There will be no Wii for me with what was left of our tax return money.
Everybody has been feeling the economic pinch lately. David works for the State and we really hadn't noticed much. Sure when gas was $4.00 a gallon, I cut back on driving, but that was really it. I think I was arrogant in assuming that these economic times wouldn't hurt us that much. That it happens to everybody else but not us.
I stay home with the kids and we do fine with David's salary. By fine I mean, enough to pay the bills. We live paycheck to paycheck and don't save any money. I also run a pretty tight ship. I buy what is on sale at the grocery store. Neither David or I buy much of anything for ourselves. I broke down and bought 2 new shirts on sale for $8 each at Target when Emily mentioned that my current shirts had holes in them. Sure the kids have every toy under creation, but I didn't buy them. We don't have credit card debt because we don't live beyond our means.
I knew the State of Arizona, as with every state, would be doing a lot of budget cuts. David has been there for 10 years. I thought we'd be safe. My hope was that they would lay a few people off instead of cutting salaries for everyone.
A few weeks ago, they stopped overtime. David always got several hours of overtime in both his paychecks every month. This was a hit for us financially, but I thought we could manage. Yesterday, they cut their pay by 5%. Basically, he got a 5% geographic stipend which is now gone.
All together, this will be a $400-$500 loss per month for us.
It's enough to have kept me up last night. Well, that and the fact that the dog raided our pantry while we were at ballet. She ate an entire loaf of wheat bread, a box of wheat thins, Parmesan goldfish crackers and cheetos. Dog gas can wake up anybody.
So, how do you tighten an already tight ship? I've been going over things in my head. I made some calls to Direct TV, Qwest and Verizon to reduce our current plan. I'm telling myself it all adds up, but I think I've saved $20 so far.
The other issue is while we are losing money everything else is going up. We got our gas and electric bill for last month and they totalled over $350. When I looked at the accounts online, we used less energy and gas compared to the same time last year but due to their rate hikes, we paid more. I feel like we are in a battle that we can't win.
We will find ways to cut back I'm sure. I think I will become Emily's ballet teacher and David can coach Ben in soccer in the backyard. Ben doesn't HAVE to go to preschool in the fall. He can wait a year and I'll teach him his letters, numbers, colors and shapes. We'll head to the park or go on hikes and bike rides. There will be no vacation this year.
We'll dip into our little savings every month and be grateful that at least we have that to fall back on.
And we'll wait and pray...as they say more cuts are coming.
3 comments:
I'm sorry. :(
Yes, it's the same all over as our state of Illinois is in a horrible financial situation and the University where I work is being hit hard.
Yet, while we were eating out last Saturday in Champaign, we noted that every restaurant was packed, there was so much traffic around the shopping areas that you would have thought it was Christmas, and the stores were packed and people were buying. Jim and I remarked about this and agreed that Champaign/Urbana has a different economy because of the University and the other big employers.
However, there are people losing jobs everywhere I look - our small town of Rantoul has wonderful plans for the future but it seems like every time they make strides, they're hit with another setback, like another factory closure.
I don't see an end to this in sight. Even with a new President, this is a monumental task that won't easily be solved because jobs continue to go overseas and this current financial situation has been a very long time coming.
I think we all have to hang onto our faith during these turbulant times and I'm afraid it's going to get much, much worse.
I sympathize! We usually get a nice size tax return, we have for the last 4-5 years...not this year! We're lucky to not be paying. So that couple thousand I was hoping for to boost our savings a bit, yeah, not gonna happen. And Bo has been out of work for over 2 months (although thankfully found a job this week). I sympathize!
How crazy to get a pay cut! You do run a good ship and I always admire how you and David spend your money wisely!!! I had heard they were up to something with the state budget! But I didn't think about David and a pay cut in his area of work. Supposedly Matt is not getting hit this go round, but the same as you the overtime ...that was cut a while ago. Thinking of you guys and hoping the changes are smoother than expected!
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