When the Recession Hits Home

It's been a bit of a rough weekend at the Honey House. On Thursday morning my supervisor called to tell me that due to the budget crisis in higher education and the current economic climate, as of April 30th I will no longer have a job. My perfect, part-time (two evenings a week), decent-paying job as a librarian will be gone.

I am being laid off.

For some reason it still stings a little. I guess I was hoping that they valued my contributions enough to keep me and that the recession would not hit quite this close to home.

We are very grateful that it was me and not my husband that is losing a job. We are thankful that we still have two months to figure out what we are going to do to make this work. I have time to see if there is some other way I can earn some money to help my family.

Can I just tell you that I am a little bit scared? Right now I don't know how we are going to adjust our budget so that our income will meet our expenses. We are working on it... trying to figure out what can get cut and where we can spend less. We have even discussed refinancing our mortgage. This kind of decision-making is hard, especially when you feel like there wasn't much excess in the first place.

I am also starting to look into other job options, and I am hoping this is where you guys (my blogging buddies!) can help me out. I would like to find a way to do some work from home... during the afternoon while the boys are napping... in the evenings when my husband is home or the boys are in bed.

I need your help and advice. After doing some searching this weekend I am feeling a little overwhelmed. Do any of you work from home or know someone who does? What kind of work is it? How well does it pay?

I am not really looking to get into selling via parties (MaryKay, Pampered Chef, etc.) because I know that type of job is not for me. There seem to be a lot of scams out there and I am definitely not interested in any get-rich-quick schemes. What I want is legitimate work. The kind where you put in the hours and you get paid for them. Any ideas?

I am fairly well-educated. I have a Master's degree in Library Science, so I am pretty good at doing research and working on a computer. I should be able to find something, right?

So help me out here. What do you do to try to earn a little extra money? What kind of work from home have you done? Did you like it, or was it awful? How have you been cutting costs at your house?