You Get a Furlough and You Get a Furlough!
The day I learned what the word furlough meant was the same day that my husband was furloughed. The very next day I was also furloughed. (March 2020)
Furlough: “a temporary leave from work that is not paid and is often for a set period of time“ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/furlough
I started my working career in 2012. Having been in the corporate world for eight years as a software engineer I thought I had a pretty good grasp on how things worked. I knew about layoffs and getting fired but something that was never on my radar was getting furloughed.
When COVID hit and we were required to work from home I figured it would be a temporary thing and soon we would all head back to the office like normal. Instead, my husband and I were surprised to both receive phone calls from two different companies that we had both been furloughed. We went from having an amazing income, two software engineering salaries, to having nothing.
It was also a strange feeling to not have a job, and to not be able to go out and look for a new job. Knowing it was a risk to both my health and my family’s health to go out during COVID. Many of the software engineering jobs had been cut back to a minimum it would be almost impossible to find a job.
Luckily my husband was only furloughed to 50% of his original work schedule so we had a little bit of money coming in, but definitely not enough to cover our basic expenses. Immediately the numbers started running through my head: our mortgage, 2 car payments, 2 kids, 1 dog, electricity, water, food. There is no way we could pay all of these bills without our paychecks.
We looked through our bank accounts all together we had less than $4,000. This was enough to pay our mortgage for two months but nothing else. Many family members we had helped in the past offered to help us in our time of need, thankfully we didn’t need to take them up on their generous offers. We applied for unemployment and this gave us a few hundred dollars per week.
We were freaking out to say the least. Once the Federal CARES Act passed and we were able to receive an additional $600/week we were able to scrape by. We paid our mortgage, water, and electricity bills on time. We were able to afford basic food for our family and were able to use up most of the food we had stored in our kitchen cabinets. Thankfully we were able to delay our car payment schedules by 3 months with no penalty. We were able to make it through three months this way from March 2020 to June 2020.
In June 2020 I was able to go back to work full time after making a few phone calls to my boss and letting him know how much I would like to return back to work. My husband also returned to full time work some time around June 2020.
Although this was only three months of our lives it has left a lasting impact. We never want to be unprepared again. I never want to worry about If I can pay for the roof over my children’s heads or if we can afford to put food on the table for them. FIRE has allowed us to build a nest egg big enough to support us through any rough times in the future.
From March 2020-June 2020 Dan and I listened to every financial podcast we could find. We also read many FIRE blogs. We used this time to learn how to be financially independent and how to invest our money. We had many financial conversations sitting in our back yard while watching our children play. We decided what we wanted our future to look like and how we never wanted to be dependent on our paychecks again.
These are just some of the many changes we have made.
Keep an emergency fund of cash for 3-6 months
Have non retirement investment accounts that we could pull from if needed
Only have one car payment at a time
Reached our Coast FIRE number. Meaning even if we don’t save or invest any more we will still reach our FIRE number by 65 years old
Started our own Software Consulting company to have more control over our work schedules and retirement contribution accounts
I truly believe everything happens for a reason. This was an extremely scary point in our lives, but we have come out stronger and better on the other side. I am much happier with the control we have gained over our finances in the last four years. I do not feel stress when I think about finances any more and I feel prepared if we had no money coming in tomorrow I know what our plan would be.
