Slow Day

Not much going on in Kansas today. The state budget crisis has supposedly been resolved. No freak weather, no collapse, no TEOTWAWKI. But all is not sunshine and roses either, the company I work for announced layoffs yesterday, 5000 jobs to be cut worldwide, whether or not I will be affected remains to be seen. One thing is for sure though, some people at the Topeka location will lose their jobs. It got me to thinking " am I prepared enough to become unemployed?" Lets see, I have about 2 weeks worth of pay saved, about 1 month of food put back, about 1 month of bottled water stashed away, and several years worth of bills to pay. Answer, no I am really not prepared to join the ranks of the unemployed. I do have a wife that works, so we would hopefully not be out in the cold. I also have a skilled trade under my belt, so I could find a job in my former profession but would more than likely have to move out of state. I keep a website bookmarked on my computer that tracks job opening in this field all across the country, Texas seems to have a lot of openings in this field. I really don't want to move though. There is a point that I am trying to make and it is about lessons learned and lessons that we choose to ignore. First is never spend more than you take in, I think a lot of people are learning this lesson right now. I know that in times of plenty it is easy to become lax on that and say things like " Just put it on the credit card and we will pay it off next month." or " I want a small payment so how long can you finance this for?"I am guilty of both of these and it may come back to bite me in the ass. Second, Always trust your gut, I remember 6 years ago when the wife and I bought the house we are in now I got into an mild argument with both the wife and the Realtor about the price of the house. I knew in my gut that this house was not worth the price that we were going to pay, but all I kept hearing was "location, location, location" and " you know real estate is going nowhere but up". Now we have a alcoholic rehab house right next door to us, a possible junkie across the street and several empty rental houses down the block. Third, save, save, save. Dont count on anybody but yourself to bail you out when times get hard. I am sure that there are several more things we could take away from this but I use the hunt and peck method of typing and it is starting to get late, I need to spend sometime with my kids and then get them off to bed, so I will leave off here.---MCK