Well, another month has come and gone and we are now halfway through the year. So far tracking how our our “real” budget numbers compare to our anticipated Fully Funded Lifestyle Change costs we seem to be pretty close. We have been averaging $4035/month spending and that’s assuming no mortgage, which ends up being ~$48420/year needed. We like to add in a little slush/cushion to round up to $55k, which is what we are generally assuming our year to year costs to be and we’re right on track. Heck, we’re even under budget, which I will never complain about. So what were the big hits and little misses that we saw this month?Time to get into some details!
Recently, I’ve been a little out of sorts and it’s manifested itself everywhere in my life. Most recently I had a pseudo-sleepless night, where I couldn’t get my brain to turn off until well past 1am, and I get up at 5:20am everyday… From the blog, to home life, and even at work I’ve noticed a general heightened anxiety. It just occurred to me today that it is stress caused by background noise of everything going on in my industry. I work in Oil and Gas, and well, unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard about all of the job cuts, layoffs, and restructuring due to the low oil prices. Today oil is around $37/bbl which is ridiculously low, and low enough that most companies can’t make a profit with those prices. They are stuck in the model we all rally against, “spending more than you earn”.
Most companies realize this and are working to reign it in, but with prices staying this low, it seems like a chasing the tail exercise. We meet the criteria to profit at $60/bbl and then it drops to $50. We are close to profiting at $50/bbl and the price drops to $40. We restructure and cut even more chasing profitability at $40/bbl and the price keeps dropping. It’s been this kind of background noise that has caused a lot of anxiety in me, because most companies are still spending more than they are earning. When you hear your VP talking about negative profit on some assets, you can’t help but wonder when the breaking point will be reached. Until then, I’ve been trying to find a way to quiet the background noise and give myself a break.
While most companies have been restructuring and reducing man-power, my company has been fairly light on staff reductions but heavy on reorganization of assets. This alone keeps me on edge a little because unlike Mrs. SSC’s layoff situation, mine would go much quicker which would be less stressful and that’s fine with me. But lately, the stress is starting to build. Now, I get daily oil price updates from almost all of my co-workers, which reflects their anxiety with this whole situation. There is so much anxiety being built up around the office, it almost feels palpable.
You all have read how Mrs. SSC’s company went through a large round of layoffs recently, but that was with $60/bbl oil, not $40/bbl oil, so now they’ve announced there will be more “tweaking of the manpower”. Rumors of layoffs are rampant around my office, and while I avoid gossiping, it’s all but impossible when someone shows up in your office and starts blabbing about the most recent rumor of layoffs, staff reductions, re-orgs, or the new low oil price. A lot of my co-workers are a lot younger than me, single income earners, and heavy on debt from school loans and/or lifestyle inflation and therefore are rightly worried about job stability. The running joke for 6 months now has been, “Well…. I wouldn’t go buying a new house/truck/car/vacation house/etc… just yet.” It’s just more background noise. But, as you can tell – all that noise is creating a stress monster.
Ultimately I have to figure out how best to settle this anxiety for me, so this is what I did about it.
First, I admitted that the anxiety is there. Yep, it’s that easy of a start, even if it’s not easy to admit. By admitting I was anxious, nervous or whatever, it gave a face to the nebulous low level stress and anxiety that had crept into my life.
Secondly, I avoid most news sources that are not contributing positively to my anxiety level. Which means, I just quit going to news sites in general, lol. Not for a “bury the head in the sand” approach, but again, it just doesn’t add anything positive to my life currently, so why keep that habit around?
Third, I reminded myself how we’d be affected if either or both of us got let go. Actually, it was Mrs. SSC that reminded me of this, but tomato, tomahto. This was good in that it reminded me that the sky isn’t falling, we’re not living paycheck to paycheck, and things will be OK if we both got chopped. In fact they could get better.
Finally, I just accepted it and let it go. I accepted there are a lot of things I can’t control, and this is one of them. Worrying about it isn’t helping anything, and it’s now causing me to lose sleep. Ridiculous! So like Elsa from Frozen, Just, Let it go! (Can you tell we have toddlers in the house?)
For me this strategy will help, but it will be some time before the stressful background noise is totally gone. It is a lot lower though, and I immediately felt a lot better. In fact, I’ve slept like a rock most of this week so far. I’d added a big burden to myself that was unnecessary and not beneficial to anyone. After I addressed it and then let it go, it floated away like 99 red luftballoons and I felt that much lighter. (Link to the video if you’re feeling nostalgic)
Now, Mrs SSC would like me to wrap up with something about the awesome power of mindfulness and how knowing what makes you truly happy can help in these situations, but it can be even simpler than that. Just taking a step backward for a few minutes and doing a quick examination is much easier than continuing to burrow into the ground trying to avoid the problem. I’m kind of bummed I’ve wasted so much time worrying about this situation that I can’t control, when honestly, even if there is a change, there is a high chance that it will ultimately make life better… Maybe it won’t be as easy as it is now, but I’m always up for a challenge, and we’ve positioned ourselves well for unexpected situations. Heck, we even have plans in place if those situations do occur.
