DH: on the brink of losing his job

Well, I've mentioned it a little before, but DH went in to work last night and found out that because he's missed so many days, they're cutting his hours.  He was a little upset, but I honestly don't see how he can be too upset, because on his very first day of work, he explained to me how it works, and every single time he's called in since then, I've reminded him of what could happen....and now it's happening.  They go by a "points" system where he works.  If you are tardy, it's one point.  If you call in sick on a weekday, it's 1 point.  If you call in sick on a Friday or Saturday, it's 2 points, and there are some days when they are super busy, where if you call in, it can be 3 points.  When you get to eight points, they take one of your shifts away.  At 9 points, they take another (total of two shifts) away.  And when you get to ten points, you're fired.

I'm nervous.  Even losing one shift is a lot of money.  But I've known since he started that this job of his probably wouldn't last....

But.....I'm still hoping that maybe the disability will come through....that way, we'll still have some sort of income from him if he loses his job.

On a more optimistic side....I have had my 6 month review at work (it was a good one) and I passed probation, so I'm now a permanent county employee there.  I also got a .60/hr raise (yay!).  I'm still quite a bit below what I was making before, but doing quite a bit better than if I was working at WalMart.....

I'm so much hoping that the disability comes through.  DH has told me a lot about the hearing, and he hasn't told me anything that would make me think that the judge realistically thought he could do anything....but, like I told DH, "based on how things have been for us these last few years, good financial stuff (with the exception of my job and possibly his) just does not seem to happen to us."  So it'll be nice if it happens, but "par for the course" if it doesn't.

Along those lines, this past week, one morning I got into work, logged on to my computer, and went to check my bank account to make sure my balance was what I thought it was.  It wasn't. (!)  Someone somewhere had charged internet service and textbooks to my check card somehow.  So I lost about $150 before the bank shut the card off.  It appears that the purchases were made only minutes before I signed on to check my account, so that was lucky--who knows how much damage they would've done if I hadn't been so anal about keeping track of that stuff?  But.....that money was earmarked to pay DH's year-old dentist bill (which totals $400) and now I won't be able to pay that until the bank fixes things (they said they'd put the money back into my account in about 2 weeks)....sigh....just one more stressor...

I just seem to get so panicked when the money stuff doesn't leave me/us any "wiggle room" at all.  If the car broke down again, there would be no way to fix it.  I'm lucky that the vet, if there was an emergency, would hold a check or let me make payments, but I don't want to take advantage of that if I don't have to.....DH's disability back pay would help so much.....right now I can pay most of the bills on time.  But there's nothing left over, especially with gas going up....I desperately don't want to use my 401k to make things more manageable.  Right now, I'm hoping against hope that I don't have to.  I know what a bad idea it is, and every financial planner in the world says not to do it.  But sometimes, when I'm trying to figure out how to pay everything so that nothing gets shut off, it seems like a way to make things a little less stressful.  My plan before the disability potentially came into play was that I would use a relatively small sum from the 401k to pay off the bills from town here that are kind of "handshake" loans, where people/places gave us credit because they're nice and so are we.  I so much don't want to ruin any "good name" that's left.....but....beyond that, the credit cards.....well, I'm a lot less averse to filing bankruptcy on them.....I don't want to, but I would not use my 401k to pay those.  So if it came down to it, the plan would not be to use up all of my 401k to pay debt, just use a small amount to give a little "wiggle room" and take care of debt that I owe to people who I will have to look in the eye someday.  If the disability comes through, I won't have to worry about any of this.....and I'm sure hoping that it does....