Name
EN3220: Written Analysis
Instructor
Date
Critical and creative thinking skills are a must when you have a family with two working parents and two children. This past year my wife and I have had to become very creative with our budgeting to keep our family on a clear financial track. Raising a family can be tricky for anyone but when financial problems unexpectedly arise it really throws a curve ball in the mix. We had to do some quick thinking and come up with some unusual methods to keep our family on track with the holidays quickly approaching. We used creative thinking to look around for the ideas and critical thinking to put those creative ideas out and decide which ones would work best for our situation.
Last October with very little warning I lost my job. Now since my wife only works part time, I am the major bread winner in our family. My job supplies our money for our monthly bills, our health insurance and our life insurance. My wife’s paycheck is more for spending money and savings. However, our savings was extremely low because we had just purchased a new home a couple months before and had to make two unexpected trips home to Illinois within three weeks the month before because of illness in the family. When I came home and told my wife I was losing my job she was definitely extremely worried. We had to come up with a plan to keep our financial heads above water and quick.
First we sat down and went over each and every expense in our household. We took out the ones we didn’t really need such as extra internet fees and clothing allowances for the next couple of months. These were just luxuries and our clothing was fine for now. We wanted to try our best for now to keep the kids’ lives minimally changed.
Next we looked at ways to make extra income while I was unemployed. I am an IT security engineer so we knew that more than likely I would not be
References: Ruggiero, Vincent Ryan. (2012). The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought, Tenth Edition. New Jersey: Pearson