Furloughs

If you have been furloughed, I wish you the best of everything in these days.  We don't know how long the furloughs will last, but I hope that you are able to make the most of this unexpected opportunity to spend time at home with your family.

I am going to try desperately hard to not take a stand on my blog about the furloughs.  If I bring politics onto this blog, then I have changed the nature of the light-hearted stance I am attempting to bring to life.  It is entirely too easy to fall into the trap of negativity, or name calling and settle to a different standard than the one I have attempted to employ.  I really do want to be a positive person. 

Let me say here, we are directly impacted by the furloughs.  It promises to be an interesting time for our family.  The $30/Week challenge was something I had originally wanted to try just to see if I could live on $30 a week - the federal guidelines for food for a week for a single person.

When the furloughs were instituted, the nature of the challenge changed - a lot.  We don't know when our next paycheck will come.  Actually, I will get paid for subbing on the 15th of this month.  I earn $75/day as a substitute teacher.  I work every day I can, but there are days when there are no jobs available. 

We are fortunate.  We have been preparing for the possibility of a government shutdown for a while now... we have paid ahead on our mortgage.  The tuition for the boys has already been paid for this semester.  Even more importantly, we do keep a fairly deep pantry.  I have always tended to buy things on sale, and have frozen large quantities of items, and made food ahead and frozen it for later.  On one level, our $30/week challenge will end this Sunday.  On another level, it is just really beginning, as we need to save all of our money to make certain that the utilities are paid, and that we have gas to put into the car so that I can get to work, and we need to continue to save for next semester's books and tuition payments, and we need to continue to put money towards the mortgage.

This is the last time I will speak about the furloughs, I promise.  I'm not asking for anyone's sympathy.  We will weather this storm, as we have weathered other storms.  I am asking that you be understanding of the thousands of people who have been impacted by the shutdown, and I continue to ask your understanding as more and more people will be impacted in the days yet to come.  We, the people, really are just trying to get by, one day at a time.