I know this thread can very easily devolve into a political screaming match, so I'm asking everybody to please keep it under control.

For those of you who are not aware, Congress and the White House are deadlocked on the federal budget. If they do not pass a budget by Monday midnight, there will be a partial federal goverment shutdown. What this means is emergency services, schools, and the post office will still be function. Social security and medicare checks will go out, but approximately 10% of the wage earners in the county will either be furloughed without pay, or will be payed later when a budget is passed.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Sep/.../?#article-copy

How do you prepare for having zero income, or having a sizable chunk of the population having zero income at the same time? Many of these folks took 20% pay cuts during the 2013 sequestration fuloughs.