retirement, which would not be enough for us to live on. That reality check helped us really get on track with our money. I am not glad he was injured, but I am glad we had to rethink things… it has helped us really focus on saving for a rainy day, should the day ever come.
Toni
Joy
Good post! Found you from Biblical Womanhood. This hits home in a very real way … my husband did lose his job at the end of October. I am SO glad that I was already couponing, CVSing and overall striving to live a frugal lifestyle. I’m linking to your post from my blog!!
🙂
Kara-Noel
My husband’s company doesn’t lay off which is awesome. They are conservative in their expansion and family owned AND they make the best burgers on the west coast so there is some security in that.
But we have talked about it they have to cut his bonus or if there was some way that the company went under and we had to scramble. We already live debt free and have savings (per the advice of our favorite Suzie Orman) but we are making even more cuts in the next few months. We are quitting cable and my hubby is now going to carpool to work with 2 other guys (so that cuts gas and toll roads a lot). Last month we have started selling everything in forgotten cabinets (DVDs, on Craig’s List and ebay.
If the worst happened we would sell everything an live with my parents… no joke… We asked already and everything!
We are in great financial shape but nothing is for sure so we figured we would have a plan.
rebecca
I have just discovered the frugal blog world and it’s wonderful. We are living this one. My husband was the highest paid employee at the company and the first one to go. His boss decided to hire someone who was willing to do the same job for less. We are in Michigan and the economy here is so bad. Our houses in the neighborhood have dropped about $50,000 in value leaving many of us with houses that are worth less than we owe. My husband and I were not prepared for this at all.
I am a sahm with a son with disabilities. If he had a seizure at school or is having a bad day I have to go making working outside of the house near impossible. Anyway, we have $17,000 in credit card debt, 2 car payments and a student loan. Luckily we do have an emergency cushion of about $5000 that we haven’t had to dip into yet. Currently our income dropped from $125,000 to $1448 per month a HUGE drop. We did get some foodstamps which was devastating in the beginning and I was so embarrassed but I had to for my kids.
Luckily I was able to get them on free lunch at school. I have been consuming all the frugal tips online and CAN NOT believe how much I have saved by meal planning and using coupons, I am ashamed that it took me this long to become a good steward of our money. We have sold all our outdoor atvs, big boy toys, antiques I had including the chandelier over my dining table! I thought I would be stressed but I have never been happier! Believe it or not. My husband decided to start his own business, thank goodness he is a licensed contractor and is able to do that. Granted he is a small fish in a big pond but we are plugging away. My husband and I are committed to keeping our house as it would be not much cheaper to rent something in our community. We don’t want our children to feel stressed and scared. My husband and I have shared a renewed committment that we are together for ever “richer or poorer” and that is wonderful. We laugh a lot. Of course I am concerned that our credit card debt is looming.
We contacted each company with not much luck, the standard line was “sorry there are no programs available right now”. Funny since I didn’t pay the bills last month you would be surprised at how there are suddenly things they are willing to do. I feel awful that I paid my bill every month on time never being late once and when I contacted them there was nothing they would do. We are still in a quandry whether we should try to take some settlements with them and see if we could even do that.
We’re not sure what to do. I know about credit counseling but we did that a long time ago and it still damages your credit so really what is the point? I mean if your credit is going to be damaged either way. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Our monthly expenses just bare bones without food or gas is approximately $3000 that is without paying credit cards, our minimum on those right now is about $500.
My feeling is we are about $1500 short just to make the bare bones why should I risk becoming homeless to just pay a credit card? Your thoughts? Again thank you for providing all the great frugal tips, again I am so embarrassed at how much we WASTED and are trying to do much better. I know we have made many many many financial mistakes but hopefully this situation will help us rectify that.
thanks,
rebecca
Eric Hamm | Motivate Thyself
I’ve been self employed for over 5 years now and must say I feel much more secure in my work/job than I would if I were working for someone else. I was just talking with a fellow consultant about this yesterday and we both agreed that it’s more important than ever that you make yourself invaluable to your clients/employer.
With a baby on the way this is more important than ever. Thanks for the great insight, BTW! Eric