I'm still trying to wrap my head around the real amount of lost income. My cousin was talking about how he's getting a 20% pay cut. But he's only losing 11 days of paid work (DoD civilian). Yes, 20% for those 11 weeks, but over a year, it's only a 4.2% cut if I'm doing my math right (11 days out of 260 worked a year).

I'm in the private sector making less than a fed doing what I do and had two years of no raises, one pay cut of 2% and then 2% raise a year for several years. Not as bad, but it's just something I've sucked up by only shopping sales, using coupons whenever I can, cutting the home phone, never eating lunch out, etc.

One way I've saved money is taking some of the credit card offers (2 free flights on Southwest, enough bonus points on a Citi Thank You card to get $400 in gift cards for places like CVS and Amazon). I've canceled the cards before the annual fee kicks in and it doesn't seem to have hurt my credit score.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason you are drawing negative reactions is that you come off as spoiled and entitled in your post. There are many people who are still recovering from the recession who don't have the luxuries that you lament that you *might* have to give up and you are claiming "woe is me." People don't feel empathy or want to give you positive feedback because you basically take your luxuries for granted. You epitomize what the have-nots hate about the haves.

We are cutting back on eating out, entertainment and are being a little more frugal with shopping.

Just goes to show you never know how people will react because I didn't get that sense at all from her post. I can understand that paying for housecleaning is an expense many people can't afford, but going from there to saying she is the epitome of what people don't like about the "haves" seems a little excessive.

These are the lines that come off very entitled and spoiled:

The furlough pay cuts will seriously eat into our down payment savings (we are renters). It is tempting not to make any lifestyle changes since technically we can afford it, but at the least I feel we should cancel the cleaners ($240/mo). DH is the one who will be home and he plans to get done the grocery shopping and cooking for the week. This would clear up wknd time for me to clean. I don't think we can cut our nannys's pay since we are in a share, although that would be the biggest savings. What temporary changes are you all making? Please don't chime in with the celebrations/traffic hurrahs. DH is highly specialized and works way harder for the government for the same pay as he did in private industry.

They can afford not to make any lifestyle changes, while many are struggling as it is and the furlough cuts will be devastating to their family budgets. There are many who will be cutting back on retirement savings, college savings, food budgets and car repairs/maintenance just to get by. There are many who don't have housecleaners and certainly don't pay $240/month on that. Nannies, even nanny shares are still on the expensive side especially in the DC-metro area and nannies instead of group care is often considered a luxury (how often do we see "I'm so glad that I can afford a nanny." on DCUM?)

Great. Point taken. Thanks for the careful analysis.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason you are drawing negative reactions is that you come off as spoiled and entitled in your post. There are many people who are still recovering from the recession who don't have the luxuries that you lament that you *might* have to give up and you are claiming "woe is me." People don't feel empathy or want to give you positive feedback because you basically take your luxuries for granted. You epitomize what the have-nots hate about the haves.

We are cutting back on eating out, entertainment and are being a little more frugal with shopping.

Just goes to show you never know how people will react because I didn't get that sense at all from her post. I can understand that paying for housecleaning is an expense many people can't afford, but going from there to saying she is the epitome of what people don't like about the "haves" seems a little excessive.

These are the lines that come off very entitled and spoiled:

The furlough pay cuts will seriously eat into our down payment savings (we are renters). It is tempting not to make any lifestyle changes since technically we can afford it, but at the least I feel we should cancel the cleaners ($240/mo). DH is the one who will be home and he plans to get done the grocery shopping and cooking for the week. This would clear up wknd time for me to clean. I don't think we can cut our nannys's pay since we are in a share, although that would be the biggest savings. What temporary changes are you all making? Please don't chime in with the celebrations/traffic hurrahs. DH is highly specialized and works way harder for the government for the same pay as he did in private industry.

They can afford not to make any lifestyle changes, while many are struggling as it is and the furlough cuts will be devastating to their family budgets. There are many who will be cutting back on retirement savings, college savings, food budgets and car repairs/maintenance just to get by. There are many who don't have housecleaners and certainly don't pay $240/month on that. Nannies, even nanny shares are still on the expensive side especially in the DC-metro area and nannies instead of group care is often considered a luxury (how often do we see "I'm so glad that I can afford a nanny." on DCUM?)

Thanks pps. I think maybe cutting our "entertainment" ie cable might be a good option as well. We already don't eat out much and definitely don't vacation. We could probably cut our grocery bill a bit too. The funny thing about my op is I included the information that technically we can absorb the cuts just to stave off the rabid DCUM fiscal conservatives lambasting me for living too close to my means. Oh well. Thanks again for providing insights into how you're handling this.

