First Person: How Our Family Is Dealing With Work Furloughs

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Until several years ago, the word "furlough" was used to describe a temporary leave of absence granted to military personnel. Thanks to the current state of the economy, "furloughs" have adopted a new meaning -- that of a required, unpaid temporary layoff from employment.

Work furloughs have become popular budgeting tools for many government agencies, both at state and federal levels. Since my husband is a state employee, he has had to deal with periodic work furloughs these past two years. Luckily for him, his boss doesn't assign specific furlough days but lets each employee decide which days off would least affect the agency. While most of his coworkers tend to combine their work furlough into multiple day breaks, my husband prefers to divide his furlough day over two or three days to prevent work from piling up.

One of the unfortunate aspects of furlough days is that state employees can't choose to take a vacation day or sick day during the same two-week pay cycle to help offset the loss of income. Since a single furlough day means a 4.5% drop in pay for the month, families on a tight budget have to either dip into the emergency savings fund or cut back on expenses for the month to meet that shortage.

While a slight drop in a monthly income doesn't seem like it should be hard to manage, it can be a hardship for families who are already paring costs to the bare bone. To finance unpaid work furloughs in our household, here are some of the different strategies we've used to make up for the income shortage:

-- Forgoing air conditioning for the summer to offset the loss in income.
-- Eliminating red meat from our diet and switching to poultry or meatless for a couple of months.
-- Taking advantage of payment holidays from either our mortgage or credit cards.
-- Pushing back scheduled maintenance work on our cars and home.
-- Postponing purchases such as clothes, shoes, small appliances and other consumer goods.
-- Take on baby sitting, house sitting, and mowing jobs for extra cash.
-- Skipped anniversary celebrations.

When it comes to dealing with a furlough, sometimes the only option is to do without. With the economy not showing any signs of improvement in the immediate future, "doing without" is something that all too many families are having to get used to.

More from this contributor:
Ten ways to cut food expenses and increase your savings.
How to use found money to jump start your savings.
What not to cut from your budget when times are tough..