The biggest change has been the uptick in Tara’s business. Tara started a small business right around when Rhett was born, but just recently has started to pump a lot of time and energy into it. Things have gone really well for her and continues to be a good thing for our family. Check out her shop here. 

We refinanced our home.

Mortgage rates continue to drop to record low levels and home prices continue to rise in the area we live in. Our home appreciated $80k in value a year and half after we bought it! The refinance lowered our payment and got rid of PMI. With the renters in our basement, our portion of the mortgage is now only $600 :). Having the smaller payment has allowed us to save more, have more fun and enjoy our home more. Our home has been such a blessing to us. 

Covid-19.

Like everyone in the world, we were highly affected by covid-19. My job at BYU decided to make everyone who could, work from home. Luckily for me, I was already making a plan to work from home before everything went down so I was ready to make it happen. I moved my entire office setup to Tara’s crafts room and have loved being home all the time. Working from home has definitely changed my outlook on my job and the future of my job. I have so much flexibility because of this and I love it! If I want to eat lunch with Tara and the boys, I just walk upstairs and can be back to work at a moment’s notice. I also can work from anywhere in the US. In fact, I took 8 days to go to Idaho and worked from there. One of the bright spots of this dumb virus!

Investments.

Almost all of my investments took a sharp decline because of covid-19 and the subsequent “recession”. In March, I saw most of my investments go negative before bouncing back to new highs this August. The market has been acting strangely in my opinion. It certainly made sense for the market to drop when everything shut down because of the virus, but it didn’t make sense when the market quickly rebounded despite record highs for unemployment. There was definitely a lot of pessimism to go around, but the stock market kept chugging along. Most recently, however, the market took another sharp decline and may continue with the election tomorrow. 

Net worth.

Our net worth has grown since the last time I gave an update. Our home continues to grow in value and our investments rebounded from the downturn. Accounting for our home value minus what we owe plus our current investments + cash, our net worth is now $133,680. Not bad for being negative in early 2017. 

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or any future articles you would like from us, please feel free to leave a comment below, or email us at thefundfamily@gmail.com

Index Funds

My #1 choice for investment strategy relies on index fund and more specifically, total stock market index funds. I buy 2 different index funds called VTI and FZROX. Both are basically the same; they cover the entire stock market in the USA. There are a few reason I choose these funds over everything else.

1. Low Fees
2. They don’t charge commissions to buy
3. I understand them
4. I can manage them myself, without having to pay someone

Low Fees

VTI currently has an expense ratio of .03% and no commissions to trade. The .03% ER makes it so you only pay 30 cents per $1,000. FZROX has zero fees. That’s right, ZERO. Because of that, I’ve started putting most of my money into FZROX.

I have always believed that I am the sole person who will take care of my money the best. I don’t want to trust anyone else with my money because they won’t treat it as carefully as I will. Paying someone else to take care of MY money makes no sense, especially if I can do it for free. Vanguard and Fidelity make that very easy.

Understanding Index Funds

One of the biggest deterrents for people not managing their own investment accounts is their lack knowledge. You could spend loads of time trying to understand yield curves and R squared. I try to stick to some basic truths. JL Collins has the best series on stock market advice. I highly recommend reading his series. I follow the same beliefs and would recommend them to anyone.

There are a couple of things to look for when in index funds. 1. The price.

There are a couple of ways to find the price. You can simply google the ticker name (FZROX) and it should pull up with the current price. Or you can go on the site where you will purchase it and search for it there.

2. Risk Potential.

Stocks are “risky”. When you buy index funds, there is always the chance that you could lose money. My advice would be to go into buying index funds with the idea that you are in for the long-haul. “The market always goes back up” -JL Collins.

3. Portfolio Composition.

It’s always a good thing to know what you are buying before you buy it. The portfolio composition has a list of companies in the fund and a list of categories those companies belong to.

4. Rate of Return.

This may be the most important thing to know! How much money can you make on the index funds that you buy?

If you already own VTI or FZROX, you can look in your portfolio for balances and rate of return:

Active v. Passive Investing

There is much debate over which approach is better. Because I don’t have vast amounts of knowledge on investing strategies, I try to keep it simple. I also don’t plan to use my money anytime soon so I can leave my money invested, without having to worry about it.

These are some of the basics to picking winning investments. This approach has allowed me to grow my net worth in the past 3 years from -$10k to $35k. Not only has it grown $45k, I also get to keep most of it since I am not paying commissions or hefty fees.

