We have one year’s worth of expenses in cash (yes I know, probably overly conservative, but DH insists). So a year if both of us lost jobs at the same time.

A long while thanks to a good real estate deal last year. Still I have tremendous empathy for federal workers. When I had was a fed, with a military spouse and three under the age of 5 things were very tight. We could not have gone more than a month or two.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In theory, we could live on one income forever. We don't have much left on our mortgage and we could cover all the bills under one income. And we wouldn't need childcare anymore with only one income.

In the case of federal workers not getting paychecks, they still need childcare, either because they are working without pay or because they know that have to go back to work at a moment's notice when the government reopens.

I'm the pp. We could manage forever with one income even with childcare. I have enough in savings to pay for childcare until my kid is out of the childcare years.

Approximately a year.

2 years. Much longer with lifestyle changes and unemployment. But after 2 years I would have to be tapping into retirement funds.

Many months, but I’d prefer not to run down our savings, so we’d probably both find retail jobs, probably him overnight and me during the day, to make it work.

If I stopped contributing to 401k completely and we lived totally bare-bones, probably 5+ years as we have $75k in cash. At our current rate (DH furloughed, me continuing to max my 401k) we will burn about $2k a month and things would get bad after a couple years.

A couple of months, maybe, but I'd be stressing. And with the stock market down so much, I wouldn't want to pull anything out of my non-liquid savings.

This whole situation is disgraceful.

I'd be pulling money out of my paltry retirement plan (with tax penalty) in less than one month.

No days

Anonymous wrote:In theory, we could live on one income forever. We don't have much left on our mortgage and we could cover all the bills under one income. And we wouldn't need childcare anymore with only one income.

In the case of federal workers not getting paychecks, they still need childcare, either because they are working without pay or because they know that have to go back to work at a moment's notice when the government reopens.

Anonymous wrote:If we pulled the kids out of daycare, 2 months. We are low earners and try to save but that’s where we are.

But if you knew you would have to go back to work at a moment's notice you wouldn't be able to pull them from daycare.

In theory, we could live on one income forever. We don't have much left on our mortgage and we could cover all the bills under one income. And we wouldn't need childcare anymore with only one income.

If we pulled the kids out of daycare, 2 months. We are low earners and try to save but that’s where we are.

Or your spouse if you are a SAHP. How long would you be able to float if you lost an income in your household.