@ the_fixer - it has been a good exercise in returning to a frugal lifestyle for sure. We definitely had some lifestyle creep this past year and this made us much more aware of where we mindlessly spend some money. There have been more than a few times since December that we have wanted to upgrade something in the house or eat somewhere fancy and we've said "after the shutdown." It will be interesting to see how many of these things we still care about post shut-down. Some of them are things we do eventually need but aren't urgent purchases.
That said, it is causing me far more stress than I expected. I am an extremely empathetic person. I don't say that to brag, it is actually a bit of a curse. I have friends that are in far worse positions than I, at no fault of their own, that are really really stressing during this shutdown and I'm honestly struggling with my sleep because of it. That's not the point of my post though and I very much appreciate the responses I got here.
I like the idea of pausing the contribution but then the pay periods where my husband gets his back pay, putting my whole check into the 401k to make up for it. We have a safe harbor so I don't have to contribute to get my 3%. I didn't think of that. And yes, we can rebuild savings from back pay too.
Thanks.