I would love to help you start investing! Feel free to email me at thefundfamily@gmail.com or comment on this post. Let me know what you do to invest as well!

The Quadrants

Robert Kiyosaki divides how people earn income into 4 different quadrants. The E stands for employee. S stands self-employed, I stands for investor and B stands for big business. Kiyosaki heavily suggests only doing the B and I quadrants because it allows you freedom. With people or money working for you, you are allowed the opportunity to pursue other things you are passionate about without having to rely on a job.

Building Systems

The biggest point of the entire book is told as a story in the beginning of the book. It tells a story of two people who are given contracts to bring water to a town. The first person gets two buckets and goes to work bringing the buckets to the town every day. They are happy to have the job, but it is a lot of work. The second person disappears for a while and finally comes back with a pipeline that brings water straight to the town without him having to bring the water himself. The pipeline is a business system that worked for the second person. Once his system was set in place, he wasn’t having to work hard every day. He did a lot of work up front, but was able to sit back and enjoy his cashflow after that point.

Being Financially Educated

Kiyosaki’s prior book to the Cashflow Quadrant is called Rich Dad Poor Dad. It is an excellent book that I also recommend. In that book (and in this one) he describes his biological father who is highly educated, but poor financially. His Poor Dad relied heavily on his job and had false beliefs about what it took to be rich. His best friend’s dad was not educated, but a very wealth man. He built businesses that didn’t require him to be there and had investments that had his money working for him. Just like in the Rich Dad Poor Dad book, Cashflow Quadrant drives home the ideas that being financially educated is the most important type of education.

Along the lines of being financially educated, Kiyosaki explains that if you are financially educated, risk becomes less of a factor in your financial decisions. You will start to realize that being on the left side of the quadrant (E and S) are actually the more risky ways to earn income.

Conclusion

There were plenty of “aha” moments for me during this book and it definitely helped open my eyes on certain things. I felt inspired to do things that would help move me from the left side of the quadrant (E and S) to the right side (B and I). It’s not a “how-to” book that is going to lay out exactly what you need to do to start a business, but will help you understand what needs to go on before you create these business systems. It will help you start to become a better business person by changing your mindset now. I feel like it has given me a bunch of ideas on how to move to the B quadrant and the courage to start taking the steps required to get there.

You can buy the book here: https://amzn.to/35SkY9W

To check out my other book reviews, go here.

KIDS!

Shortly after I got my job at BYU Tara and I got pregnant with our first child, Rhett. One of the best things about working at BYU has been the benefits, especially the health care benefits. We’ve always wanted to have kids, but having good insurance made it a lot less stressful on us financially. Rhett was born October 2017 and then 21 months later, Jack was born in July 2019. I am super grateful that I have been able to provide a solid foundation financially for them because of my job.

We Got out of Debt

3 years ago, we were in a small amount of debt and had zero assets. Our debt came from two sources: a car loan and a student loan that amounted to about $10k. Because of this job, we were able to get out of debt and start putting money in our asset column.

We Grew Our Assets

Once we were out of debt, we started saving aggressively. I wrote an article back in August 2018 on how we save 40% of our income every month. We have been pretty consistent at saving close to that every month, despite buying our first home in November that same year. Once we bought our home, our focus shifted from high yield savings to index fund investing. We were already putting money away into my 401k every month, but we wanted to have more short-term investments. We started putting more money into our Vanguard account where we buy an index fund called VTI. Most recently, however, we started putting more money into a Fidelity index fund called FZROX (I plan on writing another article on this soon). Because of good market conditions and our aggressive savings rate, I’m happy to say that we now have over $35,000 in investments! In 3 years we went from -$10k to $35k, a $45,000 difference. Tara and I are super happy with where we are at, but feel like we can accomplish so much more!

We Were Able to Travel

Tara and I have always wanted to travel the world, but haven’t really had the money to do so. BYU has given us those opportunities. They offer 22 vacation days a year that also include 12 paid holidays. Those vacation days carry over every year which often means we have lots of extra time left over. Not only do I get vacation days, BYU sends me on work trips that I can bring the family along for. Our trips have included Italy, Disneyworld and an upcoming trip to Cancun.

How I view “jobs” now

My job here has been a huge blessing in our lives in a lot of different areas. It really has laid the foundation for us to grow in so many different aspects of our lives, not just financially. Having said that, I still realize that long-term I don’t want to have a “job”. Working at BYU may be the best case scenario for me, but I still want to have financial freedom one day and the ability to say: “I don’t have to rely on this job”.

