Being a contractor a bunch of us found out we are getting laid off Dec 5th. Lucky for me I have savings, an emergency fund, a few investments, and a spouse who has a decent job. The only debt we have are two cars. Might be about time to prepare to work on my dream jo, writing for a living.

Another option to help everybody around with the recession crisis is to check out http://www.bizsum.com.

A cousin of mine who migrated to the US lost a job but gladly informed me recently that after having read a summary from the website and also constantly browsing the blog (www.contsum.com/blog), she was able to get and apply tips on how to get hired and sustain that job.

It’s worth checking out especially during hard times like this which almost everyone is going through.

http://www.linkedin.com (professional networking)
http://www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)
http://www.realmatch.com (matches jobs based on your skills)

Good look to those looking for work!

A friend of mine actually has multiple “jobs”. He is a district manager, but he also has income from giving some motivational speeches. He said that years ago, someone told him that the wave of the future is in “multiple streams of income”. I am beginning to think he is correct. At very least, each of us needs to have a fallback position and not take anything for granted. I’m still working out what that second income might be, but I am beginning to get a better idea of some options.

It was okay for me because I knew if worse came to worst, I could get by working one or two retail jobs, but of course that’s not an optimal plan. I had been working in software and project management, and didn’t want to go retail unless I was desperate.

The first time I was unemployed I did some soul searching and identified some of my skills and interests (knowledge/information management), and identified a grad school plan (library school). I actually started grad school after being laid off the second time, and got an entry-level library job.

Lo these years later, I’m working at a gig that combines library and technology skills, so it all came together really nicely. I’m not at all worried about being laid off now (but I have calculated that I’d be able to squeak by on unemployment, if I had to). However I wouldn’t be adverse to having 16 weeks off at some point!

First off, if you suspect it may be coming, be actively looking for a job before it happens. I asked a high-level manager how safe I was. She assured me I was safe. Either she didn’t know, or she lied to me.

If it does happen to you, stay calm. It’s difficult, especially if the people on the other side of the table are people you once considered friends. They’re more interested in covering their legal requirements than in helping you, and that will show, and it will hurt. Find out what’s in your severance package, find out what, if any of it, is negotiable. If possible, commit to as little as you can in that meeting, so that you can come back and sign everything when your head is a bit more clear.

Of course, cut your expenses to as little as possible to make your severance package last as long as you can. Search, but don’t beat yourself up about spending 8 hours a day pounding pavement and not getting results.

And finally, if you do have a lead, don’t give up on other possible leads to chase that one. I gave up all other searching for a week because I thought I had another job locked up. Then that job didn’t pan out, and I lost a week’s momentum.

In the time that you aren’t searching for jobs, brush up on some skills. Spend some time at the library reading up on things that will help you on the new job. You’ll be doing yourself some good, and you can turn off the thermostat at home for a while to save a couple of bucks while you’re gone.

His business contacts keep saying, “Man I can’t believe you’re still available! If I had a job for you, I’d hire you in an instant!” But there are no jobs.

He has been moderately successful freelancing, and is currently making almost half of his previous salary working from home. It is more than it sounds like considering we have no commuting costs. We are doing okay, and barring crisis, should be okay until February.

But that home employment does not include health insurance, and that seems to be our biggest issue right now. The five kids and I are just plain uninsured, not good. Hubby is taking the COBRA option for now because he has high medical expenses. But that COBRA stuff is ridiculously expensive. I’ve looked into all the available insurance plans and we just can’t afford them and keep the house. We are about $10 over the wage requirement for assisted.

We are still living and learning.

p.s. i’m kidding

Try being a single parent, and living with the layoff axe looming overhead. I feel like I’ve had my head in a guillotine for about 3 years now at my current corporate job, but I’m too chicken to jump ship on my own because the pay and benefits are so good.

Well, luckily I’ve been living the frugal life for about 5 years now, and have no debt other than the mortgage. And thank God I have an emergency fund to help me if the company totally tanks and I don’t even get severance pay (I work for one of the major banks that recently failed and was bought by another major bank).

I haven’t really worried about losing a job, although there are times when it was a possibility, because I’ve always felt that I could get a job or two to live off of if I did lose a job. Then again, I don’t mind flipping burgers if I had to if I lost my 6 figure job.

I agree, that one of the best things hopefully to come out of this economic downturn will be the behavioral and attitude change among American employees. I think for the 45 and under crowd (I’m in that crowd) we have had too many easy years, from access to credit, to hopping jobs if we didn’t like eggrolls being omitted from the free lunch buffet, to merely being present to get a paycheck, to not having a real appreciation for money, to being self-reliant. Everything has been too easy these past 20 years, it’s about time we had to struggle. Fortunately for the 45 under crowd we have time to make adjustments and to teach our kids these tough lessons, because we sure didn’t have very many great depression era folks around to teach them to us directly.

