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Thursday, February 19, 2009

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

3 comments:

wvsanta said...

MCK
Great post and I think most are in the same position. I know from 30 years or so of stocking up for winter as I am in a seasonal profession, that you are never as prepared as you would like to be. I have been since late November living off of my food storage. The weather is starting to break and soon I will be busy working the heavy equipment I own and will have some money coming in to restock. (I hope). Like you said about a complete economic collapse, if that were to happen it would be rough to even pay property tax at which point even if your property is paid off it would not be easy to keep it unless you are one of the wealthy which I am not. I know that the currnet events that are happening at the moment have me relly concerned about if I am in as good of a position as I thought I was in. All I can say is keep doing the best you can and pray that it does not come to that. Keep prepping the best you can because evrything you do makes it a little better in the long run. God Bless from the hill's of West Virginia and keep up the good work getting the word out.
Santa

Bullseye said...

MCK, I sure hope your job will be there for ya. You know the difference in a Recession and a Depression? A Recession is when your neighbor looses his job, a Depression is when you loose yours. You are really doing a great job here and providing the kinda stuff that we all need to know, thank you for a job well done.

kymber said...

Awesome post MCK! You really brought up some good issues! I am sorry that there have been so many lay-offs with your company - but thank you for reminding me to prep, prep, prep!
I am looking forward to more posts from you and have added myself as a follower!


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