Our long-term goal is still the same: we want to be financial independent. My job here at BYU has been the biggest catalyst in us getting closer to that goal and we are super grateful for that! It has been really nice being able to reflect on my 3 year work anniversary and all the things that have changed!

Avoid Debt.

We hope that this will be something that you guys (our kids) will get sick of hearing from us. Avoiding debt also helps teach important lessons about saving and interest. Our hope is to help them not be “normal” as Dave Ramsey would describe and think of debt as a burden, not a ticket into the “good life”.

Save first, Spend Later.

One of the best things we’ve done with our money, is made our saving automatic. Every month, money is deducted from our accounts and added to our “FU” money accounts and our investment accounts. Every month we do this, our money continues to grow. It has helped us not worry about having enough money to save at the end of the month because it forces us to live off of what is left after saving.

Learn How to Budget.

Budgeting is such a simple thing, but is so easy to overlook. It’s amazing to see the difference between the months when we budget and the months we don’t. Making and keeping to your budget will even make spending money the things you want a lot more fun. It takes away the guilt that can sometimes come with purchases because you know you have planned to spend that money.

Invest.

Investing doesn’t have to be complicated. You can learn a few easy techniques and do it all yourself. Doing it yourself will save you lots of money in the long run because you won’t be paying someone else to do it. Just like with saving, always be putting money away before you spend it. 

Learn to be Frugal.

There will be times in your lives when you won’t have loads of cash. Being frugal is the best way to make your money last a long time. Even when you are making loads of cash, being frugal is an excellent way to keep that cash around. Your mom and I have been through times where we had to stretch every dollar we had. Luckily both of us are naturally frugal people, but it is something that can be learned and perfected. Best way to practice this is to budget.

Always Be Learning.

There is always going to be new things to learn and keep up with, especially when it comes to financial literacy. Your mom and I love to listen to audiobooks to help us stay motivated and on the right path. Never be complacent. 

We hope that this will be something that will be taught in our family by example. Some of the best lessons we have learned in life have been through watching our parents. We will probably make mistakes as we go through our financial paths, but hopefully we can provide you with the best tools to make your own financial path successful. 

We love you!

Mom and Dad

If you follow Dave Ramsey at all, you’ve probably heard him talk about avoiding eating out (“Beans and Rice” ring any bells?). He believes that it’s the most important thing to get rid of when trying to get out of debt. When we were trying to get out of debt, we had a really hard time with this, because we LOVE food and especially food we didn’t have to make ourselves. Although we didn’t eliminate eating out entirely during our debt free journey, we did minimize it as much as possible. We are big believers in Dave Ramsey’s principle to avoid eating out if you are trying to get out of debt and strongly believe you should budget a specific amount every month.

Tara and I have been trying to save more and more money every month for a variety of things. Because of this, we have put our budget under scrutiny over and over to see where we can get better. The “eating out” portion of our budget seems to be the biggest culprit for times we haven’t saved quite as much as we would have liked. To avoid going over budget, we’ve tried a few methods to pinch down on our expenses.

No-Spend Months

One of the best ways to avoid eating out all together is to go on a “no-spend month”. Tara and I have done this a few different times and have always had good results. I wrote an article that details this a little bit more in depth that you can read here.

Having “no-spend months” can be difficult and isn’t our preferred method, despite it’s benefits. To compromise, we came up with a plan to use cash every single time we ate out.

Use Cash

At the start of the month, Tara and I decide on a fixed amount of money that we want to spend on eating out. Once we have this figure in mind, we go to the bank or ATM and withdraw that exact amount. This money can be used at any point during the month, but should only be used for eating out. Once that money is gone, it’s gone and we can’t use any other money to eat out.

Dave Ramsey’s envelope method is very similar to this and has helped countless people. This has been the best method to help curb our overspending. We aren’t perfect at this, but it’s definitely been the best way to help us stick to our budget.

It’s simple tricks like these that sometimes can make the biggest difference to a budget. Eating out is definitely one of those things that can eat into your budget and wreck havoc.

What do you guys do to avoid overspending on eating out? Have you guys tried a similar method? What has or hasn’t worked for you? Leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!

We Bought a House

In October 2018, we bought our first house. We had been saving up for quite a while and were happy to finally find something that fit in our price range. If you haven’t read about how we got our home, read it here.

