How often do your worry about money and losing your house?

[Anonymous]

Worry about money all the time but not specifically losing the house. My job is low paying but stable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Often. I have a pretty good savings cushion but I am a single parent so if I lose my job there is no backup. My company is volatile. I would look for something else but they allow me incredible work from home flexibility and I'm not sure how I'd manage in a traditional office setting. So I just keep saving, but it never feels like enough.

+1 I'm single too. If I lost my job I'd go into short term survival mode, cutting all extras and rent out my basement. If things didn't look good for a job around here within 6 months I'd sell my house, move back to where I grew up and use the equity from the house to buy a townhouse and get what ever job I could.

I've thought about renting out the basement as a last resort. Does your basement have a kitchen? Would you allow renter access to your home? How would that work?

Not pp, but unless it is someone you already know very well, it would have to be a walk-out basement.

PP quoted (survival mode poster). It is a walkout with a full bath, currently for my Au pair. The AP would move upstairs to the guest room. And, yes, i would add the kitchenette. Figure it could bring in enough $$ to cover the monthly cost of the AP so I could focus on looking for a job. I might do this anyway when the kids get older and I don't have an AP anymore.

[Anonymous]

For a period of 18 months recently, no one had a job in our house. The money we had saved for renovations and our emergency fund all went into covering essential expenses (mortgage, food, etc) during that period.

Sometimes when the stress is unrelenting you become numb and your brain starts compartmentalizing the worry out of necessity. Thus I could do playdates, be invited by friends, and still enjoy simple social events. And other times, especially at night, I would be completely submerged by worry.

Now we are still dealing with the financial aftermath, have taken significant paycuts and are living paycheck to paycheck - no emergency savings yet.

This too shall pass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a period of 18 months recently, no one had a job in our house. The money we had saved for renovations and our emergency fund all went into covering essential expenses (mortgage, food, etc) during that period.

Sometimes when the stress is unrelenting you become numb and your brain starts compartmentalizing the worry out of necessity. Thus I could do playdates, be invited by friends, and still enjoy simple social events. And other times, especially at night, I would be completely submerged by worry.

Now we are still dealing with the financial aftermath, have taken significant paycuts and are living paycheck to paycheck - no emergency savings yet.

This too shall pass.

Well done for getting through that, PP.

[Anonymous]

3 months into no household income. I worried before because my fun, innovative company was bought by a crap-ass bigger company and we started shedding jobs. After the layoff I've focused on finding the next job. We don't have space to rent out so it's getting time to start drawing from my IRA. An expensive option but I'd given up on the fantasy of retiring before this anyway.

So, I guess my answer is that I worry about it all the time.

[Anonymous]

We bought a way smaller house than we could have to minimize this worry a bit. Our mortgage payment is not cheap but not impossible ($2200) and I feel like DH and I could come up with it hustling at lower paying jobs if we had to, so this alleviates some of my concern.

I didn't want to have my house be only tied to my job, so we underbought a bit, and I'm (usually) glad b/c its just a little easier to sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a period of 18 months recently, no one had a job in our house. The money we had saved for renovations and our emergency fund all went into covering essential expenses (mortgage, food, etc) during that period.

Sometimes when the stress is unrelenting you become numb and your brain starts compartmentalizing the worry out of necessity. Thus I could do playdates, be invited by friends, and still enjoy simple social events. And other times, especially at night, I would be completely submerged by worry.

Now we are still dealing with the financial aftermath, have taken significant paycuts and are living paycheck to paycheck - no emergency savings yet.

This too shall pass.

Well done for getting through that, PP.

Am going through same rough patch - good for you. Great attitude - and having gone through this - you realize attitude is half the battle. I tell my DW "tough times do not last tough people do" which I learned from my Dad...best of luck

[Anonymous]

Never. We live way below our means, almost have our house paid off, and have socked away a ton of savings.

[Anonymous]

We have a lot of savings, but even so, when I lost my job in 2010, it was very stressful. It did not help that we had very little equity due to the downturn. Prices have zoomed up in my area, so if we needed to ,we could sell and recoup the down payment. That helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Often. I have a pretty good savings cushion but I am a single parent so if I lose my job there is no backup. My company is volatile. I would look for something else but they allow me incredible work from home flexibility and I'm not sure how I'd manage in a traditional office setting. So I just keep saving, but it never feels like enough.

+1 I'm single too. If I lost my job I'd go into short term survival mode, cutting all extras and rent out my basement. If things didn't look good for a job around here within 6 months I'd sell my house, move back to where I grew up and use the equity from the house to buy a townhouse and get what ever job I could.

I've thought about renting out the basement as a last resort. Does your basement have a kitchen? Would you allow renter access to your home? How would that work?

Not pp, but unless it is someone you already know very well, it would have to be a walk-out basement.

PP quoted (survival mode poster). It is a walkout with a full bath, currently for my Au pair. The AP would move upstairs to the guest room. And, yes, i would add the kitchenette. Figure it could bring in enough $$ to cover the monthly cost of the AP so I could focus on looking for a job. I might do this anyway when the kids get older and I don't have an AP anymore.

If you ate paying an OP and adding a kitchenette then your survival mode is very different than mine!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Often. I have a pretty good savings cushion but I am a single parent so if I lose my job there is no backup. My company is volatile. I would look for something else but they allow me incredible work from home flexibility and I'm not sure how I'd manage in a traditional office setting. So I just keep saving, but it never feels like enough.

+1 I'm single too. If I lost my job I'd go into short term survival mode, cutting all extras and rent out my basement. If things didn't look good for a job around here within 6 months I'd sell my house, move back to where I grew up and use the equity from the house to buy a townhouse and get what ever job I could.

I've thought about renting out the basement as a last resort. Does your basement have a kitchen? Would you allow renter access to your home? How would that work?

Not pp, but unless it is someone you already know very well, it would have to be a walk-out basement.

PP quoted (survival mode poster). It is a walkout with a full bath, currently for my Au pair. The AP would move upstairs to the guest room. And, yes, i would add the kitchenette. Figure it could bring in enough $$ to cover the monthly cost of the AP so I could focus on looking for a job. I might do this anyway when the kids get older and I don't have an AP anymore.

If you ate paying an OP and adding a kitchenette then your survival mode is very different than mine!

An AP is one of the most affordable forms of full time childcare when you have two or more small children (after paying annual fee). Without childcare, I couldn't interview or get a job. I could add the kitchenette for under $3k doing 90% of the work myself, so it would pay for itself in a few months.

[Anonymous]

Never. DH has a very secure well paying job.

He also has a multi million dollar life insurance policy just in case.

[Anonymous]

Never. We bought/spend way below our means, so low we pissed off our real estate agent. Paid nearly cash for our house as well. DH grew up poor and without, so he's s stickler about spending/savings.

[Anonymous]

Hugs. Our house is paid off and we are employed, but we are in the minority we know.

[Anonymous]

Not losing the place. I've got positive equity and about 10 months' worth of take home in various accounts (and that's not even touching the 401k).

But if I have to raid the savings constantly ($500 here, $1000 there, etc.), then I worry I'll have to move.

I'd be able to structure the move so we wouldn't have to move in the middle of the night, but we've all made friends here and I'd hate to see that have to end.