It's a great idea to think and plan ahead!  This is why we have our "Plan B" - Shaklee! 

Laura - how could anyone let you go?  You're awesome! 

Interested in seeing a plan for making up to $100,000 in the next 15 months with a 53 year old company?  Contact me at kathi@shaklee.net .  See the plan - no obligation!  We want to help others have a better tomorrow!

Research the company for yourself!      www.shaklee.net/kathi .   Shaklee has a history of doing extremely well during the last few recessions...right now 10 consecutive quarters of growth!

Well, I cant loose my job as a SAHM, but we have discussed what we would do if DH was laid off. We feel pretty good about the savings that we have and feel like we would be good for a good 6 mos, hopefully enough time for DH to get another job or for me to at least pick up a part time job. What would kill us would be in the loss of health insurance as DH has a pre-existing condition. We are praying that we won't have to cross that bridge, but we know if we do we are strong enough and have a good support system to make it through.

It would be scary if DH lost his job.  However, I think he could get another one, even if it is not in his field, temporarily.  Also, his parents and my parents would not let us end up homeless, and after we rebounded we could pay them back.

We have been there and were only married about a year, so we had no money saved.  Dh was able to take another position within the organization, so he wasn't jobless for long.   So we've learned our lesson and plan for the worst.    We could live our current budget for close to a year without any income, but I know we'd definately cut back on expenses and also look for any type of job to help us get by and...retail, etc, until we found permanent jobs.  Sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring doesn't work these days.  We are worried, though, that some of the money is in stocks, mutual funds, and they've took quite a hit over the last year.  Are we better off stuffing the money in a mattress?

My dad is an engineer and was laid off Jan 2008 and it took him 5 months to find part time work.  Over a year later, its still only part time, so he's not getting any benefits, including health insurance. 

I don't know what DH & I would do if one, or both, of us lost our job.  We would definitely save the $7000 a year we pay for child care, but that doesn't come close to replacing either income.  I think we would definitely be looking more seriously at tightening the budget and we'd be eating a lot more pasta.  And I also don't think either of our families would ever let us be homeless.  I know I would open my home for any of our family members, I think they would do the same.

Well I was in this boat almost a year ago.  I was one day from returning from maternity leave, when I received a call for a meeting.  I agreed to the time, but then when I hung I said to my husband, I'm out of a job.  He told me to call them back and ask for a meeting that day, they shouldn't let me hang in limbo for 2 days (plus it was New Years!). 

We decided that if something would come my way we would discuss it otherwise I would stay home with our DD.  I haven't worked for year now and yes sometimes I do miss it, but I have the best job available being a mom!--plus my husband travels quite a bit so its one way we can spend more time together when he is home and don't have to worry about missing work.

  We haved learned to watch our spendings (visit more rummage sales and consignment shops), limit our eating out and fun, and we eat whats on sale and stock up the freezer on those good buys.  But we have learned to cherish what we have--each other and our family! 

We're already in that situation and have been since early October.  We had just been hit with medical bills that wiped out most of our savings when we found out DH's contract job was going to end a month or so earlier than it was supposed to.  He'd been looking for a while, expecting the job to end in November, but he still had not found a replacement.  And this was a second contract job after he lost his permanent position in summer 2008, so we went through this last year as well.  The thing is, last year there seemed to be more work out there, and he was getting interviews, at least.  This year, he's gotten almost no interviews after months and months of searching.  And he has almost 20 years of experience in his field!  Employers are being extremely picky because there are so many candidates out there.  So no matter how capable you are, how hard a worker, or how easily you pick things up, if you've never used or done one little thing, you're out of the pool.

His permanent position seemed to be going fine, he was a go-to person, etc.  But his company was a vendor for Mercury Marine and other rec vehicle companies, and sales for such luxuries had been slipping for a while.  Even before last year's crash, his company was already on life support and started cutting.  (For manufacturing, the recession has actually been going on for years.)  DH was in Research & Development, so his job was cut.  Things are even worse since the crash; we hear the company has cut a huge portion of its employees and the remaining ones work only four days a week.  So even if he had stayed, we'd be hurting.

Some people, including friends of mine, pooh-pooh the idea that losing Mercury to Oklahoma would be a grave loss to the state.  They don't seem to realize that Mercury's losses have already cost my husband his job, and losing the company would have meant we'd have to move to some other state to find engineering work.  And we don't want to do that.  It's not easy for us to make new friends, and we don't like anywhere as much as here.  It may be cold, but it's nice!

My webpage: http://webpages.charter.net/nyssacugan/cgn_000000.htm

My fiction: http://www.lulu.com/nerissa

My church: http://holytrinity-fdl.com/

Well, considering DH is employed with the military....his chances of losing his job are slim to none.  Unless of course something would happen to him while at war.  If the situation were different and jobs were starting to crash...I wouldn't jump on my high horse and think that he could go out and "just get any job" because that so wouldn't be the case.  Look at the past year....how many pp lost jobs....all of those same pp were applying for the same jobs as the rest.  So instead of 5 pp interviewing for 1 position...there were 100.  So not cool.  Best bet would be to GET THAT MONEY IN SAVINGS because I have seen the most experienced pp go w/o a job for 7 months!  The interviews were there but so was ALL THE COMPETITION!  The other thing that I have learned is that when 'planning' you should only have what you can afford.  As in...if you are married and one may loose their job, can the other person afford the payments with JUST THEIR INCOME!  

It's a mess...lets hope this doesn't happen!

If I lost my job it would sting but we could make it work as I only work part-time, however if dh lost his job we would seriously be SOL. Unemployment only pays 25%(learned this when he was laid off for a few weeks)  of what his weekly check would be and not having health insurance would scare me to death because there is no way we would be able to pay for COBRA. I would like to say he would be able to find another job but very few companies are hiring as he has many co-workers who lost jobs to downsizing and have yet to find employment. We would most likely have to move out of state in order for him to find another job reasonably comparable to what he has now. All of our family live in the area so that would be difficult as well.

 I have an idea, Laura.

Do you think it would be possible to set up a category called "Seeking Employment" and have spouses of MLM post a GENERAL description of the type of job they are seeking so others like, myself, can maybe help them network or give them leads to job opportunities. Maybe, even possibly, lets say there is a construction worker out of work and someone on this site could use a builder for a remodel job. Or maybe a spouse on this site is in the hiring position and could help someone out?

Obviously, there would have to limits of who could post. Maybe only  a person who is the MAJOR breadwinner to a MLM member. And they could only post once but would be responsible for removing the post if they found a job.  Just brainstorming here...