Sunday, January 20, 2013

You Have to Have Hope


You Have to Have Hope

By Keith Bunn Jr.
January 20, 2013

Well I hope that everyone's week was better then ours! No matter how careful or detailed your plans are, life happens. And as we all know, life never goes our way 100% of the time. This past week was no different.

Our Plan

As some of you may or may not know. Over a year ago now, my wife Julie, step-son, and myself moved from White Cloud, Michigan to Grand Rapids, Michigan. The reason for the move was primarily because my wife got a better job in Grand Rapids (GR).The place that my wife was working at was bought out by the company she was moving to, so her job move was just a lateral move and she didn't lose any benefits or seniority. I had already been working just outside of GR for like 7 years prior to my wife getting her new job. One way travel time from White Cloud to GR is about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on weather and traffic. Round trip also consumed a quarter tank of gas and with gas prices going through the roof, it just made sense for us to move closer to both of our work places. 
Months later, a different position opened up at my wife's work. She applied and got the even better position. She was so much happier. She was helping so many people. I was even getting spurts of overtime at my work to top it off. Our finances were getting better and everything seemed to be all puppies and rainbows... until this week.

This Week

A month or so before Thanksgiving, things started to slow down at my work and I wasn't getting the overtime like I was getting, which was normal for that time of year. Things were also changing at my wife's workplace too. After months of her boss telling her how well she was doing and praising her job performance, almost on a weekly basis, her boss and other co-workers were now nit-picking her and her work. She wasn't doing anything different, in fact, she was always trying to improve herself after each criticism. The only thing that had changed was this. The reason my wife's position opened up in the first place was because another woman had taken another position. About a month or so after, the details around that position changed so she asked to have her old job back. Shortly after letting her return, was when all the nit-picking and criticism started. Julie was caught up in her workplace's politics with no way out and no way to win. No matter what Julie did, they weren't happy with my wife's work and this week they fired her for it. At first, she was really upset over the whole deal. Between her old job up north and the one here, she was just shy of having 24 years with the company. Now you don't get that many years in a single workplace if you don't get along with people or not being a hard worker. It was strictly workplace politics that got her.

Now What

With talking things over, figuring out what parts of her job she liked the most, we now know that she got the greatest joy from helping others out, we also, later that night, talked to a pastor and his wife, and they confirmed what we were already starting to think. That the whole reason my wife got that job and the reason she got fired was because God was guiding her in the direction that will help her to best serve and help others. And that is what she is looking into doing now. The very next day after being fired, she filed for her unemployment and started her job search. We know it won't take her long and she'll have a new and better job then before. God has a plan!

Our Finances

I'm not ashamed to say that my wife was making considerably more money than I'm making now, so by her losing her job, it has put a big dent in our finances. Even with unemployment, we won't be where we were at before. So what we're going to be doing is putting a bunch of stuff we wanted to be doing on hold for a while and cutting our budget even further. We won't be paying extra on our debts like we have been. We will be making minimum payments and only getting things we need.  One of the biggest mistakes people do when there is a loss of income in the household is they don't cut down their lifestyle. They always supplement the lost income with other means like credit cards or other types of debt instead of cutting their lifestyle and that is absolutely wrong and we won't be making that mistake. When there is a job loss or a decrease in income, you are smack dab in the middle of an emergency, and the last thing you need to do is to go further into debt.
So what I did to make up for the loss income was to ask my work if they could give me as many hours as they possibly could and the were gracious enough to allow me to work 12 hour days. I will be doing miscellaneous jobs around the shop up to the time my normal shift start and then I'll be doing my main job for 8 hours, until either they don't have anything for me to do or our situation improves. With continuous communication between my wife and I, knowledge of what we should do, hard work, planning, hope, and God's guidance, we will survive this temporary set back. We've done it before and we'll do it again!

 I hope my posts inspire you to look at what you’re doing financially and if needed, make some changes that will cause you to win financially. I also look forward to reading your views on any articles or postings that I may post. For more money news, facts and ideas, follow me on Facebook, or Twitter. Thank you!


2 comments:

  1. Life is full of surprises, that is for sure! It sounds like God has prepared you well. We were thrown for a loop recently(my husband got very sick) and I Thank God for guiding us through this. We are not sure how much longer we will be in our situation but, an emergency fund is so important! It is something every family needs. My husband has been a stickler for 'stash the cash' since before I met him. He had good 'saving' role models. I sometimes hated that Emergency Fund because the money would sit in a savings acc't and it was always teasing me. We would have to add to it while scrimping by. I wanted to dip into it a few times to buy things and I thought it was so unfair. But, he was right!! You never know when you are going to need it. There has been plenty of times we've had to dip into it like layoffs, sickness, car repairs, appliance breakdowns. There are events in life that you can't control and we happen to be experiencing one right NOW. We will be fine thanks to my husbands planning for such events. This time we have had to change our spending, change the urgency of some things, change our plan, change our thinking. But CHANGE IS GOOD!! It is just something we don't often do unless we are forced to do it.
    I am confident that God will lead you & Julie to what He wants you to do. He has a plan. All of your training & knowledge is coming in handy right now and giving you first hand experience ON HOW TO HELP OTHERS. Stay strong, you guys will get through this. God is on your side. I can't wait to read what HIS plan will be for the two of you!

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  2. Thank you, that is a great testimony on how important having a plan & emergency fund in place when life smacks us around a bit. I hope your husband & situation gets better soon. Let me know if there is anything I can help you with,

    God bless & have a great week,

    Keith

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