EP. 32 Laid Off? Do These Things Immediately to Protect Your Finances

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Losing your job can feel overwhelming — but the biggest mistake people make after a layoff is panicking instead of planning.

In this episode of the Net Wealth Nest Podcast, Jim walks through the exact steps you should take immediately after being laid off to protect your finances, stabilize your situation, and prepare for your next opportunity.

Layoffs happen to thousands of Americans every year. Whether it's a company restructuring, economic uncertainty, or the rise of automation and AI, job loss can happen unexpectedly. The key isn't avoiding every setback.  It's knowing how to respond when it happens.

In this episode you'll learn:

• What to do in the first 72 hours after a layoff.
• Why you should file for unemployment immediately.
• How to avoid a gap in healthcare coverage.
• How to build a financial survival budget.
• What expenses you should cut immediately.
• How to work with lenders and creditors during hardship.
• How to use your network to find your next opportunity faster.
• How to turn a setback into a career reset.

Most importantly, you'll learn why your comeback always starts with a plan... not panic.

If you or someone you know is worried about layoffs, share this episode with them.

At Net Wealth Nest, our goal is to help everyday people build financial stability and grow their net wealth, starting from wherever they are.

#LayoffAdvice #JobLoss #PersonalFinance #FinancialSurvival #Unemployment
#MoneyTips #FinancialLiteracy #NetWealthNest

