Need Advice!

[brianj]

Last Friday was the last day before an extended one month shutdown at my job. As a former auto engineer I am accustomed to the annual year-end shutdown for retooling. It occurred every year, usually twice a year. We knew it was coming and we still got paid during that period. Since being laid off from Chrysler two years ago and working as a IT professional outside the auto industry I never experienced nor heard of a shutdown until now. Without any warning we were told last Friday during our Christmas party that we would not be able to return to work until Jan. 28, 2009!

As a contractor I will only have enough paid-time-off and holiday pay to cover 2 weeks. The remaining three weeks I will not get paid. Since last Friday I have been frantically searching the Internet, newspapers, etc. looking for "anything" that I can do to earn money over that three week period. I have even applied at White Castles, McDonald's and Burger King without any success.

Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brian

[trueknight]

If there is a Kohl's nearby you, try there. Nearly 80% of their employees in the dept stores are part-timers. In my area, I got on and hired in a matter of several days. Make sure to keep your availability open for weekends or they won't look at you. Hope this helps!

[disneysteve]

Do you not have an emergency fund? What savings can you draw from to cover costs for those 3 weeks?

Any jobs you can do on your own? Could you go out and shovel snow, for example? Anything you could sell on ebay? If you do short auctions or Buy It Now, you could have money in your account within a few days.

How much money do you need to come up with?

Any bills you can trim or eliminate temporarily? If you have cable TV, switch to the limited basic plan. If you have extra services on your phone, like call waiting, caller ID, etc., cancel them for now. If you get the paper delivered, cancel it. Don't cancel anything that will result in a charge for you to restart it, though.

[Goldy1]

Just be grateful you have a job to return to. Use this as a learning experience to do whatever you can to build up even a small emergency fund.
I assume you have no one to borrow money from? Gosh, I am glad this will be short for you.

My dh's past job did the same crap. They tell you they are shutting down for 2 weeks at x mas. you can't draw unemployment b/c they pay you the holiday pay for x mas and x mas eve.
WE never minded, but it sucks for the paycheck to paycheck folks,

[fruitbowlk]

Try going to the temp agencies. And yes when you start back working do everything you can to set a side a small EF.

[minnie1928]

How about delivering newspapers? It seems like they are always looking for people.

And, I would take the time to seriously look at your finances and figure out what you need to do in order to prevent a similar situation in the future. Three weeks without pay should not be a reason for a crisis. The reason for a crisis is that you don't have ample savings...that you need to change. Look at all your expenses, are they needs or wants? Find ways to reduce the costs of the needs and cut the wants wherever you can. There a lots of reasonably painless ways to reduce expenses, just make sure the savings make it to your savings account.

Good luck! Keep us posted and we can provide more advice/support

[disneysteve]

If you can post your budget, we can point out places where you can trim spending to get you through this rough spot and free up cash to build your EF going forward so this never happens again. I agree with minnie1928 that 3 weeks without pay shouldn't have you scrambling to find temporary work.

[snafu]

If your employer has abruptly, without long term planning, shut down from 12/19 - 1/28...there is a likelihood of more bad news in the New Year which hopefully will not affect you. The suggestions that you hunker down and cut discretionary spending could be very timely. Which items are you willing to release? Food costs cuts can be dramatic when you create meals from items on hand and limit shopping to the perimeter of the store where they keep the real food. [Recipes @ www.Cooks.com]

Keep entertainment to what you can enjoy for free! Rent movies from the library, skate at the nearby rink, play boardgames with family and friends etc. Most jobs are not advertised, go see catering, party restaurants & pizza deliveries, liquor outlets hotels. parking attendants who hire for the holidays, firms that do January inventories, bankfruptcy counsellors who are likely over run and need your IT skills for example.

I wish you the best of luck, these are very perilous times.

[disneysteve]

limit shopping to the perimeter of the store where they keep the real food.

I always hear this advice but I really don't think it applies like it used to when supermarkets were much smaller and carried far fewer items. At our local stores, you'd miss out on an awful lot of healthy food and inexpensive items if you stuck to the perimeter. You'd be eating a lot of meat and bread but not much else. The frozen foods are in the center of the store we shop at most. Canned fruits and veggies are in the center. Pasta, beans, rice, cereal, peanut butter, juices and more are in the mid-section of the store. Even the produce section isn't on the perimeter. It starts on the 3rd aisle in. We actually do very little shopping on the perimeter because we don't buy meat. 95% of our shopping probably comes from the inner aisles.

[wiliamsshek]

What price can i quote for my car ?