Financial Woes.

I've mentioned a few times in my weekly pregnancy updates that Mr. Skinny could be laid off. Terrible timing, right? So far, he was laid off for just 1 day before being called back to work, which still resulted in messing with our insurance so that we've gone 2 weeks without any. I was trying to do some research to see how it all works legally, and it seems like once you are laid off, you quality for COBRA, but most companies lay employees off at the end of the month when insurance needs to be paid (normally at the beginning of the month), but Mr. Skinny's company wanted their money back ASAP. Even if their employees were only laid off for one day.

I had a doctor's appointment the week that Mr. Skinny was laid off, and technically we didn't have insurance for that one day, but then, technically we should have because he was back to work. Anyways, I still haven't heard anything from the insurance, so I'm not worrying about it yet. We thought that we would be covered by the company for 30 days, or at least until the end of the month, but it's seems that's not true. We got a notification from our insurance that it was canceled the day Mr. Skinny was laid off, so we've had to jump through hoops to get back on our insurance.

We received a paper in the mail last week to fill out to get our coverage back, which was fine, but then while they were playing pass the paper - Mr. Skinny works in construction, so he had to rely on his foreman to hand the paper to the right person to eventually get it to the office - but, they lost the paperwork. Luckily, I needed a refill for my prenatal vitamins, but my pharmacy called me saying that my insurance was coming up as expired. This resulted in a short panic, a weekend knowing we had no insurance, and Mr. Skinny loosing 3 hours to personally run the paper up to the correct office, which is in the opposite direction of the site where he's working.

Bottom line of this adventure? The company Mr. Skinny works for stinks. The only thing they have going for them is that we don't pay anything toward our insurance, which is a blessing, especially having a baby, but they don't treat their employees very good.

As of right now, Mr. Skinny is back to work, but he could be laid off at any time while they're waiting for permits to come in. I will sigh with relief when these permits come in. We were worried all winter, but no one - in construction - expects to get laid off in April or later. The last time they were waiting on permits, the guys were laid off for 4 months, if that happens, Mr. Skinny is going to look for a new job. He's probably going to look for a new job next spring regardless.

With all this worry about Mr. Skinny getting laid off, and the obviously impending baby that will be arriving in just a few short weeks, and me quitting my job to stay at home with the baby comes worry about paying our bills. Right now, Mr. Skinny handles the finances, this isn't old fashioned for us, it just makes sense because he's more flexible with the budget, and if something comes up, he can rearrange the bills relatively easily. But, I figure with me transitioning to a SAHM, I should take the finances under my job. I'd like to figure out everything and be able to rock at budgeting, but how? We live paycheck to paycheck, and are up to our eyeballs in debt. The only variable bill we have is our food bill, which I am making my priority to keep as low as possible - if you know of any blogs that have healthy, low budget recipes, please let me know!


Sure, our cell phone, and TV could potentially be reduced, but we have to pay a fee to get out of our Dish contract, and Mr. Skinny heard that if you want to go back to a non-smartphone after having a smartphone, you have to pay a fee, is that right? I know if it comes to it, we'd have to give up our phones, but I really love my iPhone, and I know Mr. Skinny does, too. I'm really trying to be optimistic, cut out all my extra costs (like Panera every weekend), and make our food budget super small.

It's hard because every time we start to get ahead, something comes up and we slide back down to where we were. We've been trying really hard to save money in case something like this happens, but we have so much going on, that what we have saved isn't going to last us very long, especially with me quitting my job.

Living paycheck to paycheck with no wiggle room sucks.


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Honestly, I'm not looking for pity, advice maybe? Stories that we'll get through it. Prayers are appreciated, too.