Have you got anything going on in your life causing background stress? What steps do you take to deal with it?
So it’s no secret that the oil industry is going through a typical cyclical downturn. Blame it on what you want, but that’s just the nature of the industry.
The ups and downs of the oil patch!
It’s also no secret that companies have been laying people off left and right. We’ve been fortunate enough to not have to deal with this yet, however, our time has come. Mrs. SSC’s company has been making waves about “re-org’s”, consolidation of departments and the like since February, and it had been rumored there would be layoffs, but it hasn’t been official until the last few weeks. They recently found out that there will be 12-15% staff reductions all across the board, with larger cuts most likely in Mrs. SSC’s group. No one is safe. Being true to their nature as a huge bloated bureaucracy, they plan on releasing little info and dragging the process out into October. Yippee!!
Alternatively, back in March my company announced that we can “keep on, keeping on” indefinitely with oil around $50-$60 a barrel. We did some minor reorganization, stopped our hiring campaign, and put raises on hold. They still paid out bonuses though, which was nice, and my move was well timed, so I already got a nice raise just by moving, so it isn’t too bad.
This week will mark the kickoff of the layoff cycle with a release of some info, possibly blank org charts, websites to see how you will be affected, and the like. Yep, everyone gets to essentially re-apply for their job and compete with others that may also apply for their job. Joy! Being a large company though, some people have gotten more information quicker than others. For instance, on a recent fishing trip a friend of mine told that he knows his boss’s job and likely his job is gone, as his group is going from 21 to 11 people. He’s kind of freaking out, because he’s a sole bread winner for his family, and no-one is currently hiring. However, he has a pretty good savings account, and he and his family live fairly well below their means. While he is worried, he isn’t super worried because they carry almost no debt, just the mortgage, they have a good savings account and emergency fund, and they have an amazing support group available from their church should things get really, really, bad. Another friend of ours who works with Mrs. SSC, recently had his wife get laid off from a different oil and gas company. Since he is now the sole bread winner and also works with Mrs. SSC he is more than a little worried about what could be coming. Again, they live pretty well below their means, and manage to save a decent amount. His job still covers their bills, and they can still save some along with that. So, while they are worried, they are not as worried as some other friends of ours, but no-one wants to be out of work, and have to start tapping into emergency funds and savings while scrounging for a job.
In my new company, I’ve only come across 2 people who mention that they save money outside of their work retirement plans. Two people… One of them is a new hire, and he follows the model of “pay yourself first” and then live off what’s left over. For instance one week, we were going out to lunch (I know, I know) and I invited him and he said he was going to be pretty broke the next 2 weeks because of a miscalculation with transferring funds to a Vanguard account. Apparently, he’d set it up to make a “monthly” transfer and it hit his account twice. Instead of dipping into his savings or other funds, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Nope, can’t afford it for the next 2 weeks.” Commendable, because I would’ve just used “other money” and then “rewarded” myself on saving twice as much as I’d planned. Sidenote – I still have bad financial ideas sometimes. The other person has “outside of work” retirement accounts, and a fund for a retirement home rather, a house to live in in retirement already and they’re only in their early 30’s. The rest of the people from our work group looked at us like we had tentacles growing out of our heads when they heard us talking about Vanguard funds, retirement savings, expense ratios, and the like. One person said, “Why are you talking about retirement, that’s like forever away!”
That leads to conversations of other people we know that are not in the same boat. Specifically, a couple that makes two oil industry salaries and are freaking out about layoffs, because they still live paycheck to paycheck with little to no savings, much less emergency fund savings. Yes, you did read that correctly. This couple, in their 30’s with children, still gets occasional help out from their parents with bills and vacations. They like extravagant vacations, and they take them as often as possible. In between vacations, their spending habits aren’t reigned in well either, because that’s just the lifestyle they are used to. They know they should be saving more, or any really, but between little things here and there, and kid functions, and birthday parties, and groceries, they just don’t manage their funds well. They are really worried, because with a layoff from just one of them, their house of cards could easily crash down. They’re taking the ostrich head in the sand, fingers crossed approach and hoping for the best.
This attitude and lifestyle of spend, spend, spend rings true with more colleagues of ours than you might think, hell it’s probably not much different in your industry either. For the occasional person that may be thinking about retirement early, or retirement at all, everyone else is thinking about more ways to spend their paychecks. It’s just mind boggling to me that people don’t save more. I have to say though, if I was still single and hadn’t met Mrs. SSC, I’d think I was doing alright maxing out my 401k, and having my debts paid down. If I was diligent enough to actually have them paid down, which is doubtful. Even then, I would probably still be only a few paychecks away from disaster. It was living with Mrs. SSC that got me to realize how to break that spend, spend, spend cycle and start focusing on investing, saving money, and paying off debt.
