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preparing for layoffs

10 ways to layoff-proof your life

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Yesterday as Cassie and I were walking to the park, we came across a neighbor in his front yard, putting the finishing touches on a new sprinkling system. He said his father-in-law had installed it, the old man having been laid off and needing work. Then he started to count off all the people he knew who were out of work, including the guy across the street who owns a big house on a half-acre of land fronting on the park. At least, we agreed, the father-in-law had developed a way to keep a little cash flowing into his pocket. The homeowner gave me his phone number, since our house downtown needs a watering system.

You can’t really make yourself layoff-proof these days. Even if the economy doesn’t land you in the can, an injury or illness may put you out of work. A friend who’s a nurse—supposedly a recession-proof trade—was hurt when a second-floor balcony at her rented home gave way under her feet. Memory impairment from the resulting head injury has put her out of commission for the nursing business. So, you’re smart to develop a few strategies, preferably well in advance of the fact, that will blunt the worst of the damage.

1. Establish a budget and keep track of your spending.

Knowing how much you spend and what you spend it onallows you to figure, quickly, what your expenses will be, where you might cut costs, and how much you will need for bare survival.

2. Develop at least one side income stream, and preferably more than one.

Each adult in the household should have a second income stream, no matter how modest. A second job or a skill that creates occasional paying gigs brings in extra cash while you have a job and can at least help if you suddenly find yourself out of work. Responsible teens may also be encouraged to build income streams, to the extent that these don’t interfere with schooling and healthy activities. Examples include blogging, selling crafts, mowing lawns, pet-sitting, babysitting, organizing yard sales, bagging groceries.

3. Keep your résumé up to date.

Goes without saying, doesn’t it?

4. Identify job boards and bookmark HR sites of companies or agencies where you might apply for work.

Do this even if you don’t expect to be laid off. It’s always a wise idea to think about where you might turn if you need a new job or want a better-paying one. Having thought this through in advance gives you a head start if the worst should happen.

5. Join and become active in trade groups.

Maintain a presence in the business community where you work, so that people will know you and you will know them. This, too, will give you a leg up if you have to seek new employment leads.

6. Build an emergency fund.

A second income stream will help with this. You probably should stash enough to live for at least six months. Given the current economic conditions, it might be wise to make this a higher priority than paying down debt.

7. But to the extent that you can, do pay down that debt.

The fewer payments you have to make, the longer you can get by on a reduced income.

8. Don’t rack up any new debt if you can possibly avoid it.

Make it do, use it up, wear it out: this is the time to kick on every frugal habit you know. If you don’t have a budget, start one now, and don’t buy any junk that you don’t absolutely need.

9. Stockpile.

A good freezer can be had for a couple hundred bucks. The one I bought a few weeks ago is the best buy I’ve made in years. It’s already cutting my costs, just by keeping me out of grocery stores. More to the point, though, by the time my job ends in December, I intend to have at least six months of food stored in the house, perishables in the freezer and staples such as rice, beans, and canned goods in the pantry. With any luck, it’ll be quite a while before I go hungry.

10. Plant a garden, even if it’s only in a few pots on the apartment balcony.

Thanks to the veggies that have grown in my yard all winter, it’s been months since I’ve had to buy lettuce. And the produce has been wonderful: fresh from the garden to the table. Freezing and canning these goodies results in a better product than I can buy at the supermarket and extends the garden’s value way beyond the growing season.

Taken together, these steps represent a strategy to prepare yourself for an unexpected job loss. Or for an expected one: they can ease your way into retirement, too.

Food Futures! Three-month stash grubstaked

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The plan to store and keep on hand three months’ worth of foodgot fully under way with a day-long voyage to every food and junk emporium within driving distance.

A week ago, M’hijito and I picked up the freezer at Costco, and he helped get it out of the vehicle and into its place of honor. Yah, I know: would’ve been cheaper to buy it off Craig’s List. But that would have a) entailed traipsing 30 or 40 miles across the Valley and b) left me with an unknown quantity. For a reasonable price—two hundred bucks—I got a brand-new unit with a warranty from a retailer that will take practically anything back.

Next steps were to estimate about about how much I would need to create a three-month stash of food and necessities, and then to reconnoiter to see how much was already on hand. I created an Excel list of all the storable supplies I could think of and estimated (sometimes wildly) how much would be needed for one month and how much for three months—the one-month guesses because there’s no way I can afford to buy all of three months’ supplies of everything I use from day to day. Here’s a PDF of the result.

A check of the refrigerator’s freezer revealed a surprising amount of meat—over a month’s worth. Of late I seem to be eating less and less meat, partly because in the absence of a gas grill it’s more trouble to cook than it’s worth. My stash was heavy on pieces of steak and light on fish and chicken, so I decided to pick up some of those at Costco, where both are already packaged for freezing.

Based on how much I already had in the house, I made a shopping list in Word showing how much of each item was needed to supply one month’s needs and how much for three months. Some items were likely to be found at more than one vendor: some things Safeway carries, for example, might be cheaper at Target or Food City. And some items that I would like to buy in lifetime supplies don’t appear at Costco: demerara sugar (shown on my list as “crunchy sugar”) is one such. In those cases, I listed the possible sources in separate columns. Then I had Word sort the table first by Vendor 1 and then by Vendor 2. This grouped all the things I needed to purchase by the stores where I thought I could find the stuff.

And then it was off to the high seas of commerce! M’hijito, having nothing much better to do with his time and needing to go to Costco anyway, joined the expedition as sherpa-in-chief. Thanks goodness! I don’t know how I would have hauled all the junk myself, or even stuck with the plan: it was 2:30 in the afternoon before I got home, and I’d left around 9:30 in the morning.

Surprisingly, this enterprise cost nothing like what I expected. I’d planned to spend about $500 for the initial grubstaking of the project. But the grand total of charges from Costco, Safeway, Sprouts, and Target came to $375.36, only $75 more than my usual weekly budget. I still have to buy gas, which will cost about $25—but that’s still only about $100 more than I normally spend every week trotting around to supermarkets and big boxes. For that amount, I got a full month’s supply of food, and then some.

But the truth is, the food alone cost significantly less: about $322. As part of the junket, I bought a number of nonfood items: storage jars, baskets to organize goods in the freezer, antibiotic ointment, trash bags, sponges, seeds for the garden. Three hundred and twenty-two bucks is not bad, for putting in up to three months’ of food.

Now we’ll see if this works! Can she stay out of grocery stores?

jul8yarnell1It would be ideal if I could cut trips to grocery and box stores to no more than two a month, after a first-of-the-month stocking-up foray. Because I have some produce growing in the garden—chard, lettuce, carrots, beets, onions, herbs—this just might work. It would be like living in Yarnell, my sun-parched brain’s idea of Bali Hai: clinging to the edge of the Mogollon Rim, you couldn’t very well drive 60 or 80 miles one-way to buy a few convenience items, and so you’d learn to make do between monthly expeditions.

In addition to the obvious savings from simply staying out of stores and having to plan each shopping list carefully, I believe that storing up a cache of food and household supplies, which undoubtedly will grow as the months pass, will create a hedge against the inflation we can expect to come down on us with a vengeance. Whether that happens or not, at the very least it will be a safety net in case of a layoff, or against the time when I retire and see my income drop by about 60 percent. Any way you look at it, this appears to be a good idea.