handling finances when you're between jobs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d suggest getting a budgeting app—I recommend Copilot Money. Link all your credit card, bank accounts, Venmo, etc. and import at least 6 months of past transactions. Spend a few hours categorizing past expenses so you truly understand your spending.

This is true. All these software require some time investment but they’re useful. For example, We were spending more on Amazon than we realized and were going to cut it when our Prime year is up because we don’t need a lot of the stuff we buy because it’s so convenient to click.

[Anonymous]

I can't even imagine wasting money on a "composting service" (whatever that is) in the first place.

[Anonymous]

OP, not counting your rental you spend $10,500 a month. How come you spend so much? I can’t imagine the things you are planning to cut amount to more than $1k. What are the big items? Do you have a big primary mortgage? A large car payment? Hire a nanny?

Regarding your rental, how much equity do you have in it? 100k? Keep it, you are getting good returns. 300k? You can do better with CDs

Regarding 401k, like many said reduce it to the match amount. It is free money that you want to get for as long as possible.

[Anonymous]

Put all of your energy into finding a new job. You have a few months of severance and some savings as a cushion. Even underemployment will close your gap. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

What kind of car do you drive op?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't even imagine wasting money on a "composting service" (whatever that is) in the first place.

Off topic, but they take your food scraps and other decomposable items and turn them into soil amendments for gardening.
I don't know what you are imagining, but a composting service is about $20 a month. I know OP listed it, but it's a rounding error in most people's budget.
My community picks up the tab for composting because it reduces the amount going in the trash so it reduces landfill/incinerator fees for the community.

[Anonymous]

Personally I wouldn’t stop all 401k contributions. I would drop it back to the minimum to where you get full employer match.

And then cut everything else. You don’t need anyone else doing services for you, you can do them. I’d cut down to one entertainment subscription service. No purchases unless they are essential. I’d also go back to tracking everything you are spending, it’s a good way to keep you focused. Definitely stop monetary donations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you do something like rover especially over the summer? Kids might enjoy it and 2 dogs could easily be 60$ a day.

I am not OP, but I am also recently unemployed. I live in Virginia. Unemployment pays me $387 per week. If I have other income, it reduces the amount of unemployment that I receive.

Doing something like working for Rover earning $60/day is going to cut into both the amount of unemployment that OP receives and the time that OP can spend at the computer looking for a new job and/or reaching out to her network to identify job opportunities they might be aware of. Doing that is a bad idea until you have maxed out, and thus are no longer receiving, unemployment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, not counting your rental you spend $10,500 a month. How come you spend so much? I can’t imagine the things you are planning to cut amount to more than $1k. What are the big items? Do you have a big primary mortgage? A large car payment? Hire a nanny?

Regarding your rental, how much equity do you have in it? 100k? Keep it, you are getting good returns. 300k? You can do better with CDs

Regarding 401k, like many said reduce it to the match amount. It is free money that you want to get for as long as possible.

It is a huge amount of money to spend each month. You've been doing something wrong for a long time OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t survive a few months off work, but can afford composting services, then you were clearly living beyond your means.

Totally! Actually makes me think this is a troll. So clueless.

Apologies if my posts were unclear or misleading. We do have money in savings, but I don't want to continue with the extraneous expenses so we dip into it as little as possible during this period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, not counting your rental you spend $10,500 a month. How come you spend so much? I can’t imagine the things you are planning to cut amount to more than $1k. What are the big items? Do you have a big primary mortgage? A large car payment? Hire a nanny?

Regarding your rental, how much equity do you have in it? 100k? Keep it, you are getting good returns. 300k? You can do better with CDs

Regarding 401k, like many said reduce it to the match amount. It is free money that you want to get for as long as possible.

It is a huge amount of money to spend each month. You've been doing something wrong for a long time OP.

oP was the primary breadwinner. They could easily afford the $10.5k with her salary added in (it was way more than the $4k from her spouse)

What they were doing wrong was not having a fully funded emergency plan. But no issues with using both salaries to live on. Life happens, and ef would help

[Anonymous]

OP, download Rocket Money on your phone. It is an amazing app, it will review your finances and show you how much you are spending in each category and really open your eyes to what you are spending. It will also let you know if you are paying (for instance) two subscriptions to the same streaming service.

Other recommendations-

1- Car insurance - since you have $ in savings, raise your deductible, take off rental car coverage if you are a 2 car family (you dont need a car to go to work right now if your breaks down), etc.

2- Cell plan - see if you are paying insurance each month on devices that are old enough that you will just replace them if they break and cancel it. Also, turn off a cellular line if you have one on an ipad and just use wifi with it. In an emergency you can access the internet on your ipad w/the hotspot on your phone.

3- App store - cancel any monthly subscriptions to stuff like my fitness pal.

4- Cancel any newspapers, digital media subscriptions, etc.

5- Cancel any gym memberships or other monthly fees

6- Cancel Amazon subscribe and save. If you order something by accident, send it back vs eat the cost, even if its $5.

7- If you buy the wrong thing at the grocery store or you get home and something is gross, return it vs trash it.

[Anonymous]

I would sell some of your index funds while they're at a record high and put in a savings account. You could sell 10% a week for few weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two tips from when we went through a tough period of unemployment:
1. We started going to the library all the time. It became the thing we did when we needed to get out and go somewhere, because there is no risk of spending money there. You can get movies, music, books and sometimes other stuff like museum passes.

2. Eggs. They’re good and quick on the nights when you are so tired and would’ve otherwise ordered food. Meal planning is great but you also need realistic meals for the nights everyone is too exhausted or busy to cook.

Add to your eggs, cabbage

Cabbage is so cheap. Paired with rice, onions and eggs, cabbage can stretch for 2-3 filling, tasty meals.

And pancakes. You can do pancakes with eggs and milk in the batter for some protein. Or you can make a frittata with sweet potatoes and some cheese. I ate a ton of eggs and rice in grad school and also leaned on carrots a lot for veggies. You can mix rice up with chicken stock if it gets boring. Trader Joe’s is usually less expensive, so you may want to look there. I would also try to eliminate as much single serving stuff as possible since it’s more cost effective to buy a big carton of yogurt than like 6-8 little yogurts. If portion size is important you can measure things out.

For snacks, get popcorn, real popcorn, and learn to cook it in a pot on the stove. One container of Orville Reddenbacher from Walmart costs about $6.00, and will make 10 or so generous bowls of popcorn, so with the oil and salt you can get enough popcorn to fill out a brownbagged lunch for less than a bit of change per lunch. It is much cheaper than most other snacks and filling too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adjust husband's tax withholding. He should be able to take home more. Also, he can dial back his 401K to the match, but not completely.

Yikes, no. There is some bad advice on here. Maybe that could technically make sense for the wife to do, with less income coming in for the family. But there is the chance they could be hit with a big tax bill next year. Early next year, when OP may still be out of a job.