Being Real: Unemployment

We know John will get a job and possibly very soon. We know we need to have faith in order to receive the blessings. This is not a complaining or a doubting post. I just want to explain some of the difficulties of unemployment.

Before John lost his job, I would spend a little extra every month of items just to store. After a couple of years, we had acrued only about 3 months of food storage as well as a few items we considered more for long term storage. Since, we were struggling and living at the very edge of our income anyway, I wouldn't say we were prepared for a long period of unemployment. We have been using our storage. We had some food, soap, shampoo, cleaning products and toiletries. They have helped us, but we are running out. We have pretty much used up all of our stored meat, bread, cereal, and baking supplies. We are down to grinding wheat to make bread, a few cans of fruit and veggies, soups, chili, and beans. We are now at the tough point. The kids keep telling their dad to get a job when they find out we have run out of another item.

In regular unemployment life I would shop every couple of weeks. When I shopped, I did not have to buy everything and that kept our grocery bill down. When I can go shopping again, I will have to buy everything. That is going to cost a LOT! I suspect my first grocery trip after John gets a job will be around $1000 dollars. We need everything!  I will have to spend an additional amount on toiletries and cleaning supplies too. It will be hard to make up for the lost shopping trips. I suspect it will take us another two years to get all of our basics plus another 3 months of food storage.

In addition to the basics, we would usually buy a big ticket item about once a month. We have not been buying those. We have this growing list of "When you get a job we need to buy" items. Those items include shoes, clothing, tires for the van (they are nearly smooth now), repair items for things that have broken, items for yard care, and some shelving and a mattress for Anya, paint and painting supplies for the inside of the house that were already on our "to buy list" before the job loss.

When I am being real, I have to admit that unemployment puts us behind. It will take some serious financial planning and a couple of years to catch up. However badly we planned for this event, I am glad that we had the storage we did to get us through.