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Lost jobs and feeling lost (long)
I'm currently pregnant with my first, due in about 10 weeks. Spouse and I have been budgeting for the past couple of years and originally had a plan to pay off our student loan debt (no cc debt and our cars are paid off) within three years- but then I got pregnant. We immediately re-evaluated the budget and started saving for a house, the baby expenses (medical, supplies, etc.), and adding to our emergency fund. With the way we had things figured out, by the time I had the baby, we would have enough saved for all baby expenses and be able to live off of his income alone with $500 left over at the end of the month (to continue putting towards a down payment if we haven't bought a house by then, or to pay extra towards the loans, or for retirement, depending on our situation at the time).
Since getting out of school, I haven't been able to find a full time job. I had been working three part time jobs, which was enough to substantially add to our income. However, things have slowed down with all three of them, and I just found out this past week that two of my three jobs are basically gone. The legit job that I have a W2 for I haven't worked since November, which we were expecting, because my boss was away on business and then out for the holidays, but when it didn't pick up again in January I started to worry. I just this week was able to find out the full story- he is moving to a different position in the company and basically doesn't need me anymore. The other job is for a small business that I practically run. It has been steadily declining over the past year, and we've been adjusting the budget accordingly as I seem to be making less and less money from it, but the owner just told me that she is going to try and sell the business and plans to shut down completely. In addition, Spouse is making a few hundred dollars less per month than he was last year because of the new taxes, which was also already hurting us.
So I basically lost two of my jobs over the course of a week, and that cuts my income in half from the already lowered amounts that we were working with. Our budget is no longer balanced and there's really no where left to take it from. We can't stop saving for the baby, because doctor's appointments and delivery costs a lot and we still have three months left that we were planning to save for that. If we stop saving for a house, then we are stuck with the amount that we have now, leaving us quite a bit short of our goal and possibly unable to buy a house unless we are able to find something cheap enough that what we have now will get us in with an FHA (which is really unlikely unless we are willing to live an hour or farther away from Spouse's work). We already cut out all discretionary/fun money back when we found out I was pregnant. We live in a really HCOL area and our rent is our biggest expense, but our lease isn't up until July 1.
I don't really know what to do and where to go from here. I've been looking for other jobs to pick up to help out our savings once we found out I was pregnant anyways, but nothing has worked out and I know that nobody is going to hire someone who is two months away from having a baby.
If anyone has any thoughts or advice or just encouraging words, I'd appreciate it. We were so prepared and we are so responsible with our money and budgeting, I just can't see the other side right now. I'm feeling like all of this is my fault and Spouse stresses about money enough as it is; usually I'm the one trying to tell him that we really are ok and things are fine, but now I'm the one who is completely hopeless.
Re: Lost jobs and feeling lost (long)
I know you said your lease isn't up until July 1 and I'm guessing if you break it you pay a penalty.
Is there any way you could move to a more moderate COL area still near enough to your husband's job? And your doctors/hospital? After that?
Or, depending on how much the penalty is, it might actually make sense to break the lease in an effort to get into less costly housing.
BTW, what is your rent per month and what is your after tax income...are you in the 25-28% (recommedned for low to mid COL areas) category or at the 30% (recommended for HCOL areas) category for housing costs?
Housing costs (rent, insurance, utilities) are supposed to be 25-28% of your after tax income for low to mid COL areas and 30% for HCOL areas.
Yeah, there is a penalty if you break it and the possibility of having to continue to pay rent if they can't rent it out right away once you're gone, so we could still have this payment and another if they don't rent it out. Though we are considering looking into it anyways and seeing if the landlord will give us a break on the penalty since we've been such good tenants. The property manager is really great and is willing to work with us, but he can't really influence the final decision of the landlord, unfortunately.
We are already pretty far from his job as is because the COL is even higher the closer we get to his work. His commute is already 45 min. each way plus traffic. The problem with moving to a place in the general areas with a lower cost of living that isn't any farther from his work is that they are really really unsafe, and I'm going to be alone most of the day with a baby once she gets here, which makes it even more scary. We have started looking in those areas, but I think Spouse is even less comfortable with it than I am.
Our rent is $1700, including insurance and utilities brings it up to about $1755. On just his salary alone, it ends up being 42% of his take home income (including weekend work). It was 30% of our combined take home when I still had all three jobs, and that was at my lowest take home amounts for all three, so it was even less when things were going really well and I was making a lot more. With my one remaining job it is about 36%.
We were prepared for the rent to be at that higher percentage once I stopped working in May, but with it being only two months, we were able to make that work until we could move when our lease was up. We were also counting on the small business job of mine to be something I could still do once the baby got here, because I do a lot of office work from home anyways. We weren't counting on the extra income in our budgeting but were hoping for it to make things a bit easier, and obviously that isn't going to happen anymore either.
