About 11 months ago, my husband’s company closed its doors and we found ourselves needing to live on one income. To put it in perspective, we were faced with living on one third of our previous income. We weren’t the only ones, as many of our friends were laid off and looking for work.

Thankfully, after almost a year of waiting, Matt’s first day at his new work is tomorrow! It’s been an interesting road to get to this point, so I thought I would share our perspective on life after being laid off.

For this post, I’ll focus on how we changed our mindset while also retaining a comfortable lifestyle. First off, I should note that we are mostly savers and had a comfortable cushion. You hear people talking about emergency funds and whatnot, so please let this current economy scare you into putting just a little bit away for your wellbeing in uncertain times.

(Source: Team Sugar)

Rethink Spending

Take a close look at what you’re spending and make it a habit of taking each and every purchase into consideration. For the non-negotiables, which are different for everyone, be creative in how you can save. An example: Matt recently called the cable company to see if we could save any money. One phone call later and we knocked off $30 a month! And we still have a free movie channel, DVR on two TVs and other perks. To us, we knew we’d be staying in, so this was a valued expense.

Get Priorities In Order

I think of all the workers out there who sacrificed family and personal time to help a company’s bottom line. Now that so many of them are unemployed, was their investment of time and energy really worth it? Sometimes working more hours is unavoidable with more people having added responsibilities these days, but it’s good to evaluate how time is spent so you aren’t neglecting the people and things you love.

Be Realistic

For us, in the days after the layoff, I pictured fun times together without spending money: tackling home projects on the cheap to increase our home’s value, flexing our cooking muscles in the kitchen and maybe even a little more Rock Band time. Yet, it was tough having to constantly turn down trips or nights out with friends and family. It turned out that staying home was the last thing Matt wanted to do, since he was there all day looking for jobs or doing consulting work.

Adjust Your Attitude

Being a fairly frugal gal, it was easy to cut back and use coupons. After a while, however, I would find myself daydreaming about things we could do with more money. This would sometimes turn into jealousy and coveting and then to some times of severe discontentment. It was great to have a spouse and supportive family and friends to remind me that it’s a temporary situation and that I should count my blessings.

Next week, I’ll look into tips to finding work. Until then, do share: Have you been affected by job loss? How have you dealt with it?