As the weeks move on, things will be pretty stressful around here. Maybe we’ll luck out and Mrs. SSC will get to retain a spot on the payroll. Maybe she’ll get laid off, and get to figure out what to do next? I know we’ve already figured out exactly how it will affect our FFLC date, and our savings though. Since this post has already gotten so long, I’ll go into that in detail next week with part two of this crazy adventure! Yeah, layoffs!!
So far, June has been the month of things breaking around the house. I alluded to one repair that cropped up in our May 2015 update, and I was expecting to have to get new tires soon as well, but man, it seems like every time I turn around, something else has broken. What all has gone on? Well, let me tell you.
It started a few weeks ago when we noticed one of our pipes coming out of the house was dripping water. Mrs. SSC googled it, and found out that, “Yipe! That is our AC overflow drain and it shouldn’t ever be dripping water!” We immediately googled DIY AC drain cleaning. Looked pretty simple, just find the original drain, hook up a vacuum and it “should” suck out all the built up algae and what not. Bada-Bing, Bada-boom! Clean drain! I get in the attic, as this is where our main units are located, and trace the pipe across the attic to where it drops into the wall and into the guest bathroom where it is tied into the P trap under the sink. I start monkeying with the joints, and hooray, they have glued every single joint… At this point, I don’t want to start cutting PVC, and get myself into a plumbing rabbit hole nightmare, so we call around and find out it’s only about $69 for drain cleaning. I find this price point definitely worth it, so I set up an appointment.
My crude AC drain diagram
The guy gets there and cuts apart the joints, and snakes the line, and nothing. He gets in the attic, cuts apart the line somewhere else, snakes it, vacuums, and nothing. He keeps at it for 4 hrs. and kept re-iterating that there was no guarantee on this drain cleanout. After about 5 hrs., he got a bunch of gunk out of the line and it was all sealed up. However, because this wasn’t a typical drain cleaning, it was in the $450 range, and not $70, but I had signed off on this before he started, and inwardly I was a little glad it took 5 hrs., because I felt a little more justified. I also watched everything and asked lots of questions, and realized that with 5+ hrs. of my own time, I could’ve saved $450. Lesson learned for next time.
Three days later, we notice the drip is back. Yep, remember the non-guarantee about cleaning? This time I call no one, and head to Lowe’s for some PVC connectors, piping, and then start cutting up the pipe. I essentially cut the pipe near the unit, and disconnected it at the last place the plumber cut it. This was about a 10’ section of pipe, and after some finagling, I got it outside. There I turned the jet nozzle of our hose into it and even that wasn’t getting the blockage out. I poked it with a sink snake I had sprayed some more, and about a cupful of algae, scale, and God knows what finally came out. Then I go upstairs and 15 minutes later, clean drain. Yeah me! I was sorry that I didn’t try that sooner, but I’ve always had poor luck when I work on plumbing, so I didn’t feel confident enough to try it on my own the first time. Not anymore!
The second major cost was a broken garage door spring. I went to open the garage door, and heard a loud snap and banging sound. I went to investigate and I saw that the one of the mounts had ripped out of the wall. This was the mount that holds up our garage door overhead bar that the belt travels on, and keeps it attached to the wall.
Seriously?! This just happened?
The people who had installed it had just barely hit the stud with their bolts, and it had ripped out of the top of the stud, and out of the drywall, and was laying on the top of the garage door. I sighed, cursed a little, but 15 minutes later I had it repaired and sunk into a solid stud. Yeah me!
Yep, this is where it ripped out of the top of the stud.
When I hit the door button, it would only travel about 4 inches and stop. I investigated closer and saw the spring was snapped in half. Aye yi yi! I disengaged the motor and tried to manually lift the door so I could at least get the car out, and no. I could get it up about 2 feet before the other spring forced it back down. A couple of calls around and I got some rough quotes and found a place that could get out there that afternoon. This was about 2 pm, because I was home taking care of a sick little one. That repair for both springs (why wait for this to happen again) was right at $440 too.
I think home repair folks just look at some papers, shuffle them, and say, “Meh, that’ll be about $450.” And then shrug their shoulders at you with their hand out waiting for payment. It’s only June 10th, so I can’t wait to see what the rest of the month brings.
How about you? Have you run into any unexpected home repairs recently?
Did you have the time to DIY them, or did you call someone?
Anyone else feel like it’s at least $100 for someone to show up to your house to say “This will cost more than $100.”