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Transcript

Jim 0:00

You are probably going through a significant moment in your life where you need to figure things out, and it's okay to extend some timeframes in those situations. It's not okay to just give up on your goals, Your comeback always is gonna start with a plan. Not panic. The day you dreaded or maybe didn't even expect, finally came. Maybe you were pulled into a room. Maybe you had to join a, call in the morning or a zoom call in the morning, but those dreaded words came out. We are laying you off. This happens to thousands of Americans every single year, And certain years are worse than others. As we get into the beginning of 2026, there is some anticipation based on our current economic environment that layoffs are going to be kind of a big thing this year. there's a lot of economic uncertainty. There is AI that is continuously growing and expanding its role in our society. And more and more people are talking about layoffs and more and more people are worried about layoffs. I am gonna help you understand what are some things you should do immediately If this happens, this could be a worst case scenario for you. And so what should you do next? Today we're gonna talk about the steps that you should take immediately after being laid off and how you can help save your financial picture and focus on what is coming next. You get that immediate notice and the first thing. Is probably shock, disbelief, frustration, anger, all of the things that are in that grief cycle that many people go through when something, unfortunate or bad happens in their lives. Allow yourself to process that, that is natural. You should be frustrated, you probably should be upset. Maybe you saw this coming, maybe you didn't. but either way, there is that grief period. And so as you're going through that, the key here is, especially in those first two or three days, don't panic or rush into panic decisions. that could really derail your financial picture. And so really what you should do is. Breathe, pause and try to get a clear mind on what should be the next steps also avoid posting online, especially in an emotional state that can actually burn bridges for previous, people that you've worked with or worked for. there could be an opportunity where you might be able to come back to the company that you worked for in the future, or if other people, that work for that company start other ventures down the road where you could work for them. You don't wanna burn any bridges. more often than not, when you are laid off, it's actually not your fault. more often than not, it's a company restructure, or the company has not been successful in what, it is trying to accomplish or not delivering the profit to its shareholders that it. Is expected to do so. Now you could say, well, I'm part of that problem. And that may or may not be true based on the type of work you're doing, but the key is the layoffs, the reason that, when you see a thousand people laid off at a company, it's not necessarily because those thousand people did something wrong. that's just something to keep in your mind as well. as you work out of the, emotional rollercoaster that you're likely to go through, how do you reframe some of it in your mind to help you push forward when we start to talk about some of these other steps. one of the reframes that I found, with people I've talked to that have gone through this and come out kind of pushing hard and successfully on the other side of it is it's not a failure, it's a reset. And so if you end up, being laid off at some point. How quickly can you start to try to reframe that? once you go through kind of those first initial shock and grief phases, how can you reframe it into, Hey, this is an opportunity for me to do something at a different company, to do something completely different, to do that thing that I've been wanting to do, but I haven't had the courage to do. All of those things are all opportunities for you to think about. As you go through this, but really how you respond over those first 72 hours are kind of critical. you're going to have those emotional reactions as you should, but making sure that you. Remind yourself, Hey, I'm in control of a lot of things still, even after I've lost my job, I'm still in control of all the skills that I've accumulated myself, the relationships I've built the time that I have going forward. I'm not gonna burn any bridges by blasting people on the way out. I'm going to just. Leave that alone and focus on what could be our next steps. And that kind of goes to, our second step, which is you should file for unemployment benefits immediately. go to your state, unemployment site right when you're laid off, or the same week that you're laid off. qualifications and rules for unemployment, varies by state. So the reason I recommend getting in there quickly is. Anything that they need, they're gonna need previous employer information, dates that you were employed, income verification of what you previously made, like those types of things that you might not be anticipating, the faster you get to the unemployment site. Understand what the process is in your state and start to put that together, the better off you are because some states even have waiting periods where you have to go through this and apply. the faster you do all that, the faster you are able to likely get funds to help support you during this time. You also are likely to need to keep weekly records of. How you are searching for new work. I believe most states have that as a requirement, so just a heads up there. But immediately go to the unemployment site for your state, figure out what the process is, figure out what you need to do, turn in anything you can, or collect the information as fast as you can and get it to them. And then make sure that you've done all the check marks and all of the things that they're requiring so that you are likely to receive any unemployment funds that are, available to you as fast as possible. The next thing to look at is healthcare coverage. and so most people with their job, that's who my healthcare was through, was through my employer. And so what do I do now? what happens to me if something goes poorly? and so that is a huge concern 'cause one large medical bill or slip up could really derail your financial picture And so, if you had employer coverage, typically you qualify for COBRA or special enrollment through the healthcare marketplace. you should compare costs right away. Cobra can be expensive. But you avoid lapse in coverage. And again, what we're trying to avoid is if there is a lapse, we don't want something bad to happen