S/O Feds: How many missed paychecks could you sustain?

[Anonymous]

A year.

[Anonymous]

3 months. We are a GS-12 and 14 couple but have 2 daycare tuitions.

[Anonymous]

Ugh, with the upcoming holidays that we normally host (might havevto re-think this one) and as a family of 6, I'm guessing to January before we consider selling stocks.
Fairfax Co property tax and car insurance due. Bad timing.

[Anonymous]

We have sat down and looked at the finances this week. We could go the full quarter the FC is threatening and make the 2 college tuition, room and board payments we owe in December. But, it will be tight. After January, it get dicey and we’d need to make some assets liquid.

We always knew the two toughest years financially would be when we have 2 kids in college. We’ve saved like crazy, but we are still depending on cash flow for about 25%. And the oldest kid is a senior. So this is the last tuition payment. So close to the end! It was going to Be tight anyway. But with extra college related COVID costs and tuition increases our cost projections for the oldest kid were a few thousand dollars off (like $5000 out of $200,000 total).

It’s great to say— you should save for college (we did, 2 overlapping kids and neither will have debt), and retirement (we are) and emergency (we are). But sometimes you have to prioritize savings. And for the last two years, college has been the priority. Then retirements takes the lead (DH 50 and I’m 49, yes, we had kids on the young side).

At least we will get our emergency fund back after reopening. And if I had to, I could put the seniors tuition on a monthly payment plan. But I’d rather not. And won’t need to unless we have another emergency during shutdown.

[Anonymous]

Single mom. I can make it through Jan 1st bills but thats with bare bones spending.

I will be v annoyed if i need to sell investments in a down market to make ends meet, do Christmas for DC.

[Anonymous]

Main breadwinner contractor, we can last one month after a 4 month unemployment last year that ate up savings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guarantee that all of the people chiming in to say they would be fine going months /years without pay are non essential/excepted employees, many of whom will come out ahead.

There’s no way that those who are required to actually report for duty each day during the shutdown and incur commuting/childcare costs while draining their savings and forgoing investment dividends will tolerate it for months on end (especially now knowing that the non-working Feds will ultimately get the same back pay when the shutdown concludes)

I'm fine for a year or two, and I honestly don't know if I'm essential/excepted or not - I'll find out this week. But I'm a fairly new GS-14 who started after over 20 years in the private sector, so I'm in a completely different place from most.

I am really hoping for no shutdown, both for non-selfish reasons (I don't want others to be screwed and I don't want important but non-essential work to be screwed) and selfish (I have some vacation days scheduled starting the end of next week for something that can't be rescheduled).

[Anonymous]

Per Alexa math 37 paychecks, only because I sold my house last year and have been waiting to buy (proceeds from sale are in HYSA)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At risk of sounding like a brat, infinite. My husband is the bread winner and I work as a fed for the sense of purpose/intellectual stimulation.

+1. I feel terrible about others who couldn’t miss a paycheck.

[Anonymous]

In the 2018-2019 35 day shutdown we didn’t have much savings and took advantage of the credit cards offering deferred payments and delayed mortgage payments. It was scary enough that we changed our behavior. The following month I started putting an extra few hundred dollars in an emergency savings account in case this ever happened again. Beyond our regular savings I now have an additional $20k in cash in my emergency shutdown account so we could last several months without any spending changes.

[Anonymous]

About 4 months if I live like I live now (shopping, eating out, no list grocery shopping) probably 6, maybe 7 if we cut all that out. We have a trip planned for NYE week so I would have to give that up either way.

[Anonymous]

Three months. It used to be longer but we had to spend $$$$ to gets tested for SNs and then respond to the results.

I won’t have to work, though, so I can at least save on aftercare. But if enough people do that, some single mom making minimum wage at the after care places loses her job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guarantee that all of the people chiming in to say they would be fine going months /years without pay are non essential/excepted employees, many of whom will come out ahead.

There’s no way that those who are required to actually report for duty each day during the shutdown and incur commuting/childcare costs while draining their savings and forgoing investment dividends will tolerate it for months on end (especially now knowing that the non-working Feds will ultimately get the same back pay when the shutdown concludes)

Two different questions. The OP is how long you can go without a check, not how long you can work unpaid before you get mad.

But btw I pay for daycare whether I use it or not, so it's not like I'm saving money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 years but we’re mid 30s and have 6 figures of savings. Dual feds.

But would you and your DH actually remain Feds and both willingly report to work for two years without pay while draining your savings and forgoing at least tens of thousands of dollars or interest?

The better question is how many missed pay checks could and would you sustain?

NP. Could and would are 2 very different questions. My DH and are both GS14s with healthy savings. We could go a very long time without paychecks. But long before we reached that point, it would be obvious that the government is in shambles, and not only do we need to find a stable employer, we need to move to a country with a stable political system.

[Anonymous]

Dual feds. We have savings that could last 3-6 months. Most do not. But what if there is an actual emergency? What do we do then?