When it comes to your job, here’s the good news: you didn’t get fired! You still have a job to come to work to day after day, which means that you’re still going to be able to take care of your family. A lot of people get really worried when their organization starts making changes, but for the most part, you walked away without too many scratches or cuts…or did you?

You see, you might still have your job, but the company may have asked you to take a salary cut. Of course, everyone knows that companies don’t just “ask” you to do anything — they’re telling you that you’re going to be taking a pay cut because it’s not feasible for them to pay you that higher salary anymore. Every business owner knows that one of the highest expenses is definitely payroll. It costs money to manage people, and it costs money to pay the workers, and it costs even more money to manage their benefits and other human resources information that’s absolutely vital to promoting a good company culture. If you really want to make sure that you’re on the safe side of things, you might want to think about a future where your salary would be cut and how you would make sure that your family is still safe even with the decrease in salary.

First and foremost, if you have a spouse that isn’t working because you wanted them to stay home, it might be time for them to try to get some sort of income going. Sure, it’s nice to be able to start a business, but if you’ve got to actually dig down deep and get money quickly, you might have to have your spouse just take a job that brings in money. It’s not fun and it’s certainly not glamorous, but the last thing that you will want to find yourself being unable to actually get things done because you’re thinking about so many bills at one time hitting your account. That’s something that’s only going to stress you out and make it harder for you to concentrate.

You will need to make sure that you’re really looking at your budget and that you can make changes at will. Yes, there are going to be essential services in there — we’re not asking you to give up your ADT security system alarm if you really feel that it makes you keep safe. However, you might be better off using your own homemade security protections rather than an alarm that can be quickly disabled, or bypassed through another method. A lot of thieves follow trends in the market as well, making sure that they can learn about any sort of vulnerability that they will be able to take advantage of later down the road.

You may need to even start thinking about buying different groceries than you’re used to. Yes, you can use coupons but you shouldn’t just use coupons to save money on things that you wouldn’t normally buy. Stray tuned to grocery store couponing circles that can help you take advantage of deals that you might have missed on before.

Overall, there are a lot of things to think about when it’s just a salary cut and not an actual job loss. One point that can’t be stressed enough is the quest to find another job. Yes, you might really like your job. However, if you’ve already had one salary cut, don’t think that your company will just keep it at just one. If they need to save more money, you could end up taking another pay cut or even lose another raise — that’s something that can really stress out even the strongest of people. If you really start thinking about it, you’ll find that your ability to deal with a pay cut is going to depend on how much you prepared for that rainy day. If you have an emergency fund, then it’s easier to weather the storm until you can find other ways to put money into the house. However, if you don’t have that cushion, then your agenda is going to have to mean starting an emergency fund. Don’t borrow from your retirement account, as that just puts you further behind. If you absolutely needed the money, then do so but try to avoid this action if you can.

We know it’s hard, so hang in there and put the tips in this guide to heart today!