Job seeking will put additional strains on your household finances
➔ One of the biggest fears you will experience while you’re out of work is how you will survive financially without your full-time income. Keeping the wolf from your door is a very real and very normal kind of worry to keep you awake at night. But all is not lost. There are ways to deal with it.
Expect some significant changes in your life
The first thing to do is to take a real-world, close-up inspection of your current financials. How much available funds are there? How long can you make them last? What can you do to mitigate your financial burden. It may be a brutal exercise, but it must be done.
Once you have a handle on your financial state-of-affairs, you need to create the leanest, meanest budget you’ve ever done. (If you’ve never really done a budget, there are numerous resources to help.) Make certain that you separate the truly necessary expenses such as housing, groceries, utilities and transportation, etc.
Then comes the hard part. Identifying the non-essential expenses and taking a clever to them eliminating them wherever possible and cutting back the rest to the barest of necessities. Cancel or downgrade subscriptions, memberships and services that you can live without.
There is a difference
Your re-ordered lifestyle doesn’t mean that you have be cheap. There is a difference between cheap and frugal. What you’re aiming for is frugality. Look for discounts, coupons and sales when shopping for essentials. Consider purchasing generic brands and compare prices before making significant purchases.
You don’t need an outsider to tell you that it’s going to be tough. And you need to communicate this to your family. For the time being, things are going to be different. Everyone is going to have to do something they don’t like.
But the good news is that this is only temporary.