SAN ANTONIO – US service members around the world, and in Military City USA, are waiting to find out when — or if they’ll get paid.

The 23-day government shutdown leaves millions of dollars up in the air.

Their next paycheck is due November 1st. But as the day gets closer, military families are preparing for a worst-case scenario: no payment at all.

“It’s frustrating, it’s sad, and it’s an eye opening,” Janet Sanchez said. She’s married to a San Antonio Veteran and runs the non-profit ‘Esposas Militares’.

“When a military family hurts, we hurt,” she said. “So as a community, we all are hurting. It doesn’t matter if you’re a military active, national guard, reserves or a veteran family.. we all walk in the same steps.”

Thursday, the ‘Shutdown fairness act’ failed on the senate floor. It’s designed to pay all federal employees, including military members.

“It was gut wrenching,” Sanchez described. “I wish they can get along and stop pulling from one side to the other.. our military pay is hostage in the hands of people that we voted for to take care of us.”

“Right now, America’s military families are up at night at their kitchen table, worried about where ends are going to meet and where the next paycheck is going to come from,” Raleigh Smith Duttweiler.

Duttweiler is the Chief Impact officer of the National Military Family Association (NMFA). She’s also married to a marine and has steadily advocated for families at Capitol Hill.

She says this has gone too far.

“There was never a point for military families where this was sustainable,” Duttweiler explained. “We are, like most Americans, working families. We are barely getting by. We are living paycheck to paycheck, and we get it done as much as we can.”

Military members are paid on the 1st and the 15th of each month. At the start of the shutdown, paychecks for October 1 were processed and paid.

Once October 15 rolled around, things were up in the air.

“Money was found to pay the troops,” Duttweiler explained. “It didn’t go through the normal finance process that the regular pay period does…for so many others, whatever the process was, they got kind of lost in the system and their pay wasn’t right.”

Now things are even more uncertain.

The senate has adjourned until Monday afternoon, stretching the shutdown another four days.

Both Sanchez and Duttweiler are worried the shutdown has already left an irreparable dent in their community.