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Life in Limbo

April 2nd, 2016 at 05:29 am

So we were supposed to know yesterday about whether or not DH's company got the contract. Well, we still don't know. Apparently they are taking 2 MORE weeks to decide. Something that should have been decided in January. I am not holding my breath about 2 weeks from now, either. Do they not understand that they are fooling around with people's lives here and their livelihoods?

I am just hoping that DH can get some overtime in. There appears to be the work for it. If he can get in enough OT to get the EF up to $20K, I might (probably not), just might relax a little bit.

I have decided to do an eat from the pantry challenge for the month of April. I want to cut our grocery spending all the way down to $400. If I can, it will go a long way towards easing the pain of the pay cut. I don't need to buy meat at all during this month. I don't need to buy potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, pasta, tomato sauce, rice, or flour, or sugar.

I am allowing myself to buy fresh fruit, milk, and some greens and onions if I run out, but that is all. I will be baking all my bread, rolls, and buns. I've got plenty of food in the freezer and on the canning shelves. My Aerogarden is producing a couple of salads a week. I've got lettuce planted that will hopefully take off by the end of the month. This should be easy. It goes without saying that there will be no eating out.

If I can figure this out and stick to a much stricter grocery budget, and we can get used to not getting everything we want food-wise all the time, then if his pay does go back up, we can save the difference then, too. That would be nice. And if it doesn't, we'll know we can get by on much less.

13 Responses to “Life in Limbo”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    1459599136

    Good plan to have a pantry challenge! I did this during February when I was working a no spend month. It did pay off!

  2. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1459600670

    Good luck with the pantry challenge!

  3. CB in the City Says:
    1459607279

    I'm going to be hitting my pantry, too! It's quite full, and I need to come in lower on groceries this month.

  4. ThriftoRama Says:
    1459611268

    Ugh. I hope you know something soon, and I hope it's good news.

    In the future, for onions.... we grow Egyptian walking onions, which are a perennial onion. Look them up. You can eat the bulbs fresh, like a normal onion, use the early greens like chives, and eat the bulbs that form on the top in summer (taste like garlic).

    They are wonderful, and provide us with onions 9 months of the year with zero effort. I could send you some bulbs for them in summer, if you'd like to try them. They are one of the best things I've ever grown.

  5. snafu Says:
    1459615647

    While I understand your focus is on your desire to buy a farm, the entire, world wide oil and gas industry is in a huge mess with a dozen factors conspiring to make things worse. The last figure I saw was $ 38. 48 bbl down from a high slightly over $ 100. bbl and production break even about $ 44. bbl. The company is likely having a hard time with it's numbers. In Venezuela where the entire economy is predicated on oil, the people are protesting in the streets, no one is getting paid, inflation is crazy, currency has little value. Saudi is having to make very unpopular decisions that has potential to destabilize that region even more!

    Here in our oil patch, jobs are vanishing by the hour, not just in oil and their support industries but filtering down to every service. The 6 pm news is a daily announcement of business shutting down. There are so many homes for sale here it's going to put folks in other, unrelated groups underwater regionally. It's really scary

  6. LuckyRobin Says:
    1459648896

    CCF--Yes, I think I did one in October, too. Or September. Anyway, I did one last year and I saved quite a bit.

    Laura--Thanks.

  7. LuckyRobin Says:
    1459648976

    CB--Are you going to do an official challenge or just try to shop better and mostly out of the pantry?

  8. LuckyRobin Says:
    1459649234

    Thrift--Yeah, me, too. It's just really hard for me to not know how things are going to go. I'm the sort of person who likes routine and security.

    I'll take you up on the Egyptian Walking Onions when we move. I really don't have a place right now where I can let them take over, but I have wanted to grow those for a while now. We have a mess of chives right now and I just pulled all the leeks that overwintered. I'll be putting in green onions as soon as the starts are put out and regular onions, too. I still have some green onions that overwintered. So I really shouldn't actually need to buy onions at all. I wasn't thinking about all the stuff I actually have.

  9. LuckyRobin Says:
    1459649344

    Snafu--Yeah, I know it is pretty shaky out there. DH is starting to look at other industries. We both hope he can stay where he is, but with the whole oil industry struggling because of the OPEC nations and their arrogance, he does have to consider other things.

  10. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    1459718710

    I'm going to defend the company. Maybe they honestly don't know and don't want to give out bad news if they don't want to. I find that middle management who usually give the bad news are hanging on by a thread and often the recipient of bad news themselves. They also usually don't know and feel awful doing layoffs. That being said sometimes I think the higher ups take a long time because they are covering themselves FIRST.

  11. LuckyRobin Says:
    1459873682

    LAL--It's a good company. I'm sure they are doing what they can. That doesn't mean I'm not frustrated by their feet dragging.

  12. CB in the City Says:
    1460246906

    LR, I'm just going to try to use the pantry wisely, and shop wisely, too. The pantry needs to go down and so does my grocery budget.

  13. LuckyRobin Says:
    1460336167

    CB--I hear you. I am amazed how much I'm not spending right now. I've kept it so much lower than normal by doing this, I'm kind of stunned.

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