Unemployment Question?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Have you ever been unemployed or your spouse? For how long? Have you or your spouse been downsized?

When this occured did you start to cut your budget? Did you try to stretch you EF to cover a longer period of time?

[CouponAddict]

I was unemployed (technically) for a year after the birth of our DS. It was my choice.

It cost less because we did not have to pay for daycare. I did not use my car as much so gas and oil changes etc went down. I did not have to spend money to replace work clothing. We downsized to a slightly smaller apartment with a yard (#1 cost less, #2 no more 6 flights of stairs to go up). I sold the stock I had from my work at the job talked about above. Because I have more time for it, I shopped for the best deals on food.

[jodi]

Dh was unemployed for a year and a half - fired for something he did not do, but we had no recourse since it was a "hire and fire at will" organization. Anyway, he immediately applied for Unemployment and received it. He then applied for a program that would allow him to continue to receive unemployment for a year while he returned to school. We were a little surprised, but thrilled, that he was approved. We have minimal living expenses, since we live family, so did not have to change our lifestyle dramatically during this time period. When the unemployment ran out and he still had one semester left, then we cut out corners as much as we could (including lessening payments to my parents for utility costs at their suggestion just until he got out of school). We were very lucky to have a great support system.
During the entire period of unemployment (1.5 years), we only took about $4k from our EF (which started at $10k). Some of this went to our Roth investments, some to regular expenses. I had a good job and supplemented out income by selling real estate all while he was in school.

[PrincessPerky]

Dh was unemployed (voluntarily) for the first few months we lived in NC..we lived with family..so we cheated on expenses, my pay was put away for getting a place and waiting for his job.

When I worked (pre kid) our budget of 'needs' was less than his income, so mine was mostly wasted (with some used smartly) While I would have used more smartly I am glad there was no major pain when I quit for kids. If I ever go back out of boredom (kids don't stay so young and cute forever) I would follow the same plan of not using my pay.

[Snave]

My wife decided to stay home last year with our child. She was a teacher and decided to quit at the holidays (the daycare was a nightmare - one day she asked for his empty bottles at the end of the day and there was a look of terror on their faces. They didn't feed him all day. Needless to say, she quit her job and stayed home). I lost my job a week later on December 31st, so we were both unemployed. My company actually kept you on the payroll for a few weeks b/c the layoff was due to a downsizing. They wanted to keep everyone on payroll until they flushed everything out and found out if there would be open positions left that the could offer you. So, they paid you for a few weeks, but your last day was at the 31st. There were some open positions across the country, but we weren't interested in moving to the open places. Fortuantley I found a job 6 weeks later.

[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.

[Ariadne]

FH was unemployed for 5 months in late 2006. Fortunately, we had purchased a home that was well below what the mortgage company had said we could afford.

Immediately, we cut our extra expenses. Cable was removed, high speed internet was cancelled (we got the cheaper plan so he was able to continue his job search). We stopped buying new clothes, and repaired what we had. All meals were planned out painstakingly.

He was able to apply for, and receive Employment Insurance. With that money, I encouraged him to go back to school part-time. We had a tiny emergency fund to speak of (I kept $500 hidden so he couldn't find it!).

What's really important is to be supportive of your spouse and help them realize that it's not the end of the world. Depression can set in really easily if a person has been laid off during the winter months.

[FrugalFish]

My DH was unemployed for 18 months around the turn of the century- end of contract/downsizing/ailing industry. Terrible times. He received unemployment for 6 months (that was the limit in the state at the time, had it been later he would have been eligible for much more). The real panic set in when the UE ran out and were were on EF only- which lasted for a full year.

We stretched it so thin and lived so frugally during that time. I hate to think about it- very depressing. Sometimes I refer to it as the year and a half I lived on beans, rice, and potatoes. That's not really a joke either. Eggs were cheap at the time too. Though in retrospect I realized we should have, we did not apply for any social services; we did it all on our emergency fund. The EF took a big hit, but we walked away from that UE with only about $2000 in debt- which we paid off with additional EF as soon as he went back to work. Needless to say, I'm a big advocate of emergency funds and other forms of saving!