I know I said that I would be back on Friday with my next steps, and I will, but that post will largely focus on my job/career outlook. As I sat down to do my second, only slightly neurotic financial assessment of my pending unemployment, I thought I’d share my assessment here.

Retirement
I’ve decided to get fully financially naked here. Cause…why not.

• Fidelity
  • University A – $4,279.48
  • University B – $16,328.47
• Vanguard
  • Organization C – $5,937.20 – This will creep up by another $800.00 come this Friday when I receive my final paycheck from Organization C as a result of employer and employee contributions.

Yea…I really should have more saved for retirement at this point but you all know the story so there really isn’t a point in belaboring it again here. Also, the market has been brutal lately and my return on all three accounts is -%15.00. Obviously, during my unemployment, retirement contributions will cease.

Savings

• Emergency Fund – $5,000.00
• Other Savings – $5,500.00

The emergency fund savings is pretty clear given that you all watched me save it. The other savings is money I earned or was paid in July that is waiting to be allocated on August 1st because I live on last month’s income. More on that below…

August Budget
Below is my tentative August budget. The FDGM category seems incredibly light, however, I am trying to do a super low spend month while I am unemployed and I still have a few funds remaining on a couple of gift cards (~$100.00 in total) that I need to use up. I plan to track my spending in August here to keep me in line as I found that helped in February. On the income side, July was a good month due to the payouts from my academic camp work in June and July. I’m grateful that the check for the June camp work didn’t come in June, otherwise, it would have been allocated for student loan repayment on July 1st. Because I didn’t get it until July 1st, it meant that I saved it to budget for August, which allowed me to add a sizeable chunk to my savings.

Unemployment Budget
On my Excel spreadsheet, I currently have this labeled as my “September 2022” budget. It is a bare-bones budget, that doesn’t yet employ any cost-saving/minimum payment strategies and assumes I don’t have any income in August, which would be the worst-case scenario. In this budget, as with the August 2022 budget, I make an interest-only payment on my student loans, which are currently in a paid-ahead status and don’t require payment until January 2025. While this would allow me to not make any payment, I don’t have it in me to watch that balance increase, and I really don’t think I’m there just yet.

So…I would need to earn approximately $2,000.00 in post-tax income to meet my financial obligations each month. If I earned nothing each month, I could keep afloat for six months if I employed cost-saving measures in month three. I can’t imagine a world where it would come to this (I actually love working retail and I would do it in a heartbeat if I absolutely had to), but it’s good to see the numbers on paper.