While our house has been really nice to have, it has also stood as our biggest hindrance to FI. Our mortgage is the biggest expense we have and the only debt we have. Tara and I have talked on multiple occasions and have agreed that paying off our house is our top priority going forward. This follows Dave Ramsey’s baby step 6 and is the second to last baby step.

We’ve done our best to make sure our home is a blessing and not a burden. The best thing we’ve done is remodel our basement to have a mother-in-law apartment that we rent out. This helps offset our mortgage costs and helps us save for other things. To read about the remodel process, go here.

We Invest and Save

Ever since we got married, Tara and I have always had a really high savings rate. After we paid off all of our debt in 2017, we started to invest very seriously too. In total, we invest or save about 30% of our income. Our favorite investment is an index fund called VTI through Vanguard. We use that for our personal investments, as well as for our two sons’ college/mission funds. 

We welcomed another son into our family last week, but have already been saving for his future. It was decided early on that we would start saving for both of them even before they were born. As of right now, we put $50 for each son into Vanguard. My goal is to up that amount to $100 each in a year. We aren’t sure how we want to go about giving our sons that money yet, but are open to suggestions if anyone has them.

I recently discovered a new index fund called FZROX through Fidelity. They are a total stock market index fund just like VTI, but have ZERO fees. I also like how they are only $10 per share, but I’m not sold on moving all my money over to it yet. I will write an article on it soon to go over my experience thus far. 

A big chunk of our saving is going towards FU money. If you don’t know what FU money is, read more about it here. Not only does FU money help in unplanned emergencies, it also gives peace of mind. Tara and I both agree that having a big chunk of cash lying around would feel really nice, so we’ve put a decent amount of money towards that. 

I put our FU money into Marcus for a while until just recently when they lowered their rate from 2.25% to 2.15%. Which I was happy with them for the most part, but another account I had with Wealthfront had just announced that they were offering 2.57%, so I decided to switch over. I still have my account open with Marcus, so I may go back at some point. 

My 401k continues to grow. I put in 5% to get the 4% match. I am not super fond of the investment options that they provide nor the fees they take, but you can’t beat a 4% instant return. My work also provides a free 3.5% of your salary every month that helps out. 

I got a raise at work

In February I got a raise at work. 10% increase. I was pretty excited, especially since I didn’t expect it to be such a big increase. I like what I do at my job a lot and can see myself staying there for 5 more years or so. My work also has a pension plan if you stay for 5 years (I have been there 2.5 years). Plus, they have really good benefits that allows me to have babies without breaking the bank. 

 We cut back spending

A few times this year, Tara and I have had a “no-spend” month. We basically only spend money on the essentials like food and gas for an entire month. We aren’t perfect at this because we often get invited to something like a birthday dinner and don’t want to turn it down. 

These no-spend months help keep our expenses in check. We aren’t typically big spenders anyways, but we do love to eat out. We usually end up with an extra $500-$1,000 the month we do these and we highly recommend trying it!

Passive income and Side hustling

Although this hasn’t had a huge impact, we have started making some money on the side. Our blog has earned about $200 since the start of 2019 and continues to make us a little bit of money. 

Tara started a business selling home-sewn baby clothes called Baby Gowns Co. She launched her business about a month ago and has been able to make decent money.

I have also been referring businesses to a company that processes credit cards for merchant accounts and gives me a portion of every business I refer on a monthly basis. 

Besides saving more FU money, accruing passive income has been our 2nd most priority. Passive income and FI go hand in hand and is one of the fastest ways to get out of the “rat race” and into FI. Hopefully we will have more updates on this to come. 

Net Worth

I’m not totally sure how to calculate our net worth with our house. I’ve seen some people only calculate the debt portion while others subtract the home’s worth by what they owe. For now, I am not going to include our home in our net worth.

Our liquid net worth has grown substantially since we started blogging in 2018. There’s been some market volatility, but that really hasn’t hurt us too much. Plus, having a decent chunk of our money in online savings accounts has made it so they haven’t been touched much. 

We plan on continuing to have increases in our net worth from year to year, just like this year. With our savings rate and compound interest, we will start to grow substantially in the coming years. 

Thanks for reading! We have really enjoyed being able to share our road to FI with you and hope you have enjoyed it too. If you have questions for us, feel free to comment below or email us at thefundfamily@gmail.com. Feel free to share your road to FI as well. 

I really enjoy this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to become wealthy in the simplest way possible. Collins lays out complicated things, like investing, into very simple terms and makes it easy to understand. I love everything he teaches and follow it closely. Here’s some of the main points of what he teaches and how we apply it.