during that timeframe where you're not covered at all and you are gonna be responsible for every penny of a medical bill or a doctor visit or any of that. We want to avoid that. We want to have some sort of medical insurance so that you are covered and that you are not absorbing those complete costs. If you have a spouse or a partner, They have medical coverage at their job. You should check if you'd be covered. if you're married or if you are in, a domestic partnership of some sort, you typically can be added to their family plan. And so that might be an opportunity for you to change so that you're covered. Again, this, I can't emphasize this enough, don't skip this. Step Medical bills can be very expensive, and that is debt that can linger on for years and years and years. So we want to make sure that you're covered in some way, shape, or form. So investigate all your options, whether it's Cobra, whether it's the healthcare marketplace, or whether it's a significant other spouses or domestic partners, coverage that you can get yourself under. Okay, so then the next part is let's assess cash flow. You wanna pull up your current bank accounts, your bank balances, any debts you have, any reoccurring bills you have, and you wanna look at your budget. You should create a survival budget. Everything you have to have to just survive right now. What is that going to run? And hopefully you have some sort of emergency savings that will cover parts of that. It's one of the key reasons that we talk about building a three to six month emergency savings account after you get past your first thousand. But create that survival budget. What are the essentials? Your housing? Any transportation or, or car costs you might have? food. Clothing, really basic stuff. If there's children in your home and you need childcare, like what are all those expenses? Healthcare, utilities, all of it your cell phone your internet. But the other thing you need to review is you need to review all those maybe little extra things. That you have, that you don't need to survive. Doesn't mean you necessarily have to cancel 'em right away, but you need to identify those and kind of put 'em in a separate bucket. So I'm talking about the entertainment type things, right? If you have subscriptions to things like Netflix or YouTube TV or DirecTV, apple tv, all these different subscriptions. If you have a chat GPT subscription, if you have a Gemini subscription for ai, All those things, they need to go in a separate side bucket of like if push comes to shove, we're getting rid of these, we're cutting them out of our budget and we're focusing on the survival budget. That way you know exactly where you stand, where if you cut to the bone like this is what we need to live and this is where we have to be. Anything you can pause or cancel, that's non-essentials. Like I said, those subscriptions, the extras, the memberships, any of that. If you're not using it right now, immediately you should just cancel it I recommend putting it in that little side budget. Figure out what your absolute have to survive budget is, and then maybe you can keep, a couple of those things depending on what reserves you might have or if you have other opportunities for cash flow or income to come in. But if not, you should be looking at cutting everything out of there. Next, if You received a severance from your job loss, you should not look at that as just a mass bonus payment. you should divide that out over your normal pay period or months to try to create yourself a runway so that you can make it from this job to your next job, that will help you. understand what your budget is and how long you have to survive on your survival budget with whatever that company had given you as a severance. your new job title as of today in doing all this, if this happens, is you are the new chief financial officer of your incorporation. You inc. Right? You are figuring out how to keep yourself surviving your business, which is just you and your family and your lifestyle. How do you keep that surviving until you can replace that income that you had? The next step that I would recommend for most people, especially if you have debts, contact your creditors immediately or your service providers and let them know that you're going through, a layoff type situation or a hardship situation. And the reason to do this is most people think, oh my gosh, if I reach out to. My landlord or a utility company, let's say they're gonna be scared and think I can't pay 'em, maybe they'll tell me I have to, shut stuff off or do any of that. Many lenders utility companies, some landlords, They have hardship programs or deferments or if it's like a credit card or a bank, they have interest rate freezes as well where they won't raise your interest rate or any of that. many of them offer that you wanna do this before you miss a payment because it shows that you're being proactive. You're not letting your situation dictate your future. You are working towards, A solution on the problem you currently have. And so calling them and being like, Hey, here's my situation. I was just laid off my job. We've cut our budget down. Are there any type of hardship programs, payment pauses we can do? Are there budget billings that we can do any of those options? Many of these companies have these options and they will help you again, bridge that gap from the job that you just had to whatever that next job or next income stream is going to be. If you do it before a missed payment, they're much more likely and much more interested in helping you figure it out. after you miss a payment or two. They're gonna be like, well, you lost your job two months ago. How come you didn't talk to us? Then? Why didn't you ask questions now? Now you're behind. You're taking dings on your credit, and now you're coming to us from help. here's the key with any of this, you should be writing down all the conversations you have or documenting 'em on it. We're documenting computer, whatever, and anything that they agree to. So let's just say you call. your, utility company and they agree to put you on some sort of budget billing for the next six months. for your electric bill or whatever it might be, you want that in writing via email, regular mail. It doesn't matter. You want documentation of that from them that they are willing to do that. it could be maybe you own your home and they're willing to do some sort of. A different type of mortgage situation for you, or maybe you have a credit card and they've agreed to freeze your interest rate, meaning your interest rate will not change over the next 12 months. Any of those things, anything they agree to or anything they're