The Chronic Consumer

I just got word that my mom was laid off today. I guess this shouldn’t be such a big shocker when the economy is as bad as it is. She worked in IT for a major insurer. They laid off more than a third of their IT group today — more than 300 out of 900 people.

As my mom is 60 (will be 61 in a few months), it’s not very likely that she’ll get another job in this field. As a result, she’s going to have to do some major budgeting overhauls to make sure her 401k and pension can stretch even farther than she expected they’d have to.

This layoff comes at a particularly bad time, though. She is in the middle of renovating her bathrooms and basement, and between paying for things like new ceramic tiles and Danze faucets, not to mention all the labor costs, she’s going to be shelling out a lot of money for the project. But it’s more than halfway done at this point, so it would hardly be feasible to back out now.

My mom’s bad fortune will also impact my own finances, as I’ll have to spring for plane tickets to go visit her, instead of having her come visit us as usual. So I better start pinching my pennies too!