The Fear Has Gotten Me
This week is the first week that I have panicked about the economy.
I know. You are thinking, the market has been up and down for a while now and you are just now starting to worry? All the frugality and personal finance bloggers have been preparing for the worst, building emergency savings for months now. And I have been spending as usual. Even as I watched magazine ad sales fall steadily I still figured that I was a necessary piece of the puzzle at my job, and I was safe.
Then Friday at about 4pm I heard a woman on our staff walk around the office saying goodbye to fellow employees because she had just been let go. True, she works in a whole different department and I barely know her, but I still couldn’t stop thinking … maybe my job is next. You never really know when a layoff is going to happen. You may hear rumors but you never really know until it happens.
The other art director on my magazine (my better half) is going on maternity leave in about a week. My head has been spinning. What if my company realizes they only need one of us when she comes back? She has seniority so she would be the obvious choice to keep, right? What if my magazines keep going down in size and number of issues? Won’t that mean less work between us? More reason to let one go?
I have been saving up t redo my kitchen. Mr. Juicefairy and I are about half way there. Now I am panicking, thinking maybe we should hold off?
But on the other hand I really have not one concrete piece of evidence that my job is in jeopardy. In fact, I am pretty confident that if my co-worker or I got laid off, and the other was left with the work load of two people, that remaining person would drop dead from sheer exhaustion. And redoing my kitchen or not is not going to save my job. Who says I should be worried? Don’t I have an emergency fund too? Mr. Juicefairy and I have fairly low expenses, due to our frugality so if I lost my job we could float us for a while.
I guess all this frenzy about the economy is finally getting to me. The fear has rubbed off on me! Damn, I need to calm down. To relax. Continue life like usual. Anyway, I really want my new kitchen!
1 comment
I say don’t panic. What you are doing now is dealing with reality and you are smart enough to realize that their could be some possible downsizing in your firm. I say again, keep calm. You may have to put off current projects like your kitchen or other things that are not really necessary for living. You are doing the right thing by being conservative in your spending and banking some money away. I say always keep networking with potential employers or people who could be in a position to open up an employment opportunity for you - whether it is good times or bad times. 2009 as well as 2010 could spell rough times for a lot of us and the thing is nobody is excluded but the very rich. Many people may have to start sitting down with their families and making some sensible and reasonable plans if their income is reduced from 2 to 1 (even if is on a temporary basis). The other day I heard that General Motors is in trouble and they are losing billions of dollars a month. If a merger does not happen, there will be no GM. What do you think that will mean for many families in Ohio?
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