In this economy, worrying about your job security is pretty commonplace. Tim and I are lucky in that we know that Tim is guaranteed an appointment- though there are rumors that this guarantee may be nixed in the near future. Even then, Tim is a rarity in his field- a young, first-career preacher. Top if off by the fact that he hasn't been in major trouble and he graduated from a top University (two, if you want to be honest) and is oh-so-close to becoming fully ordained and you find him several pegs up from the bottom of the totem pole. We all know the cuts start with the bottom positions and the oldest folks (think forced early retirement), so we are at least confident that Tim will have a job always unless something drastic and terrible happens to the Methodist Church as a body. We are extremely lucky to know that we have one income we can count on.
Then there is me. With Tim's job requiring moving around a lot, it's much harder to build a career. In fact, in the mountains a career wasn't possible, as the few jobs that existed were very much filled based on who you knew or were related to. So I took the job I could find and dealt with the fact that I didn't particularly enjoy the work.
When we moved, it was a bit difficult to find new employment. After all, the economy was down, the nearest big city has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state and not long after we moved here more businesses shut down- leading to more unemployment.
We all know all about this kind of thing- so why am I bringing it up?
My job is currently $15,000 in the red. They made budget cuts at the beginning of the year and through some folks not giving what they had committed to and some complicated church politics... we are still hemorrhaging money.
An emergency finance meeting is being called for May. My worry is that soon my position may be reduced- or eliminated all together. Where does that leave me? Unemployed or working even less hours than I get now- which isn't going to work for us financially.
Luckily, thanks to my stockpile, we do have a lot of health items- toothpaste, shampoo, etc. That will be helpful if we go down to a one-income-family. I am going to be focusing my energy on finding things to sell around the house and hitting the sales even harder for non-perishable food items that I can stock up on. What extra money I can scrimp and save will go in to our "Emergency Fund".
I guess we should be thankful that the trip to San Diego is 80% paid for- we have our tickets, the rental car, the hotel, etc. already booked and paid for. I'll just have to coupon harder to save us money while we are there!
This could all be for nothing- I could keep my job and my hours- but since I do have some warning that there could be a problem, it would be foolish not to prepare as best I can now.
-Kristen
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