Recently, the SSC household has been dealing with loss. Mrs. SSC’s grandmother, after whom our baby girl was named, peacefully succumbed to age. As the final weeks of her life drew near the urgency with which to make plans, get plane tickets, hotel reservations, car rental all grew and grew. It was a very stressful time for everyone involved, particularly Mrs. SSC and her father who are over-planners. As we waited to see if Mrs. SSC’s grandmother would pull out of it and get better, we watched prices go up, down, up, and up some more. Eventually, she did pass away in her sleep, and we made preparations to travel across the country to pay our respects. Luckily, we are currently in a financial position that money was not an object in planning travel. I mean, don’t get me wrong – the airlines robbed us, but we are fortunate enough to be still be able to pay bills, and not have to ponder whether or not we should travel.
All of these preparations got me to thinking about when I lost my dad and my grandparents, years ago. I wasn’t in nearly as comfortable of a place financially and it would almost break me every time I would need to travel for funerals. Besides the added costs of last-minute trips, I was also losing time at work. With hourly jobs, sure you may be able to take the time off, but now you’re paying a lot for traveling to say goodbye, and you’re going to get a shorter paycheck in the subsequent weeks. Back then, I wasn’t ever disciplined enough to have a “real” emergency fund, so I couldn’t dip into that when needed. I would scramble around trying to rummage up enough money for the trip home, inevitably putting the costs on my credit card, where they would sit for months and years accruing interest.
When my father passed away, I was in a little better spot, but it was still almost $800 for a plane ticket, ~$250 for a hotel, and ~$200 for a rental car. Yes, I could have stayed with family, but my family tends to stress me out with their bickering, in-fighting, and excessive drinking. It was well worth it to have a place to go that was stress free. The costs were a little higher when my grandfather passed a few years back, requiring travel near the always-expensive Thanksgiving holiday, but even staying with family then, it was still close to $1100. Mrs. SSC’s trip last weekend cost about ~$1200, even splitting the rental car with her parents. Having that ~$1000-$1500 available for such last-minute travel is not a luxury that many people have, but it’s a cost that many of us have to bear, unfortunately too many times in our lives. When my Aunt passed away this last spring, it was again around $1000 for a single lane ticket, rental car, and hotel. We almost donated the money to cancer research instead, but I felt I needed to go, so I went.
I never thought about planning for “funeral money” in the emergency fund until this past week. Even in our household, budgets and monthly savings are going to be adjusted to help offset this recent unexpected expense. None of us expect someone to pass away, and even when they are very old or in very poor health, we never plan on the expenses for their funeral until the week prior to their passing, if you’re fortunate enough to get that kind of warning time. Even then, who can pull $1200 out of the air to accommodate those extra costs. Like us and most people, it will go on a credit card to be dealt with later, when the pain and grieving isn’t so bad. Now I am realizing that having that emergency fund to help offset the funeral costs is a big help. If you’re like me, I thought of emergency fund in terms of “emergency problems”, and if you’re like me, it was not nearly robust enough to cover 6 months of expense, let alone 2 months of expense. Really, who keeps emergency funds that really can cover 6 months or more of expenses? I know I wasn’t disciplined enough to do that, and I always blamed that I didn’t have enough extra cash to set that much aside, much less enough to cover more than the occasional car repair, school books each semester, etc… I didn’t plan on needing an extra $1000 in there to cover funeral related travel expenses. Unfortunately though, I found that if you want to have a true emergency fund, making sure it can handle that sort of unexpected hit is something you may want to consider.
Much like wills, this is an awkward topic, and one most people avoid because it makes them feel uncomfortable or sad, because they are reminded of past funerals they have attended and loved ones who aren’t here anymore. The last thing any of our loved ones would want is for us to get put out by coming to their funeral. Yet, invariably, we all are put out by it in many ways. Emotionally, financially, and even with schedules being changed to accommodate a last-minute “trip” back home, or wherever they live. It’s just a thought I had, that a specific emergency fund for funerals might not be a bad idea. (although Mrs. SSC says she would rather invest that money then sit on even more cash). For me personally, I wouldn’t have been able to replace my emergency fund quickly enough during grad school had I used it towards funeral travel expenses, as I lost 2 grandparents and my father within 18 months of each other, but hopefully, that’s probably not typical for most people.
My point is after having two funerals come up this year, and each one costing around $1000 +/- it seemed a topic that may be worth addressing. While it may seem morbidly specific to have an emergency fund set aside for funeral travel, or even those funds accounted for in your present emergency fund, if you get hit with the double whammy of a car breakdown time adjacent to a funeral, what was already stretched thin may just break. Maybe you are way more financially diligent than me and already have a well stocked emergency fund that can absorb the hit of a car repair, and impromptu travel, but if not, it’s something to consider. By accounting for that travel and related expenses in your emergency fund now, it can be one less thing to worry about when you are already dealing with loss and sadness.
