DH is furloughed. We could be OK on just my salary for a few months, but I work part-time and things will be very tight. No money for extras, definitely no dinners out, and very frugal grocery shopping. A few necessray home projects (waterproofing basement) will be on hold for awhile. We moved recently and had some unexpected expensees. We had been diligently saving to get our "emergency fund" back up where we want it to be when this hit, so I'm worried if things don't get back on track soon we could be in trouble. We have a friend who is a furloughed single mom, and she's on unemployment so she can pay the rent.

I also live in DC, so am pretty anxious about city services being suspended if this thing drags on and on. Not having trash pick up and having my kids' charter school impacted would make this suck even more.

Anonymous wrote:Directly affected. Furloughed with federal daycare center closed. While I'm enjoying the time with my kids, our center is run by a small business that may need to lay off staff if the shutdown continues. These people are like family to us and it's breaking my heart.

Are these Fed daycare centers subsidized with taxpayer money or do Fed workers pay market rates for childcare?

Pretty sure my spouse has salmonella. So, yes.

Daycare is closed (but still charging), DH is essential, and I am private sector. DH is working round the clock and we are spending more money on childcare than we are making. It's very stressful.

Yes, of course. My job has been affected.

Directly affected. Furloughed with federal daycare center closed. While I'm enjoying the time with my kids, our center is run by a small business that may need to lay off staff if the shutdown continues. These people are like family to us and it's breaking my heart.

Anonymous wrote:It's a pretty sad statement on our society when we're being told we should just "rethink" our expectation that government be stable. Depressing, actually.

Hard truth, PP.

It's a pretty sad statement on our society when we're being told we should just "rethink" our expectation that government be stable. Depressing, actually.

Not yet. 1 Fed spouse and one consultant spouse on a Fed contract.

My agency is fee funded so still working and getting paid. Spouse is on a contract with essential Feds still working and getting paid.

If it goes longer--who knows. We were told we had been approved to get paid with reserve fees for at least 4 weeks.

We do have lots of savings so could get by.

Not really. Sure, it'd be nice to be able to visit Great Falls, Rock Creek Park nature center, and the museums, but those are not serious concerns (despite what my 4 yo thinks).

It could be worse. I lived in the Soviet Union attending high school when the entire country collapsed. Everything was owned by the government there, everyone was paid by the government, and all of a sudden there is no country and no government. My parents kept working without pay for about 9 or 10 months. My brother had to drop his PhD program, moved to Moscow and sent us $20 each month to buy food. Everyone's lifetime savings have disappeared too because they introduced a new currency overnight.

Right now, we are somewhat impacted by the shutdown. We finally decided to open a 529 plan for DD, but she has no SSN and the plan can't be opened without it. The SSA offices are not issuing the SSNs during the shutdown, so apparently we'll not be able to open the plan and get a tax deduction this year. Also, the stock market is going down...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The muted reactions are two-fold. 1) During the recession, when everywhere else in the country was in dire straits, DC was booming. There is little room for pity for DC losing a couple weeks worth of salary when their situations were much, much worse for years.

2) Except for a few areas of the country with a large number of feds (talking like CDC in Atlanta, big IRS centers, etc), DC might as well be a foreign country. Yes they read the headlines but what goes on here is so distant.

So I don't blame the kind of "meh" reaction. We here are all unique vested in it, others are not.

True.

DC is only the 4th or 5th most impacted city by the shutdown. Colorado Springs is hit hardest, and Honolulu, El Paso and I can't remember which.

Very minimally

I am a SAHM, my husband is military so he has been going to work and should get paid as usual. We don't live on base and I rarely shop at the commissary anyway, so the closure of that had no impact on me. I do like to hike in some of the local national parks, and haven't been able to do that--but that is really not a huge deal compared to what others are dealing with.

Anonymous wrote:These are furloughs, not terminations. Some will be terminated, especially contractors and service jobs. You will have a job to go back to, hopefully soon. Government jobs are no longer "stable" and what our parents had. Time for people to rethink government jobs and make necessary plans.

Will all of this drive the benefits and salaries, and demand, for government jobs down? So the lazy ones (not all Feds) can get paid what they're really worth, just about squat.

Yes, in private sector in real estate. Thanks HUD for f-ing up new loans and refis! Nothing is closing, no closing = no income