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Another Government Shut Down Starts to Hit Home

January 22, 2018 by Lazy Man 13 Comments

Every few years, it seems like it’s another time to talk about how the government shut down affects our life. It started in 2011 and I wrote about it next when it happened in 2013.

A government shut down is a weird situation for most families of government workers.

We have a weird situation put on top of a weird situation.

My wife is active duty, but she has a position that is generally held by government worker. Because she’s active duty she has to work even when the government shuts down. At the same time, there’s often no guarantee if she’s going to get paid. Finally, she’s often becomes the division leader as the highest ranking official.

Everything’s generally confusing when there’s a government shut down. You’d think there would be a solid plan in place because it seems to happen often enough. Nope. It’s not easier that this happens over the weekend when most people aren’t work anyway. The most confusing of all is that my wife’s special case slips through the cracks.

There are so many questions. Are troops getting paid? (It seems like they might not be.) Does my wife count as being part of those troops? (Sometimes yes, sometimes no.) Is the office building going to be open or is she going to drive 2 hours to a locked door? Will the shutdown be over in a couple of hours or we plan for the long haul? (Who knows.) Can Tom Brady fix this? (Probably. Who would doubt his ability?)

So far it looks like my wife is still going to be paid. That’s a big one for us, because she’s the breadwinner. We found out that she won’t be the division leader this time, which is fine by me. (I don’t want to get into why she isn’t, but I feel it is a little controversial.)

It’s a very confusing time (Did I use the word “confusing” before? It’s confusing. Confusing.) However, it does seem like we are starting to get some answers. I know that a lot of people have had enough with politics, so I’m trying to put those thoughts aside. I will say that I spent much more time than I would like to reading all the updates and bickering. I should be focusing my attention to other tasks, but I can’t seem to help it.

I realize that this article is a little light on the “money” and high on the “politics”, but government shutdowns can be a real personal finance situation for us and we can’t be alone there. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll get to a real investing article. Let’s hope it doesn’t blow up on me like my recent GE article.

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Comments

  1. Joe says

    January 22, 2018 at 12:03 pm

    I feel ya. Mrs. RB40 is a civilian government worker. She has to go in this morning to sign some paper and then come home. At least, we’re comfortable financially. This will just be a much needed staycation for her.
    The Democrats are doing a horrible job at marketing on this one. The only thing we hear about is DACA which most people don’t really care about. They need to fight for the regular people too. They should have made CHIP funding the central part of this fight. Anyway…

    Reply
    • Lazy Man says

      January 22, 2018 at 12:42 pm

      It seems that Republicans were good with CHIP funding and that had already been agreed to in a bipartisan way. So I don’t know how you make it a central part of the fight if both sides seem to agree on it.

      I can understand why most people don’t about DACA, but if that’s the case, why is it an issue? We had it before (like CHIP) and it seems like it was agreed upon in bipartisan way that it was good. I haven’t seen a good argument against DACA, but maybe I’m missing something.

    • Steve says

      January 22, 2018 at 3:08 pm

      I heard on the radio that the Democrats were indeed losing the advertising (mud slinging?) war which is why they agreed to the 3 week, DACA-fix-free deal today.

  2. Abigail @ipickuppennies says

    January 22, 2018 at 12:47 pm

    I can’t imagine having to worry about working for no pay — let alone actually doing it. It gives me a stomachache just thinking about it!

    And for the record I think this post would only be political if you ranted about political parties or specific congressmen/women. This really is just a “Wow, this is happening to us” piece.

    Glad your wife is going to get paid. Because seriously I wouldn’t even consider working for zero pay. Even briefly.

    Reply
    • Steve says

      January 22, 2018 at 3:05 pm

      Isn’t it illegal to not pay people, sooner or later, for the work they performed?

    • ROBYN A. WEINBAUM says

      January 23, 2018 at 7:59 pm

      in the real world LOTS of people work for no pay: paychecks bounce, places go out of business, workers get reclassified as 1099 and their withholding and ss disappear.
      and independent contractors? All the time they get stiffed.
      fight it? who has the money for legal fees when you’re already scrounging?
      seen it, experienced it.
      welcome to the public sector where it happens EVERY SINGLE DAY, not just for a short time every few years.

    • Lazy Man says

      January 24, 2018 at 12:24 am

      Exactly. We have a better situation ourselves, but more people don’t.

  3. Sean @ Frugal Money Man says

    January 22, 2018 at 1:49 pm

    Count me in with the confusion around the shutdown. I am a contractor who was deemed “essential” last Friday. My contracting company didn’t seem to have a full grasp on the situation either because I reported to work this morning, then got a text from my supervisor 3 hours later telling me it was “good” for me to go to work…..It completely shocks me that there isn’t procedures in place to make this time event more manageable for all workers involved.

    I guess all we can hope for is that a vote gets passed soon!

    Reply
    • Lazy Man says

      January 22, 2018 at 2:13 pm

      It seems like it is, so I have my fingers crossed.

  4. Steve says

    January 22, 2018 at 3:12 pm

    I know you said your wife is the primary breadwinner, and logistically (driving 2 hours for maybe no reason) it’s annoying. But isn’t your family financially secure enough to handle a short disruption in income?

    Reply
    • Lazy Man says

      January 23, 2018 at 12:12 am

      I think they would probably have to pay sooner or later, but again, no one seems to talk about it or no for sure. And if it is illegal and they decide not to, are we going to take the US Government to court and jeopardize her pension?

      We’ve had a lot of emergency expenses in the last year or two. For example, last year’s condo assessments were tens of thousands. We had water damage at another condo that wasn’t 100% covered. We had some tree maintenance on our own property. That’s just a small sampling.

      My wife (like all military) gets paid once a month at the end of the month. So if the disruption stops the check from getting cut the next week, it’s probably a disruption for 5 weeks minimum. We can dig into a few extra emergency funds, but it still is scary that no one knows for sure. Fortunately, it looks like it is resolved already.

    • Steve says

      January 23, 2018 at 7:44 am

      Fair enough. My family’s immediately available emergency funds have dwindled as well. I moved most of it to I-Bonds, but man is logging into Treasury Direct a high barrier. I’m glad for you that the shutdown got resolved quickly.

      P.S. Go Pats!

  5. Greenbacks Magnet says

    January 22, 2018 at 5:08 pm

    It would be nice if we could find some common ground and work from there. I do not think anyone wants to see kids without healthcare or anyone for that matter. A shutdown is not the answer. There has to be a better way.

    Thanks,
    GBM

    Reply

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