We have enough $$ for the bills, we’ve been careful, had a condo we owned and sold it off to pay off our CC debt. We’re going to owe capital gaines tax but since we’ve been living on crap money we will get a ton back from the feds, so figuring that will pay for most of the capital gaines tax.

Our big problem is insurance. The kids are fine, they are on chip/medicaid and the sick one gets SSI so he qualifies regardless but DH and I do not have insurance.

Trying to purchase insurance is a joke, it doesn’t cover anything and the 1000 questions that they ask, so that they can prclude everything you’ve ever had, I just don’t see the point, however i’ve got about$400 in prescriptions I’ve got to figure out how to pay for.

I don’t really see an end in sight. I think he’ll find another crap job and back we go, however at least crap jobs keep the medicaid. Because if we don’t and have to go back to paying his medical bills, well we are better off with the crap job.

I have a question: should someone roll a 401k to an IRA in an economy like this (sell low and buy low) or wait (and sell high and buy high)? Does it come out to a wash?

My belief is that working 1 main contract or “consultancy” + 1 side contract is a great method for hedging against job loss and it puts more control in your hands.

Not that this would work for everyone, but given a cutback you can always simply ask to reduce hours instead of a cut altogether. But if contract 1 does eliminate altogether you can always increase time on contract #2 (or 3 or 4) hopefully.

Also, it’s a good way to keep your employer guessing… when things aren’t going your way simply start working less on contract 1 and more on 2 (3 or 4) and let them know that your other contracts are more lucrative … if they need you they’ll shape up.

It’s surprising how many industries you could do this in.

Fast forward a few years… I’ve built up a much richer network of contacts and colleagues that could help me should that situation ever occur again. We also have an emergency fund, no debt, and are less than a year away from paying off the mortgage entirely (thank you, Dave Ramsey!).

While I have no desire to relive that experience, I am moderately hopeful that I’d be infinitely more proactive and resourceful this time around…

We’ve been down this road before (I was laid off three years ago at a job that I had hoped to retire from), and we survived. I forsaw this coming a few months ago and diverted every spare cent from debt repayment into shoring up the emergency fund. I hated to do this, but flexibility is important in today’s environment. I haven’t lost sight of the goal to rid ourselves of debt, it’s just slipped a little further over the horizon.

So I got laid off yesterday myself. Once again, financially we have a cushion, thanks to very frugal living over the last couple of years. Careerwise, I am determined to rise from the ashes of this and find a new direction. This could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

still in a good position where i could survive without a job for a few months.. but i want to make sure i always have a back up plan in case that happens

The worst thought about a job layoff to me wouldn’t be the temporary loss of income, but the realization I would take a huge paycut once finding a new job. Making my debt reduction plans grow from 6 years until payoff up to 12+.

I have just been laid off today. I have to admit I am afraid, but excited at the same time.
Unfortunately, I have lived a bit ahead of my means and I have education debt as well. So I decided to commit to eliminating my debt, saving for a wedding, a house, and building my wealth.

I always wanted to blog as a job, I have just never felt like I had anything interesting to say. I planned on blogging about my, and my fiancee’s, journey to be debt free. The layoff will just add another wrinkle to the whole process.

DJ
http://theyoungandthebroke.blogspot.com/

Also, since we’re young and in good health, we got private insurance coverage at very reasonable rates–much more affordable than COBRA, at least.

Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com

My layoff story: I was low management in a big corporation that I had started working for while an undergrad student. As I got promoted, I started cutting back classes until I was taking only one or two per semester, and working full time.

The head office then decided to shut down our site. It was quite a shock, but before the day was out I knew that it was time to go back to school full time. I got my degree and got a job paying a lot more–by the time I left that job to go to law school, I was making nearly twice my corporate salary. And now I’m happy in my legal career and my salary has doubled again.

So overall, being laid off was a great push in the right direction. I’m fairly comfortable, and I love my career. I don’t think that would have happened without the layoff.

Instead of jumping ship when layoffs were predicted he worked even harder. As his friends got better paying jobs I started to get annoyed with him for not looking. It was a tense time at home. In the end though he was promoted instead of being laid off! His manager had jumped ship and he got to take over the position. He’s still not being paid as well as some of his former co-workers, but he learns something new each day and some of them are now being laid off at their new companies.

Another friend was laid off earlier this year from a high level position at a tech firm and now he’s writing a book and working as a consultant, making twice what he used to make.