Furloughed

So, it's about to happen.  K is going to be out of a job. 

He works for a cargo airline, and has his whole adult life, ever since he got out of school and got his A&P license.  The two companies that he has worked for in that time frame both flew for BAX global, or Burlington Air Express, or Deutsch Bond... however you may be familiar with them.  (you may remember Burlington from many years ago, getting in trouble for running tests on their train drivers before being hired to make sure that they were not predisposed to things like carpal tunnel... then refusing to hire them if they were).

So, back in 2001 the first carrier he worked for lost their contract with BAX global, and went into bankruptcy.  They left T town and eventually went under completely (I believe).  So, the contract that they lost went to the carrier that he works for now.  First he worked in their Stores room (parts man basically) because it was all right after September 11 and NO ONE was hiring mechanics.  He did that for about a year and became a mechanic again.  Then he became a pilot for them just in 2010. 

BAX got bought out by Deutsch Bond a couple of years ago because they weren't doing real well.

Over the weekend we found out that as of September 1, 2011, BAX is closing their doors.  All of the mechanics that work for the company are done on that day.

We were hoping that he would maybe have a job through the end of the year, as they have found some work for most of the fleet of airplanes.

BUT.  K is low man on the totem pole.  They do seniority based on age+years of service.  K has been with the company almost 10 years (10 years in December), but he is only 32.  So that makes him 42 for seniority.  All the other pilots are in their upper 40's and older.  So, low man.

Which means he's the first to go.

A good friend of his, which also happens to be president of the union, called him last night.  He felt horrible because two of his best friends (K being one of them) are about to be out of jobs.  He basically said that K will probably fly in August, but that will be it.  No severance, just no job. 

So, we are cancelling our vacation for next month.  We are looking at where we can pare things down to save some money.  We are going to figure out how long we can continue to pay for daycare before we have to pull her out.  We want to give enough time so that K can get his CFI (certified flight instructor) as he doesn't really have enough hours as a pilot yet to get a job with a big carrier.  Then give him a little time to try to find a job, before we pull her.

Oh yeah, and that money we have been saving up for IVF?  That's going to go to paying bills now.  (Katery - I know you asked about going straight to IVF in the past... yes, we have to.  K's last SA had only about 600,000 swimmers, with only about 30% motility and like 5% morphology.  So it's a waste of money to do IUI, unless we use donor sperm).

I'm really really bummed about this all.  I mean, I'm not real worried about him being out of a job, it will be nice to have him home more.  I know with him home we can be real good about removing some wasteful spending from both of us. 

But I don't really want to put off fertility treatments.  We can't decide if we cancel the appointments, reschedule, or keep them.  He is thinking that he wants to work any OT if they actually offer it to him in August, to try to help out with money. 

I just don't know what to do.  I'm honestly a little heartbroken over the whole thing.

The positive?  I don't have to worry about weaning Bug if we postpone treatments some.  That's the silver lining if ever there was one!

Well, back to work.  I'll have to stress about it more later :-)

Budget

I'm a little stressed.  We move at the end of this month to our new rental house, which is about 2x the rent we are currently paying.  We don't have any renters in our house back home yet.  We still owe the hospital for our delivery in July (long story, but it was the hospitals fault, they basically forgot about our account, and who were we to complain?  Stupid me had to bring it back up to them... trying to do the right thing.... ugh), so we are going to start payments to them soon.  K's newest student loans are going to come back soon for payment.  And now we want to start fertility treatments again, specifically expensive IVF.

Ugh.

I know we will pull through, I'm just feeling a little crazed about it right now.  We are really good with our money, but it's hard when the budget says you won't be saving much of anything to speak of.  This will change a little once we get renters in the house, which we are hoping will be soon.  But the problem is the first two months of rent will pretty much go to the management company, so we won't see much until month 3. 

Argh.  Well, I'm a good budgeter/saver, and I know this so I know I can make it happen, but that doesn't help the stress level.  Especially since I can't control how much K spends when he's travelling.

On a good note, I called the Ped about Bug and her horrible sleeping the other day, and he thought it might be because we were trying to wean her off her reflux meds.  So, I upped the nighttime dosage and went back to giving her her morning dosage, and guess what?  The last two nights she has slept SOOOOO much better!!!  Woo Hoo! 

Which means Mama has slept better, which makes for a happy mama, and a healthier Starbucks budget :-)