Surviving on Unemployment Insurance

[PeppyGPhiB]

I was laid off for seven months in 2002 - the last recession we had. I'm hoping it won't happen again (knock on wood!), but many of my former coworkers from other firms have been recently laid off and I fear our firm could be hit soon. I'm fortunate to live in a state with one of the highest weekly maximums ($540), and indeed the largest UI account in the country (so no worries about UI running out completely). But even back then it was difficult. I was only out of school for less than two years at that point. I had to move back home, which sucked, but at least it allowed me to pay my bills and even save some money. For those of you worried about student loans, you should look into forbearance; it allows you to put your payments on hold for a limited amount of time until you get back on your feet, and in these times I bet there's info on every student loan lender's site about it. I hated putting my loans off back in 2002, but it was a Godsend for me.

Something else I did: I didn't want to risk going without health insurance, so I bought individual health insurance instead of going with my company's COBRA. I was young, so it may not be as cheap for some of you, but I was able to get individual insurance, including good prescription coverage, through my state's biggest insurer for $99 a month. My COBRA would've cost me about $300, so I saved a lot of money by doing it that way.

Benzgirl's comments about the face of today's unemployed was just as true back in 2002 as it is today. I was furious with George Bush's cluelessness back then, and I was pissed when John McCain made similar remarks during his campaign about training programs, education, etc. Most of the programs in the local Work Source office have nothing to offer me, someone with a college degree and computer skills. We can't all be software engineers, and even if we did have those skills, there aren't enough of those jobs to go around...especially when the local companies are flooded with foreign workers here on visas, working for much less than their American colleagues. But that's a whole 'nother issue.