Avoid debt

This one is pretty self-explanatory, but is always a good reminder. The main point that JL Collins makes is that debt will seriously inhibit your path to wealth and should be avoided as much as possible. “Carrying debt is as appealing as being covered with leeches, and has much the same effect.”

Build up “FU” money

FU money grants you the ability to have options and to be able to say “no”. This is probably my favorite concept of his. I love the idea of being able to have my options open and a good amount of money set aside.

The market always goes up

The stock market is a volatile but through those years of volatility, it has always managed to go up. If you view your investments as long term, you will be far better off than trying to time the market.

You can invest on your own, without an advisor

Collins suggests investing in Vanguard funds and doing it by yourself. With a little bit of knowledge about index funds, you can easily manage your own portfolio, without having to pay advisors. Collins suggest a total stock market index fund called VTSAX or a similar one (we buy VTI).

This book may be the only book you will ever need to meet your financial needs. It’s simple, yet gives you essential knowledge for wealth building. To buy the book you can find it on audible or with the link below. Leave comments if you have any questions or if you’ve read the book already.

Today’s interview is with Josh who blogs at Money Life Wax. I’ve followed his blog for about a year now and I’m so happy that he agreed to do our interview! If you haven’t already, I highly recommend following his blog. To read previous interviews, click here.

Personal

Name: Josh Hastings

Age: 32

Your home location: Loudoun County, Virginia (Northern, Virginia)

Career/Source of regular income: High School Teacher & my wife is a Physical Therapist

What do you do for fun?  Anything outside that is active, work out, read, social get togethers and anything WVU related.

Success Tips

What has led to your success?

The definition of success truly varies person to person, but if you look it up, success refers to the accomplishment of a purpose, desired aim or goal. So while many regard popularity and even financial achievement as success, for me the definition of success is different. Living a life of purpose, spending time with the people I care about and having the freedom of choice is success to me. This lose definition has resulted in putting a large amount of effort towards my wife and I’s financial well being.

Since November 2016, when we had $261,000 in student loan debt, we have been able to reduce that number to $114,000. The reason? Our WHY is stronger than ever and we know exactly what we are going after.  

Advice to people trying to achieve success?

For someone looking to accomplish anything, whether it is something simple or really complex, first realize that if it matters to you it matters! What I mean by that is sometimes we end up in a never ending cycle of comparison that ultimately leads to never achieving “Success,” no matter how you define it.

So the biggest factor when it comes to your success, don’t ever compare yourself.

How do you measure success?

Just my opinion, but financially speaking you can measure success when you reach a goal. However, in most areas of our lives is success really even quantifiable? Success is forever fleeting, but in a good way. If you have a goal of  paying off your debt and you do, well then you’re successful by your standards. Chances are that after you reach that success, you will want more, hence the fleeting part.

What are your success habits?

Some of the success habits I have include reading daily, writing down my affirmations every morning as if I have already accomplished my goals, doing something daily to move my future forward and uplifting at least one other.

I also workout 4-5x per week, which is actually more of a reward. Bookending my days is something I am working on, but having a plan and setting daily goals is something that keeps me on the up and up. Lastly, write down your 5 biggest wants in life.

Financial Independence/Retirement Plans

What does financial independence (FI) mean to you?

Financial independence to me is ability to say yes to your desires, wants and needs, instead of no. What I mean by that is if you just need $50,000 a year to live happily ever after and you have an income stream that you control that can do that, well then you’re financially independent.

To further elaborate, being debt free, owning a few passive income streams and not having money impact every decision you make, aka the ability to say yes more is financial independence.

Do you have plans for financial independence/retirement?

When my wife and I are asked about the early retirement thing I always say this: At the moment we love what we do and we enjoy teaching (me) and being a physical therapist (her). However, that being said we do want to get to a financial independence level where we have met our number, paid off our debt and created several passive income streams.

Nowhere does it say you have to be jobless to be financially independent. However, having the option to stay home with kids or even work on a part time level is a nice fall back plan.

Why do you want to achieve retirement/financial independence?

We all have one life to live. You have to sit and ask yourself is what you’re currently doing truly making you happy and are you living a life on purpose? If the answer is yes, then keep doing what you’re doing.

If that answer is no, well then why are you doing it? Financial independence allows you to make choices and decisions based on what you want to do that align with your values.

If you had to start over, what’s the most important thing you would focus on?

