Yesterday was a "less than perfect" day... if I had written this post last night, it would have been even more negative... BUT... I got a good solid seven hours of sleep and for the first time in days, my 3 year old did not climb into my bed at 4 a.m.... it's AMAZING what a decent night's sleep will do for your mental well being!
The last couple weeks have held lots of bad news for people that I care about. I won't disclose everyone else's heartaches, but trust me when I tell you that the last two weeks have been harder than most. And even worse, none of them are even economy related... And yesterday, I just couldn't take the bad news anymore.
The last few weeks for Eric and I have been a rollar coaster of economic emotion. Last year, we used up every last ounce of our vacation time taking extra shutdown days in an effort to save the company money and stave off layoffs. It seems all that effort was in vain. We just got word yesterday that there's another layoff on the horizon. Bigger than we've seen in a while.
I thought the dot.com bust was hard, but this is going to beat it. Back in 2000, we saw our stock portfolio plummet to the basement... kissed countless stock options goodbye because now they were worthless, and weathered through several layoffs and other cost cutting measures. Just the day after one layoff, they would leak out the date for the next layoff, three months out. So for three months, we'd walk on pins and needles waiting for the next big layoff. Then the cycle would start all over again. It was enough to give anyone a nervous breakdown.
So early on in the layoff years, we devised a plan. Eric only had a BA in Mechanical Engineering, and had always wanted to get his MBA. So, we decided that if he did get laid off, we wouldn't worry about trying to find a job in the tech field (because there weren't any available anyway...) and we'd sell our house in CA and move to Provo so he could go to back to BYU and get his MBA. We could live off of the proceeds from our home to keep student loans minimized. That was the plan. Having that plan gave me a feeling of control. Having that plan gave me comfort. Having that plan kept me sane.
The last thing on earth I wanted to do was sell my home and move back to Provo (...and revert back to the starving student days with 3 kids....) so Eric could go back to school. I never loved living in Utah and prayed earnestly that I wouldn't have to go back. Thank heavens we never had to act on that plan. We survived layoff after layoff and business picked back up again. Eventually, Eric signed up for a distance program with Colorado State and over 3 years got his MBA while working his full time job. It was a hard time for both of us, but it was better than our "back up" plan had been. During that time, we moved to Phoenix, had Brayden, and Eric's become a manager at work.
Now, it's a recession again and we are faced with an even worse situation. The housing market is a bust... my career field of expertise is in Title and Escrow which is fighting for it's life (and certainly not likely to hire someone like me, who's dabbled over the last 12 years, but been a full time SAHM, too). We can't be guaranteed that we could sell our house if Eric lost his job. The only thing that gives me comfort in this situation is that we still have equity in our house. We've lost value from when we purchased it, but we still have a decent chunk of equity. But given the current credit crisis... what kind of hoops would we have to jump through to get access to that equity now?
Eric will probably kill me for blogging about this, but I know that most of you are in the same situation we are in. Jobs are uncertain. Mortgages are upside down in value. Jobs are scarce and hard to find. Employers are cutting hours to avoid layoffs. Everyone has less money to spend. Of course, when Eric is not on mandatory shutdown, he's a workaholic. I'm okay with that because we can't afford for him to look lazy right now. Not that Eric is lazy... he's the TOTAL opposite of lazy. I hope his new boss knows that about him!
We've been able to make budget cuts to get us through the rest of the year. If it gets worse, who knows, but we'll walk that road one day at a time. If we get laid off, who knows? Maybe Eric will find a great job, maybe he won't. Maybe we'll sell our house and move in with my parents (wouldn't they just LOVE that???) Maybe we'll have to rent out half the house to another family to pay the bills (could you imagine???) Maybe we'll eventually just walk away from our house and take the tent trailer to Missouri... hmmm... I wonder what the real estate market is like in Jackson County right about now... we might be able to afford a slot in an RV park there... just a thought! ;-)
Well, that concludes my free therapy blog session. Boy that felt good. Now that I've explored and vocalized every possible worst case senario, I can deal with whatever they throw at me.... now I'm going to revise my "long term" storage plan to include plenty of chocolate and ice cream!
