Back in November, at the first sign of trouble, I posted a hypothetical Emergency Budget.Now that the situation appears more dire it's time to reevaluate my finances to see how things will pan out were I to lose my job. Luckily it appears I will be able to ditch my lease once and for all in the coming weeks. So...as soon as the $85 Overdue Utilities are paid out, I will no longer be on the hook for my apartment!
Here is a new look at my fixed expenses:
Student Loans - 446*
Credit Card minimum - 15**
Prescription - 5(?)
Cell phone - 60
Collections - 385***
Total = 911 - are you serious? Yikes! That's worst than realizing I was paying $666 a month in student loans!
*Assuming I go back to paying $40/month for the School Loan instead of the $54 I have been paying instead.
**Excuse my ignorance, but do I have to keep paying this once the balance is paid off?
***260/385 in collections is for student loans but I separated it from the student loan total since you cannot defer a loan in collections.
This does not reflect any contributions towards living expenses (my fiance's mortgage and maintenance fees), groceries, or miscellaneous spending.
Assuming I qualify for full unemployment benefits, I will be making $405 a week on Unemployment, for a total of $1620, which means....I may be able to swing the Emergency Budget without even deferring my student loans!
It's not ideal, I realize, being out of work and not being able to fully contribute to our shared expenses but with $700 remaining I could still contribute to the groceries and have a little pocket change left over.
The only variable is health insurance and I'm still waiting on my meeting with the benefits representative to know what that sucker will run me for. Rumor is we're going to be able to continue on the State's plan for the same contribution we make now...around $100/month.
Forgive my nervous rambling as I await my fate.
5 comments:
Once you've paid off the balance of your credit card and it reaches $0, it's paid off. You'd only have to make payments if you use your card again.
But do not close the account. Keep it open, especially if it's your oldest open account. Just cut the card up and keep tabs on your monthly statements to make sure everything is kosher.
COBRA isn't $100 a month, but more like $300-400 a month. I'm not sure how exactly unemployment works either, so I wouldn't count on anything. Student loans and such, I'm pretty sure you could defer those if you become unemployed. I mean 2/3 of your emergency budget is student loan payments. I'd rather focus on actual survival like food and shelter first. Good luck with your Monday, my office recently did this around this time last month and it was not pleasant to see coworkers be informed they were no longer needed.
I'm told we don't have to go on COBRA since we're government employees so we'd just continue to pay our contribution to the health plan for a year's time. I've known people that have received unemployment so I'm pretty sure if they got the max I would.
Not sure if I would defer my loans or not. Maybe would reduce them to just paying the interest. Hopefully I won't have to find out.
Great post! This has inspired me to put up a post like this on my blog.
http://growingingracewithgod.blogspot.com/
Thanks!
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