A lot of  southeast Michigan people have been out of work for several weeks. My husband is among them. He works for an auto supplier, and there’s been no work for him since just before Christmas. That’s on top of an earlier layoff, shorted paychecks, and other financial hits we had to deal with in 2008.

We have been through a cash flow crunch often enough during the past few years that we planned accordingly. As soon as the layoffs were announced, we:

• Kept Christmas expenses as low as possible by watching for best available prices on gifts, greeting cards and holiday food.
• Planned medical appointments around the yearly changeover in deductibles and medical savings account funds.
• Loaded up the shopping baskets on every coupon / rebate deal that would be useful for our grocery or personal care needs during the next few weeks.
• Filed for the unemployment benefits on the first day he was unemployed. No, he did not postpone that task so he could “enjoy the holiday”. He started the application requirements immediately so he would get his unemployment check as soon as possible, and he still enjoyed his Christmas holiday.

I also posted for my readers a heads up on Dec. 18 with Five things you can do right now to improve your cash flow in January.

So far, we’re holding up OK.

But perhaps your cash ran out.

Almost Frugal has a post up called Drastic Frugality: When there’s more month than money. Kelly is writing from a community where the details of daily living are a bit different than for my local readers – for example, Kelly talks about walking instead of driving to her train stop. But the reason I’m linking to it is she’s talking about a mindset and attitude that translates to any geographic area or family circumstance.

And in August, I had a post called Where to turn when you are desperate, spinning off a column that can still be found at MSN Money.

Now, for my local readers, here are some very specific tips:

Go back to my front page and check out the huge list of links and tips on my blogroll and sidebars such as Food assistance in Monroe County. I particularly recommend the sidebar Do you need financial assistance? Tips to read first. Then click on Julie’s List, which has referrals for government and non-profit agencies all over southeast Michigan.

If you are a working-class or middle-class family, you need to understand that many of the opportunities you can take advantage of to save money or get financial assistance will have a very short turnaround time for taking action — on top whatever time it takes before you see any changes in your monthly cash flow.

This means you have to be resourceful, organized and willing to do whatever it takes to save cash on a long-term, consistent basis. And those details will vary:

• Sometimes that means taking your time and doing research on best available prices before you make a purchase.
• Sometimes that means making a change in your daily or weekly routine.
• Sometimes that means investing into a product or service that will save you money in the long run.
• Sometimes that means taking a hard look at what’s necessary to keep in your family budget vs. what you just enjoy having around.
• Sometimes that means filling out a whole bunch of paperwork that asks for very personal financial information with no promises as to whether that application will result in financial assistance.

But the more effort you put into frugal and resourceful living during the times when you have more money than month, the easier it will be to get through the times when there is more month than money.