Starting a new Chapter in Life - Unemployment

In May, we learned that 14 people at Love's job would be laid off by July 1 (out of 680 employees). Because there were only 2 people on his team at this location, we thought we were safer than some. But in the meantime, I started evaluating how we could cutback and put off buying things that we didn't NEED until we heard our status. I also started using my clothesline more (added reason was with rising temperatures, I didn't want to heat up my house with the dryer). And I kept thinking we would be told we were moving to the corporate offices.


Then THE Wednesday in June came. People were starting to be told that their job had been eliminated or moved to a different city. Love was told he was to meet with one of the big wigs at 4:45 pm. And we knew we were going to be impacted. The question was would he have a job in another location or was he being laid off. The meeting didn't last long. He was being laid off. His official termination date would be at the end of the month, but he was no longer working. And it was a lot bigger than 14; 70+ people were laid off.


But we are BLESSED! Because we had received the warning a month earlier and the Spirit had whispered to me that we were in for a change, I have been fine. At first I was cheerful in fact, but now I'm tired.

We are also blessed financially. We have been following Dave Ramsey's baby steps and through hard work and provident living, we are on Baby Step 3. That means we have no debt outside of our home mortgage and are working on our 3-6 month emergency fund. With our savings, an even more frugal living effort, and his severance, we will be able to survive in semi-comfort for a while. And if we find a job relatively soon, we should be able to quickly complete Baby Step 3 and move on to Baby Steps 4 and 5 in quick succession. We are both anxious to be on Baby Step 6 (paying off our mortgage)! It was thrilling when we received his last official paycheck last week to actually put $500 into savings!


Love has his bad days where he feels defeated because he's not out there providing for his family. But Princess1 and Princess2 are LOVING having Daddy home. I'm liking it too because I can sometimes go to the store, just me. Or go visiting teaching without having to find a babysitter. Princess1 and Princess2 will have a ROUGH time when Daddy finally does go back to work (which means I will have a rough time too). In the meantime, we are loving having Daddy around more.

As for the job hunt, we keep looking, applying and interviewing (yes, he's had a few interviews but no offers yet). I think the worst for Love is waiting to hear after the interview. So if you hear of an opening for a Network Engineer, let us know. I'm going to work on posting his resume this week.