June 1st Marks ONE YEAR of Unemployment! JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

Unemployment: Month 12

June 1, 2010 was the first day of my husband Wayne's unemployment. If you're new to this blog, his company closed. He was a Regional Director for Auto Trader Magazines, he was with them for 11 years and loved the company and his work. The new parent corporation (and owner for less than 2 years), closed down the popular auto magazine and let go over 4,000 hard working, loyal employees. Like many other companies around the nation, they stopped trying to make things better and just tossed everyone to the street. Making millions and billions of dollars is not enough for these companies, they just seem to want more, more, more. 

Meanwhile, when employees get tossed aside, their families are able to spend less, less, less, which simply perpetuates the problem and leads to more jobs lost!

Okay, that's enough for my soapbox today. I'm going to switch now to the positive; HOW we are getting through this difficult time and SURVIVING it!

People are always asking us, "How are you making it?!" Some have even said, "Wow, Michelle must make a lot of money!" LOL That would be wonderful, but it's not true. Wayne is still receiving unemployment checks each week and we have cut, cut, cut our budget by more than half! All of our savings is gone and our 401k will be next. (Apologies to Suze Orman regarding the 401k, at least we're holding off as long as we can.)

If you had told us we could survive an entire year of unemployment (and however long this may last), we would have told you NO WAY! But day by day, month by month, we are. I can just feel God holding onto our family tightly as our boat is at the edge of the river's waterfall.

There are many programs available for families who fall below low income guidelines. Some are national, some are by state or city, and some are by individual companies and organizations. However, three big things that require you to have regular income (in addition to unemployment - which is temporary anyway) include:

HOME MORTGAGE

Being able to keep your mortgage current and getting a home loan modification (which we did). We applied for this program through our mortgage company. There was a link on our mortgage web site that said if you're having trouble paying your mortgage, click here. So I did, and we applied. We called regularly and did everything we had to do. The process took about 9 months to finalize and there were NO ADDITIONAL FEES!

Some people are getting ripped off by third party companies claiming to help people get a loan modification, for up to $3,000 or more. This is just sickening! All you have to do is work consistently with your mortgage company, and hopefully you have a good one. Ours is our local bank, so we were able to talk with them in person and by phone every month. They always stress, "Keep your mortgage payments current!" So we did, no matter what!

This program is not just for people who have lost income though. The bigger issue is that our home values have fallen so low that we have lost ALL the cash we put into the house when we purchased it in 2006. Which was pretty much everything we had. With values so low that our mortgage is now upside down, we cannot relocate for a new job. This also means families all around the country will not be moving from state to state as has been common practice for the last several decades.  And that's probably a good thing.  

HEALTH INSURANCE

Being able to afford health insurance. Premiums are way too expensive for us, unless we buy the cheapest policy available with a $10,000.00 deductible and no prescription coverage. If we had a policy like this we would have to continue being 'self-pay' for all medical expenses, pay the monthly premiums, AND pay $10,000.00 if anything major happens to us. That could bankrupt us anyway, so what's the point? For now, self pay seems the way to go, though I continue to reevaluate this decision every month.

SECOND FAMILY CAR

Being able to afford a second car. I'm not going to whine about not having a second car, though it pains us every day. Our two oldest children who are also driving, don't have cars either. So we have four drivers and a family of 6, with a car that seats 5. The bottom line is, we are saving a fortune without the second vehicle and are absolutely grateful for the one car we do have.

FINAL NOTE... JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!

I've been posting a few job openings on our Twitter account recently and would like to post more. You can find me at www.twitter.com/betterbudgeting.  If you know a company that is hiring or has more job openings, or if you hear or read about a company that has openings, please contact me at (mjromans828 @ gmail.net) so I can spread the word to our unemployed families around the country.

God bless y'all, have a great week!!!

Michelle Jones
www.MichelleJonesOnline.blogspot.com