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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Like many in the DC area I'm newly unemployed.

I spent today going through our finances, and until I find another job, we're going to need about 5K / month just to break even.

In looking at the numbers there just isn't a way for us to close the gap without moving, which I don't want to do at this point in time.

Here's my list of things that will help close the gap:

- Stop all house cleaning & gardening help and do it ourselves
- Pulling the kids from summer camp the rest of the summer. (They're happy about this so don't feel sad for them)
- DH can stop contributing to his 401K so we have extra cash coming in. (Is this a bad idea?)
- Cancel our composting service and deal with it ourselves
- Cut out all unnecessary spending on personal stuff (clothes, books etc)
- Shave 20% of our grocery bill (no more prepared foods; buy bulk stuff online)
- No dining out.  (We did very little dining out anyway so we don't have much to gain here.)
- Wind down charitable donations. (I feel crappy about this but I have a few recurring donations that are a couple hundred bucks a month that we could use right now.)

The rest of the gap I can fill with savings for a while.

What else am I missing?[/quote]

I don’t do any of that to begin with! At least you have easy expenses to cut. [/quote]

Are you making these cuts to avoid drawing down on savings?  Or do you literally not have savings?  If you have savings, I would hold off on stopping the 401K contributions--they really do grow and you'll need them for retirement.

You didn't mention kid ages, but keep in mind that if they're not in camp and not old enough to entertain themselves it could be hard to job search/do job interviews.

Not sure if you have a lot of expensive kid activities, but those are often a good source of savings).  I assume you have already nixed any non-essential home repairs.   Also if you have any doctors/dentists who are out of network, replacing them with those in network can be helpful too.

I second those who said they wouldn't rule out moving.  It sucks, I know--but if extended unemployment, better to bite the bullet for something sustainable.  Those who are conservative with finances try to buy houses that are well below what they can afford to avoid having to sell in case of job less/medical issue etc. so it might be less stress in the long run.  Good school districts often have apartment housing that's affordable alongside more expensive houses.  
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