I'm sorry for the unexpected setback. Was the plan for you to go back to work after baby or were you planning on staying home anyway? There isn't a whole lot you can do job search wise right now, so you should focus on the things you can control, like taking care of yourself and re-evaluating your budget. Can you post it to see if there are any places that you could cut back on more once it's all in front of you? Do you get a large tax refund each year? Can your husband adjust his withholdings so you take home more upfront? Is someone throwing you a baby shower so that you will have most of the baby items you need?
While I would want to buy a house too, if it's not feasible for you financially after the job losses, then it's not feasible. Maybe start investigating rental options with lower rates for when your lease is up in July or try to negotiate a lower rent on your existing place for your renewal.
Then, if you have a workable budge and an affordable rent, you can focus on your job search postpartum and save for a house once working again. Hang in there!
@MrNibbles
Do you have enough saved up that you guys could relocate altogether?
Since you have until July anyways, I think that if we were in your situation we'd be looking to just relocate to a much lower COL region and find DH a new job.
FWIW, DH currently commutes 2 hours round-trip. That's about the limit of our tolerance.
Do you have health insurance? I am wondering why medical expenses are such a concern for you?
If not, can you work out something cheaper? If you preplan, sometimes doctors or hospitals will work something out for you (like charging you the rate that an insurance company would pay instead of "retail"). Is there state medical aid that you might qualify for?
Is there any type of job board at your old school? Sometimes people are looking for short-term help or part time help and advertise for college students. Will your former employers recommend you to someone they know? Networking with people who already know how hard you are willing to work is always a good option.
Have you tried temp agencies? Since you are likely showing by this point in your pregnancy, it might be hard to get a full time job, but a company would be willing to hire you to fill in for a week or two. You might have better luck with shorter term work because they won't care that you are going to be out in May.
Is Unemployment a possibility?
Have you talked to various charities in your area regarding help for baby furniture and other supplies? There are lots of places that might offer a bit of help.
Can you or your husband do work around your apartment complex in exchange for money off of rent?
It is a total bummer when you have done everything "right" and been responsible, but things still don't seem to be going your way. Just keep moving forward, explore every option possible and see where you can go.
Good luck!
Because I didn't have a full time job to begin with, and the cost of someone else watching the baby, the plan was for me to stay home with the baby and continue keep one of my jobs where I work completely from home anyways.
Spouse is looking into changing his withholdings, but he wanted to talk it over with our tax guy first to make sure we don't end up owing next year. My mom had a shower for us over Christmas and we did get some stuff, mostly gift cards because we live far away, so that definitely helps.
We have our budget on an excel spreadsheet - I just spent forever typing it out here and then TB ate it. Grrrr. So that may be a project for another day! However, really the only thing left to cut out at this point is the $7.99/month for Netflix. The only other place the cuts can come from are the house savings and/or baby savings. =
Thanks for the advice and kind words.
We've looked into this too, and have seriously considered it, but with the reduction in pay he'd have to take for the lower COL area, it wouldn't actually help us free up any money in the budget. Right now he commutes about 1.5-2 hours rt too, depending on traffic. The places we are looking to move/buy the rent/mortgage would be much cheaper but his commute would be 2 hours rt minimum, our gas expenses would likely increase, in addition to tolls, and then electric bill increases as well. So we are trying to figure out if that is worth it or not.
We do have medical insurance but it doesn't cover everything. We worked out approximately how much we'd end up paying out of pocket by the time the baby is born and budgeted for that over the 9 months. Unfortunately, because of the new year, our deductible got reset so all that we paid OOP last year doesn't help us for this year either.
We don't qualify for any state aid and because I haven't had a full time job I'm not eligible for unemployment or any family leave benefits.
I had been networking with people that I know out here since I graduated, but unfortunately nothing had come of it. There just aren't that many jobs available and nothing in my field. I applied for an admin assistant position at the school that I went to, in the department that I worked at while I was a student there, and my boss was on the committee to hire someone, and I didn't even get an interview. There were 100 applicants for the job and half of them were immensely overqualified. Why hire someone with three years experience when you can hire someone with 15 or 20? That's what happened.
We don't live in an apartment complex- its a condo complex and most people are owners, not renters. So our rent is set by the owner of this particular condo, not management. We managed to keep her from raising our rent last year too much but she isn't willing to negotiate much more. We did some research and found out why; she bought this place right before the crash and paid a ridiculous amount of money for it. I don't think our rent even comes close to paying her mortgage + HOA fees for the place.
Thanks for the suggestions and words of encouragement!
Thanks. I think his commute is going to suck either way, but yeah, safety is a big issue for us because we live near so many sketchy unsafe areas.