I am so proud of my wife for passing her quarterly goal yesterday.  Her goal seemed unreachable at the beginning of the quarter, but she made it happen.  Besides the sense of achievement, this is great news for three reasons:

1) Her bonus plan pays $9,000 for reaching 100% of goal.  She passed 100% and is already up to ~$10,000 in bonus.  Plus, she still has the rest of December to add to the total.

2) After reaching her goal, she became eligible for other performance incentives offered by her company.  By way of these extra incentives, she has earned another $1,500 in rewards.

3) Due to her stellar performance all year, she made President’s Club!  The reward is $2,500 and an all-expense paid trip to an exotic locale.

In total, she has made ~$14,000 in bonus this quarter!  It will be exciting to see where the total ends up at the end of the month.  The bonus will be paid in February and will be a huge blessing to our family.

My wife just received her offer letter and it’s a good one.

They offered her a $60,000 base, $4,500 more than her last job. Also included in the offer is a bonus structure for up to 25% of her base pay. She also gets a company car and a complete home office.

That is WAY more than I made when I was 26 years old. Come to think of it, with her bonus and company car, it’s more than I make now. Good thing I’m man enough to admit it.

My wife’s company has been struggling and finally decided on Friday to layoff the entire sales force off.

It’s unfortunate, but not a total surprise. She had already survived 2 rounds of layoffs with this company and there were rumors and signs things were coming to a head.

Where does that leave us? Not in too bad of shape, actually.

• She will receive 2 weeks severance
• Her vacation will be cashed out
• She’ll be bonused on any sales until 4/2
• She gets to keep her company car for 2 more weeks

With $475/week of unemployment and reducing some of our expenses, we shouldn’t even have to dip into savings. Speaking of savings, with our tax return, our savings jumped from $4,327.37 to $9,320.43. We’ll likely need to use some of this to buy a used car, but the rest can act as a cushion. Plus, we should be able to continue to add a little bit into savings each month.

My wife is so on the ball, she’s already lined up a phone interview for tomorrow.

My wife found out yesterday at 30% of her company received an email that morning explaining they were laid off. We feel terrible for her coworkers that were laid off, especially right before Christmas.

Thankfully, my wife kept her job, but it was certainly a wake up call. So, I ran through the numbers to see how we would have been affected if she would have been part of the lay off.

The 1st negative impact would have been losing the $2,770/month income she takes home and her quarterly bonuses. Next, would be her company car and $110/month in cell phone and internet reimbursements. Finally, she’d lose her insurance and 401(k) plan (which she contributes 15% to).

We took a look back at what unemployment paid her before she found her current job. I was surprised it was a little over $400/week after taxes. That more than I remembered and supplements ~60% of her regular paychecks. Cutting back a bit on our retirement contributions and unnecessary spending would make up the difference. Losing the company car would be tough, but since we just paid off our $450/month auto loan, we’re in a better position that ever to take on another (small) auto loan, if necessary. Health isurance is very important, and since my wife is young and healthy, she easily qualifies for good health insurance that only costs $80/month.

Working through this drill was reassuring. Should her company do another lay off in a few months, and if she is let go, we should be fine. One possible wrench is my job. Sales are starting to soften a bit at my company, but we’re introducing innovative new products in February that should increase sales. Worst case scenario, I believe I’d be keep on until at least May. In the meantime, we’ll start socking away cash for added security. And of course, say our prayers.

My wife was informed by her company yesterday that she will be receiving a $1,000 bonus this weekend. This is in addition to regular bonus that she should receive in July.

Her company has exceeded their sales targets and, therefore, they are hooking up all of the sales reps. This is a huge blessing. We’re going to use the money to buy a bedroom set that we were planning to pull money out of savings for.

My wife has been doing such an awesome job with her new company. She’s working hand-in-hand with the VP to secure a huge account. They have a meeting with the account next week that will include both the VP and CEO of her company. Talk about great face time!

My company laid off four more employees this week, including my boss. That drops us down to 28 total employees. Thankfully, my old boss has come back over from our sister company to act as our new General Manager. I really enjoy working with him and am convinced that if anyone can help see our company through these challenging economic times, he can. Plus, I’ve stayed in touch with him since we last worked together and have been playing cards with him and some other friends every Wednesday night for the last few months.

These additional layoffs helped minimize the salary reductions that the rest of us have to take. I found out today that my salary will be reduced 10% (from $70,460 to $63,423), beginning with my 2/25 paycheck. I expected a salary reduction of up to 25%, so needless to say, hearing it will only be 10% was a blessing.