[disneysteve]

I was unemployed for about 3 months from Feb. 2000 through April 2000. I had quit my job and had nothing else lined up. I just couldn't stand where I was anymore.

How did we manage? Just fine, thanks to living below our means, a big EF and ebay. Almost immediately, I ramped up my ebay sales, listing 10 items/day for 10-day auctions (that was standard then) so I kept 100 auctions running at all times. My ebay sales for that 3 month period were over $5,800 of which about $3,500 was profit, so that helped out a bit.

Even though we tightened our belts to trim some expenses, we also did some rather non-frugal things. I wanted to take advantage of the free time so we took a spur of the moment trip to Disney World for 10 days. We already had active annual passes. We drove down and stayed at the EconoLodge for about $23/nite. The whole trip probably cost about $1,000. We also took a previously planned (and mostly already paid for) trip to Las Vegas for a week where I was attending a professional conference. We were careful on the extras while there and kept the spending to a minimum.

When I did ultimately return to work, I was underemployed for nearly a year, working part-time at first and gradually getting more hours. It was over a year before my salary was back close to what it had been at my previous job. That required continued ebaying and frugal living to keep from depleting savings.