Year in Review: The "F" Word

I am still thinking about last year and my thoughts concerning it. What affected me? Why did it affect me?

And sometimes the "F" word comes up.

A couple of "F" words off the top of the head which have presented some internal issues:

Forgiveness

Finances

This year, one situation really had an interesting effect on me. And again, it is an "F" word.

FURLOUGH

That "F" word had me looking like this cat:

I had that cat's facial expression... I term that the "hostage face". It is the face of someone held at the mercy of some inflated egos.

And I didn't have the typical "Oh no, what I'm going to do? No paycheck?" thoughts running through my head.

No. I don't live paycheck to paycheck. I was good for a few months without a check if it came down to it.

I was moreso annoyed. Annoyed with the political fiasco in Washington. You mean to tell me these folks, the cream of the crop, our leadership, our ivy league educated leadership, couldn't get along? And their B.S. is affecting me? So much so that they had to shut down my job??

Not only that, but there are government employees out here living paycheck to paycheck. Their shenanigans messed some people up.

And I have thought about that a lot since the furlough.

Over the past couple of months, I have thought of the following:

I do not want my actions to negatively affect those around me. I want to affect people in a positive manner and not be a detriment. 

Because I, like you, saw the government closed down, all over some squabble over health care. And you know it's not about that. It's about folks with personal agendas. Agendas and thoughts of grandeur.  All of that affected people negatively.

And I knew it wouldn't be a long furlough when people couldn't get into the national parks and go to the national monuments. And my goodness, the World War II veterans in wheelchairs wanting to get into the WWII memorial and being turned away was a horrible thing. No one anticipated that.

It was too much. And with all that, they still didn't stop the Affordable Care Act. Not at all. It is still being implemented. All that hollering about it being bad for the country. The bigger question is, what if it was good for country and everything worked out alright?  That would mean this president would have one thing: a legacy. And we can't have that, can we?

I think that was what it was really about.

Yeah. I know I am stretching pretty far. But as Rodney King said... Can we all just get along?

Apparently not.

And someone please explain to me how a first year senator, Ted Cru.z, who is Canadian as far as I am concerned (yeah, they need to clown him as hard as they clowned the president about citizenship), come in and cause THIS much of a problem, to where the whole government is shut down... with no strategy to back it up? I am still baffled by that. John Boen.her should have locked his tail in a closet somewhere. Really.

Enough of my ranting. Back to the subject at hand. I think the furlough lasted some 15 days and we got all of our back pay for it. It was essentially a free two week vacation.  I wish I would've known the duration and terms of it all beforehand. If I'd known, I would've been laid out on some beach in the Caribbean. You gonna give me some free time off then tell me so I can be GONE.

Really though.

A question concerning furloughs went out over my Triple F (Financial Freedom Fighters) Posse email thread one day. And one of our members wanted to essentially know what kind of plan we had in place if a furlough occurred, and our thoughts on it all in general.

Since I'd been furloughed, I responded to the email:



Hello Fighters,

This is LadyLee.

I wanted to answer some of the furlough questions.

I myself was part of the government furlough, and man, it was an eyeopener.

How did I manage? I made time to sit down and look at all of my cash on hand and savings and added up how much I had. I then sat down and added up my expenses. I do this anyway from month to month, but here it felt more important.

My goal was to take care of the important things first, the "four walls"[mortgage, utilities, transportation and food]. Now, i remember us talking about this, but I made sure that the mortgage and utilities were paid. I have two cars with no car notes, so that is a plus. I prioritized everything else, and determined any "pleasure" expenditures. Most of those unnecessary things were thrown out or put on hold.

I also undid all of my automatic online bill pays so that I would have to pay everything online manually. This way, I was forced to look at my accounts a few times a week.

One thing that set a light bulb off over my head: I understand the whole notion of having 3-6 months of living expenses saved. The opportune words here are "living expenses". I've always thought that that meant 3 to 6 months of whole paychecks. While that may be the case for someone living "check-to-check", that is not my reality. So now that is a reality to me, since I know my living expense.

I have enough savings to sustain me for a little over 3 months. And I didn't really even know that until the reality of the furlough.

In light of the furlough, I have decided to shore up my savings a little more, by 20%. I also want to hurry and pay down my credit cards. Shoudn't take long at all. Since this tomfoolery may occur again in Janurary, my goal is to sit down and set up some short term 3-month money goals.

Interestingly, we received all our backpay for that time off. So that is a plus. I didn't take much of anything out of savings while I was out. I will replace that amount that I withdrew and get back on track with my regular savings efforts.

I think the worst thing for me was the unknown. How long would the furlough last? And there is that fear that it would be some strange time, like 6 months. I decided to keep myself busy so I wouldn't think about it. And I promised myself that I wouldn't think too much about it until November 1 (if we were out that long). All bills were paid, and if they needed to be paid at that time while still on furlough, I would address it. But what helped me the most was not to whine about it or expose myself to unnecessary negativity. Sometimes, the mind is the battlefield, and I didn't need any unnecessary thoughts running through my mind making me feel all afraid, worried and defeated. I woke up every day during this 16 day period, got dressed for the day, and made lists of things to do. And I made sure not to sit and watch the news. I watched only when necessary. This helped my mental a lot.

Those are my thoughts on E;s furlough questions. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

I think I had more to write, but I kept it short.

I noticed that a January furlough was avoided. This is an election year, so all of congress is sitting tight. Don't want to piss off anyone, do they?

I don't want to go through it all again. I especially don't want anyone living paycheck to paycheck to go through it all again. That was what was truly sad.

That was a most dreded "F" word, a word no one wants to hear ever again.