Unexpected Blessing

I had kind of a weird day today. I had three interviews, but none of them were specific to one particular job. The first two were for temp agencies, and they were very positive. I got some encouragement and some solid advice, but no real imminent job prospects. The third was a qualification interview for a major health care provider in our area, but that probably will not be going anywhere. With thousands of applicants for each job, they made it very clear that unless I have exactly the kind of experience they are looking for, I won't even make it past the computer system that does the initial screening. I also followed up on the phone on every job lead I've been tracking and got nowhere...

So I had a strange day in that perspective. High and low, up and down... It is exhausting putting yourself out there over and over and over again.

We met with a credit counselor earlier this week and got a good sense of the pros and cons of the tough decisions we need to make in light of the deficit we're running every month. At the end of that session, we made the decision to liquidate our retirement account. A tough choice to make, but definitely among the least damaging options we are faced with. This morning, we put that plan into action.

Did you ever have that experience where you put on a coat you haven't worn in a long time and there is some cash in the pocket? Well, I had forgotten that almost ten years ago, we set up our retirement accounts where almost a third of it was a joint savings account (not tied to an IRA). I'd totally forgotten that we did that because we stopped funding it in 2007 when our businesses began their declines. Basically, it allowed us to make a withdrawal today that did not incur any tax penalties. We have enough now to make it for another 5 or 6 weeks (longer if we pull the plug on our health insurance - another difficult decision to make). But "rediscovering" that joint account was a great unexpected surprise.

I'm grateful to not have the immediate pressure of the mortgage payment and property tax payment on top of me anymore. But I'm even more grateful for the sense of peace I have about the whole thing right now. Something has got to happen! Right???