Anonymous wrote:The reason you are drawing negative reactions is that you come off as spoiled and entitled in your post. There are many people who are still recovering from the recession who don't have the luxuries that you lament that you *might* have to give up and you are claiming "woe is me." People don't feel empathy or want to give you positive feedback because you basically take your luxuries for granted. You epitomize what the have-nots hate about the haves.

We are cutting back on eating out, entertainment and are being a little more frugal with shopping.

Just goes to show you never know how people will react because I didn't get that sense at all from her post. I can understand that paying for housecleaning is an expense many people can't afford, but going from there to saying she is the epitome of what people don't like about the "haves" seems a little excessive.

We took a permanent 20% pay cut three years ago and income has flat lined since then -not Fed. 10% is fairly easy to cut, the next 10% a bit harder. The Feds I know, cut back slightly on their expenses last year so they don't have to cut back now. Just wait til next year when you have to take a furlough day every paycheck. I would look at what you can do for the long haul. Congress will not agree to anything in the near to medium future (at leat 2015).

We cut savings, donations as they are % of total income. We cut out pool, every other week cleaner, major summer vacation (make do with visiting parents), food budget- eat further down the food chain... We don't have smart phones, we don't belong to a club (we walk outside!), we don't eat out much, we have potlucks, we use the library, we don't send our children for expensive camps, we do our own SAT prep, we go to the free museums... DC's earn their own spending money. 16 y.o. has a summer job. 14 y.o. umps Little League in spring and fall. Both occasionally mow a lawn. We buy generic and not brand name. We try to repair things before considering replacing. I look at thrift stores first.

We cut out eating out. Which I find mildly frustrating as it was really our only "vice" other than a few bottles of wine here and there. We have no cleaners, no lawn service, etc., we already do that all ourselves, so there was nowhere else to trim unless we wanted to reduce/cut out 529 contributions or TSP contributions which seemed like a more drastic move given the tax consequences and long-term benefits of allowing that money to be invested. For us, it has amounted to about $600 a month reduction in my take home pay so far. Cutting eating out doesn't cover nearly that much, so I renegotiated our cable/internet package and got it reduced by $60 a month and we've also scaled back on discretionary spending, so where I never used to think twice about picking up a couple new books for DC or grabbing a new nail polish color while picking up a prescription at the pharmacy I've stopped all that.

$600 a month has been a rough pill to swallow, but I feel fortunate that making small changes that don't impact our future financial planning has been all we've had to do so far. If furloughs continue into the next FY, as I expect they will, we may have to re-evaluate our savings to see if we can free up a little money for the short term at the expense of our long-term goals. Or maybe we'll cancel cable altogether and look at reducing charitable contributions a bit.

At the same time, we got hit with a couple large expenses as our HVAC system died and had to be totally replaced and our garage door mechanism also gave out. Which is a little harder to stomach at this point.

The reason you are drawing negative reactions is that you come off as spoiled and entitled in your post. There are many people who are still recovering from the recession who don't have the luxuries that you lament that you *might* have to give up and you are claiming "woe is me." People don't feel empathy or want to give you positive feedback because you basically take your luxuries for granted. You epitomize what the have-nots hate about the haves.

We are cutting back on eating out, entertainment and are being a little more frugal with shopping.

OP, the PPs are idiots. Cancel the cleaners and hold your head high. You don't owe them anything. 07:27's comments are the stupidest thing I've read this week.

OP, sorry you got nasty responses. Our furloughs have been fewer/more spread out so we succumbed to the temptation of not saving quite as much. Good luck!

Hmm really? I'm the reason? I'm not sure where you got boo hoo from my OP. I was just asking for feedback on what others in my situation are doing. I know better than to ever be surprised by the vitriol spewed on this site but that's really a stretch. And to the previous nasty pp: even if you start with the assumption that it is my responsibility (not my choice) to be a robust consumer, it is easily arguable that the economy is better served by temporary penny pinching on my part for a long term improvement in my ability to spend spend spend. Jerks.

Seriously, OP,you are the reasoni have zero sympathy for those on furlough. Boo hoo you have to cut out $240 a month and clean your own damn house.

OP, we started cutting back on eating out and having the house cleaned last spring. We will continue with that.

That seems incredibly selfish. You are going to deprive someone of much less income than yourself of expected income without any notice? That takes the cake.

The furlough pay cuts will seriously eat into our down payment savings (we are renters). It is tempting not to make any lifestyle changes since technically we can afford it, but at the least I feel we should cancel the cleaners ($240/mo). DH is the one who will be home and he plans to get done the grocery shopping and cooking for the week. This would clear up wknd time for me to clean. I don't think we can cut our nannys's pay since we are in a share, although that would be the biggest savings. What temporary changes are you all making? Please don't chime in with the celebrations/traffic hurrahs. DH is highly specialized and works way harder for the government for the same pay as he did in private industry.