Thursday, May 2, 2013

FMLA

No, surprisingly I don't mean anything inappropriate with this acronym. (And how dare you accuse me of such! *wink*) I'm actually referring to the Family and Medical Leave Act, to which I will be taking advantage, in hopefully less then five weeks. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, FMLA entitles eligible employees to 12 work weeks of leave for the birth of a child.

Unpaid.

Uh-huh.

If only we lived in Europe, or anywhere else in the world for that matter. (Seriously!)

Anyway, as someone who has worked and earned a paycheck pretty much every two weeks since I was legally allowed to do so (detassling anyone?), going 12 weeks without such a paycheck is scarier to me then any impending childbirth. Luckily – knock on wood – I have an employed husband, a tax return to cover our deductible and some savings for things like, you know, food and stuff.

All bullshit aside, there's the potential for things to get a little hairy around our house and for that I am more than a tiny bit anxious. To that end, I've been researching and contacting nearly all of our bill collectors to see if we have any wiggle room in the way of paying the bills this summer. Surprisingly, most have been very helpful and willing to work something out with us. Aside from being able to defer all three of our student loans (please tell me we're not the only ones still paying off these bastards), we can also defer both car payments as well as lower our utility bill for the duration. And all of this we can do without any ill affect on our credit ratings, which frankly I wasn't so sure about since every time I called a company with such a question they automatically referred me to their collections department.

With both Shawn and I home, we'll also be saving a nice chunk of change in gas money. Shakopee is more then a stone's throw from our house so avoiding that round-trip alone will help keep food on the table and diapers on the baby. Also, while we still plan to send Maci to daycare at least halftime (for her sanity as well as ours), we have that option of having her home more which may come in handy should the well officially run dry.

(Let's just hope Mama's FREE liquid gold doesn't.)

In the meantime, pretty sure we'll use and abuse quite a few familiar faces to help occupy our attention: ol' Redbox, the local library, the big blue plastic pool and Como park and zoo.

And if all else fails, there's always 82 televised Twins games slotted for this summer…

**

How 'bout you? Ever gone through an unpaid leave? Got any tips, tricks or advice? Or free-will donations to send?


LinkWithin

You might also like: