How long could YOU go without a paycheck?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| I'm a recent college grad who just got laid off after 5 months because of downsizing. I'm trying to get another job but I was not socking away savings because I was aggressively trying to pay off CC debt that I got while in college. So I currently have no savings and no money coming in. Only option is to use those CC that I paid down. Grrr |
Anonymous
+1 If we knew the shutdown was going to x number of weeks or months, we could take action accordingly. But no one knows if it will end tomorrow or in April. |
Anonymous
| 7-9 months. After that I’d be hitting up retirement funds. |
Anonymous
|
We've gone 18 months. Twice. |
Anonymous
|
We both work and I make about 60% of our income. When my kids were young and in daycare, we had 6 months savings. As a contractor, I was out of work between contracts for about 6 months at one point. Being at home, I did the shopping and adjusted our purchasing, plus coupon'ed and shopped sales and cooked. We went out to eat once or twice during that time (as opposed to 1-2 times a week when working). At the end of 6 months, when I resumed working, we had half of our emergency fund left. Now the kids are in school, so our childcare is lower, but we have a higher mortgage. So, I'd say we could probably go about 9 months or so on one paycheck. Probably about 4 with no paychecks.
My spouse is a fed, but excepted, so has to work. I am a federal contractor and my contract is covered until January 31. So we have one paycheck coming in right now, but that will end January 31. |
Anonymous
| Probably 6 months if I tapped my home equity line of credit and used emergency account. Maybe longer if we were really frugal. |
Anonymous
This is us too. |
Anonymous
| If both my wife and I didn't have jobs, probably a year or more without touching retirement savings. |
Anonymous
| If I lived lean, I could make it at least six years. |
Anonymous
| Forever. We are already both retired. |
Anonymous
| Went 18 mos in NYC a few years ago. |
Anonymous
| Forever as long as my spouse's job stayed secure since we don't need my Fed income to cover our expenses. If that job disappeared too, we could last 2-3 years without too much trouble and after that we'd have to start liquidating assets which would probably give us 5-10 years depending on the market before having to tap into retirement funds. |
Anonymous
| I could miss one paycheck but after that I would have to use credit to pay bills and buy groceries. I have about $30,000 in untapped credit because I pay cc in full every month. I don't have enough saved but I only make $45,000 as a single person living inside the beltway. |
Anonymous
|
We are pretty young high earners with very secure jobs, but we probably only have 4 months of runway and we'd be pulling that from a brokerage account. We have a lot in retirement which I guess we could pull too, if need be. Our biggest issue is the mortgage - we have a large mortgage with a lot of equity in the house, but that wouldn't do us a whole lot of good unless we were to move (which we wouldn't).
|
Anonymous
| 6 months. Single mom, low salary. I'm always afraid of ending up in a van down by the river so I save and keep expenses low. |