Wow, what a deep question. I am very grateful for everything that has occured in my life because I look at it all as a learning lesson. So I wouldn’t change anything. That being said, if I could tell my 18 year old self it would be this:

1. Grow and scale an internet business and put 50+ hours a week into it
2. Workout more in college and learn as much as possible
3. Invest early and often
4. Live at home longer
5. Have an 80% save goal from 18 to 26

What tips do you have for others who want to grow their income?

Just do something. That is where everything starts when it comes to money. While many might be stuck in their own head figuring out “What” and “How,” in reality, just go do something. Set a goal to make $75 selling some old junk.

Set another goal to make $100 and do it. Taking action will place you on a path of moving forward. You can start by making a goal to earn $500 extra per month, then look to grow that monthly.

Do you have any sources of income besides your career? If so, can you list them?

Full time I am a teacher in my 10th year, my wife is in her 5th year as a physical therapist. Outside of that we own an LLC that houses a digital marketing company that works with 1-2 clients and our blog Money Life Wax. Additionally, I have done some exterior home sales and business consulting. Our long term goal is to scale our LLC and invest in several rental properties.

Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?

YES! We have a budget that is pretty strict and includes all of our fixed and variable expenses. We just set out goals and use credit cards to track. For example we have a gas card, a food card and a spending card. As long as we stay below those limits we know we are on our budget! I only recommend this approach if you know you have the discipline to make it happen!

What is your investment philosophy/plan?

This might sound cliche, but start with investing in yourself. Recognizing the fact that 9 in 10 lose money playing individual stocks I would say invest in yourself first. After you invest in yourself (Paying off debt, starting a business, etc) then look into real estate and other investment sources.

Our philosophy: Pay off all immediate debt aside from mortgage. Max out 401K with matching, use all raises to further make 403/401 contributions. Once debt is gone, invest in life insurance policies, stock index funds.

Do you give to charity? Why or why not? If you do, what percent of time/money do you give?

We give money to the church we go to and from time to time we donate to specific causes. For example, we gave a $100 check to a school event raising money for wounded 1st Responders. Our personal belief is to be in a financial position to say Yes when asked about donations we care about. Additionally, we volunteer several times a year helping the less fortunate.

Our charity belief system is to get in a financial position where we can give away 20% of our income. For us, this means paying off our debt!

Other comments:

At the end of the day do whatever makes you happy when it comes to money. Just don’t justify or rationalize your current position because of things that have happened to you in the past or already occured.
Enough clever rationalization will keep you right where you’re at, which for many is just good enough. But there is a great life out there waiting for all of us, we just have to put some action in to find it. Focus on earning, saving and stop making money so darn complicated… it’s not!

Apply for Unemployment

There is no shame in doing this, not even a little bit. The system is setup to help people that need it in that moment. Sure, there might be some people who take advantage of it, but that shouldn’t deter you or make you feel ashamed. When I filed for unemployment, I got about 80% of my income every two weeks. This helped sustain us for the 3 months before I got my next job. Here is a link for where to apply. If you have questions, I can help you. Just email me or leave a comment.

Apply for COBRA

COBRA stands for The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act and is used to keep your health insurance after you lose a job. COBRA will even continue your benefits if you have a reduction in hours. Luckily, when I was laid off, I didn’t need to use any health insurance, but many do need continued coverage. Because of this, I don’t have a ton of experience with it, but I have worked with people in the past who have used it when I worked at a drug and alcohol rehab. COBRA helped them get the coverage they needed so they could afford treatment. Here is the link for where to apply.

Start networking

Once I lost my job, I felt a bit embarrassed to start asking people for work. I didn’t really want to admit that I had been laid off. After I was able to put my pride aside, I found out that most people were understanding and wanted to help. I started to ask around for people that knew of jobs, especially those that were in the tech field. Everyone gave me good advice and kept me in mind for job openings. Within a month, I had three job interviews and was offered one of the jobs. If it weren’t for networking, I wouldn’t have gotten my current job.  

Reevaluate your budget

When you are laid off, things within your budget will most likely change. You probably won’t have as much money as you are used to. Tara and I had to tighten our budget when I was laid off. Thankfully, Tara still had a job and was able to provide most of our income, but we still needed to eliminate certain things, like eating out.

If you have been laid off, is there anything else you would recommend? It’s a terrible feeling that I hope no one has to go through. If you need help from me at all, feel free to contact me at our email thefundfamily@gmail.com or leave a comment. Thanks for reading!