Well paid government employees who can't afford a one or two week shutdown

[Anonymous]

Here’s my opinion. It’s taken me a long time to get here, but I try not to think too much about other people’s financial positions. There’s a lot we aren’t privy to. They could be supporting a family member outside of their nuclear family and it’s sucking up a lot of cash. Heck, they could have a gambling problem. The point: we all have our own challenges and rarely do any of us know about them

[Anonymous]

… or it could just be a phrase to illustrate they can’t afford the stress.

I have stress related health problems and I say stuff like this because I don’t want to go into detail about my health condition. Everyone understands money and has to deal with it - not everyone has my stress related health problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will say this again - TSA makes $43,000 per year, maybe a little more with locality pay. Does anyone really think two TSA employees married with kids aren’t stressed right now?

OP is talking about G13+.

OP, who is from 2013, is talking about specific people she claims to know who have high incomes, no partner, no kids, no debt, no medical expenses. I personally know 1 person like that and financially she's doing great. If she told me she was stressed about the shutdown, I would assume she was making conversation.

But the majority of feds, like the majority of Americans, have kids and debt and medical issues etc. A lot of us are married to feds or contractors or educators or non profit employees, all of whom are under economic stress right now. We're right to be concerned about the financial picture even if we have savings.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps because I work in land management, where people with graduate degrees fight for GS-9 jobs or spend years in seasonal and term positions, I just don't know anyone like this. Everyone I know who is GS-11 or above is doing all right as long as this is temporary. The people I know who are struggling are in lower grades and/or temporary positions, and honestly worried about issues like losing their housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, my DH is a GS-15 and I work for a nonprofit. We cannot afford for my DH to not get paid. I don't think we live extravagantly but somehow cannot save much. Due to some unexpected expenses lately, we have only $2k in savings. We have 2 kids in elementary school. We cannot afford this at all.

What is your networth? How old are you? Do you have enough years in yet to qualify for government pension/benefits yet when you retire?

Many DC area feds have money that many others don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. As I stated, in not talking about gs 7 s etc. I'm talking 100,000 plus no kids.

Ok, my SES makes over 100,000 and has no kids. She also has her mother in hospice care and has been paying for her sister in Detroit (their family was all laid off a few years ago) and their kids.

She won't be able to afford it because she won't be able to afford her mothers care or her sisters family needs.

In other words, you do not fit the situation ol is talking about.

[Anonymous]

All I got out of this thread is that Republicans are always behind shutdowns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. As I stated, in not talking about gs 7 s etc. I'm talking 100,000 plus no kids.

Ok, my SES makes over 100,000 and has no kids. She also has her mother in hospice care and has been paying for her sister in Detroit (their family was all laid off a few years ago) and their kids.

She won't be able to afford it because she won't be able to afford her mothers care or her sisters family needs.

In other words, you do not fit the situation ol is talking about.

OP doesn't know jack about the people she's judging. I don't tell my coworkers that I send money to my sick sibling, for instance.

If someone says to me "being furloughed has me really worried," I just accept that they are worried. I don't need to judge whether they should be worried according to my mental picture of their finances.

[Anonymous]

I have long since learned never to make assumptions about other people’s financial situations. Paying off student loans, paying off credit cards, supporting parents — what do I truly know about what someone else’s obligations are?
Also, having been in the situation of a sudden and unexpected interruption in a paycheck, I know that it can be hard to immediately figure out how to move money or adjust things to make up for the paycheck that didn’t come in. Maybe they haven’t yet thought through how they might make up for the lost income.
Bottom line is when I hear people talking about the hardship of suddenly being furloughed and unpaid through no fault of my own, I try to focus on empathy and being grateful I don’t have to deal with this myself.

[Anonymous]

I have a federal colleague whose child was born with a severe medical condition. They did prenatal surgery and moved their family closest to the hospital where their child would have the best chance (and even then it wasn’t clear how well she’d do). The was a long nicu stay, surgeries etc. My colleague told me, after insurance, what they owed and it was staggering. And that’s not including on going therapies.

That’s just one example of how even a good salary could make it very hard to save.

[Anonymous]

My colleague told me, after insurance, what they owed and it was staggering. And that’s not including on going therapies.

My teen daughter has had hard to diagnose medical issues over the past year that have required test after test after test. The amount that is not covered by our federal insurance really is surprising, including amounts that for some reason don’t count toward our catastrophic maximum. My colleagues know she has had medical appointments but clearly not the financial part of things. You never know what people are going through.

[Anonymous]

There are also people who can afford to miss a couple paychecks, but can't afford to never get a paycheck again. There are RIFs rolling out and the admin is saying they won't follow the law on backpay. You think we should just keep spending as though everything is normal? Or is now the time to worry and start trying to stretch that last paycheck and savings?

I had this conversation with my spouse last night, who was like "you haven't officially lost your job yet, we can worry about money when you do." I said, "the paychecks have stopped. There's no guarantee I'm getting another. The time is now."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can do this for a very long time without dipping into retirement because my house is paid off. We can live a very minimal life for a very long time.

Same here. I am GS12 and work in the hospital, so I am an essential employee who has to come to work. I don't spend like the rest of society, no restaurants/fancy vacations, clothes. Our house is paid off. We have one child in an elementary school. Our cars are 10 years old. I maximize my TSP and put money in the brokerage account. I could survive without paycheck for a couple of years if we would continue to live simply and not have any emergencies ( like health crisis/house repairs).[i][u]

But that's the rub right there, isn't it. Because you WILL have emergencies. Everyone at some point will have a health crisis or a water heater burst or a car totaled. If it hasn't happened to you yet, you've been lucky and you're due.

So we'll be fine for several months. But it's really infuriating and stressful that our emergency fund is being used for this, rather than one of the zillions of other life emergencies that might happen. And if one of those happens in the next few weeks... sigh. Things will get a lot more dicey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can do this for a very long time without dipping into retirement because my house is paid off. We can live a very minimal life for a very long time.

Same here. I am GS12 and work in the hospital, so I am an essential employee who has to come to work. I don't spend like the rest of society, no restaurants/fancy vacations, clothes. Our house is paid off. We have one child in an elementary school. Our cars are 10 years old. I maximize my TSP and put money in the brokerage account. I could survive without paycheck for a couple of years if we would continue to live simply and not have any emergencies ( like health crisis/house repairs).[i][u]

But that's the rub right there, isn't it. Because you WILL have emergencies. Everyone at some point will have a health crisis or a water heater burst or a car totaled. If it hasn't happened to you yet, you've been lucky and you're due.

So we'll be fine for several months. But it's really infuriating and stressful that our emergency fund is being used for this, rather than one of the zillions of other life emergencies that might happen. And if one of those happens in the next few weeks... sigh. Things will get a lot more dicey.

This! Being worried about not having a pay check (of even missing 2 paycheck for dual fed or contractor families) doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have savings. My family has savings, but we just had some emergencies (health/house stuff come up) so we have been re-building savings and it’s infuriating to have to spend down savings *while continuing to go to work every day.* What happens if this goes for another month or two and my family suffers a big emergency? Our next option would be to work with creditors and/or sell off investments, but that could trigger additional costs such as interest and taxes. I can’t imagine many people would be happy to continue working and incur extra expenses because of not getting paid.

[Anonymous]

I didn't have any savings (other than TSP) when I was paying for daycare, student loans, and medical bills.