willing to do for you, you want that in writing. So that if they do do something that they said they wouldn't, you can go and point back and be like, actually, We talked to this rep. Here's the documentation from you that said you were gonna do X, but you're not doing that. Can you please do that? And they will abide by that. and so it's just really important. Take notes on everybody you're talking to, but also when they agree to something to do something to help you out. Make sure you get an email from them or something that shows that they agreed to this. The next thing to do right away is leverage all your resources and really what I mean by that is your relationship resources. And so you should update your resume immediately, your LinkedIn profile immediately. Let people know you are exploring new opportunities. don't just say you're looking for work. Say what kind of work you're looking for, maybe where you're located, if you're willing to relocate. Like any of those things. Any details you could provide. will help people already in your network say, Hey, I know this person. They do X, and it would be a great fit for another person's role that they might come across Or maybe the company they work for is looking to hire people. You never know what is happening in other companies with other people, And so trust the network that you've built. And if you don't have a big network, it doesn't matter It could be a friend of a friend of a friend that you've never met, but they're like, Hey, I know this person, and so on and so forth. Everybody has social media accounts. It feels like everybody has a LinkedIn account, everybody has a Facebook account. All those things like utilize those networks to try to help you find your next job. but again, being specific about what you are looking for, what you're looking to do, where you're looking to go, any of those things are really important. You also should register with any local workforce development centers that are in your area or city. They often have, resume support, where they will help you, find your next role or at least give you some feedback on what you can do, from that standpoint. If you have been doing some freelancing or side gigs or any of that, this might be a time where you consider doubling down on some of those efforts when you're out of a job. If you are maybe doing some stuff on, let's say, Fiverr, as an example, how can you really go out and promote that? Where can you, pick up more of, those jobs and try to bridge the gap in income? Again, the point is how do we get from point A to point B? And some people when they're laid off. Like we had talked about earlier, that's the time where they go, you know what? I've been wanting to do this thing for so long. I've kind of been doing it on the side as a hobby. I'm gonna go all in and see if I can make this work. And that's okay too. The key is just making sure you know what runway you have to make that work. And if it's not working out in that runway, what are you going to do so you don't fall behind in your financial life I think the other thing to think about too, once you've kind of handled some of these other things and you've figured out, this is how much runway I have, this is how much time I have, or maybe what my next job might be, or I'm going to go, you know, head over heels for my side gig and, and go all in. Once those essentials are handled, how can you shift your focus to growth? what I mean by that is what areas can you upskill that you haven't had time because you were at your previous job, or you're working on other things. what things have you wanted to do to grow your skills in the marketplace? Maybe it's some free certifications through some tech companies like Google or Microsoft. maybe it's through LinkedIn Learning or Corsa or, Udemy, there's a ton of education platforms out there. many are free. some charge, small fees to do certain certifications, How are you looking to upskill yourself? Even in the world of AI is growing. If you're not upskilling in ai, like that is something that's gonna become more and more prominent in our everyday lives. Look at all your upskill opportunities. Focus on a few of those and see what else you can add to your skillset that will help you down the road or maybe towards the new job that you're looking for. Revisit your long-term goals. This is a road bump you didn't maybe expect to be laid off, and now you're trying to figure out income. You're living on a, maybe a smaller income or very little income, and you're kind of in survival mode, but you've got everything kind of like set where you're like, okay, we can survive at least. You should probably revisit your long-term goals. If you had a goal that you set out, for three years, is that still applicable? Do you need to bump it out another year for whatever reason? That's okay. It's not about perfection. It's not about, having everything line up perfectly where you're knocking out every single item. It's about having the plan and continued execution towards that final goal. That might mean that you plan to be, an X net worth by the time you hit year three. Maybe you turn that like, Hey, I'm gonna need an extra year to get there because these next six months are gonna be brutal. I'm not gonna be able to save as much. I'm eating into my emergency savings right now. I'm gonna need to build that back. Once they get kind of on the other side, is there a chance that you need to pivot a little bit? Or is there a chance that you just need to readjust some of your goals so that you know what path you're on? What you don't wanna do is get halfway to that three year goal and be like, well, it's been really rough because I'm laid off, so I'm not gonna hit this goal. And then what happens to many people, they just give up on that goal altogether instead of just reframing the time they say, I can't be done. You are probably going through a significant moment in your life where you need to figure things out, and it's okay to extend some timeframes in those situations. It's not okay to just give up on your goals, and so that's where I would say is the difference And then reevaluate what financial security means to you going forward. Layoffs are painful. They're not fun to go through, and they do at times, destroy people's financial world and financial lives. They make it really tough. And so understanding to yourself, what does that financial security be? This might be a great time to be like, man, it's gonna be tough in the next few months I've got a little bit of emergency funds that's gonna get me through, but if I ever have to do this again, I'm going to make sure that I have, you know, one and a half times my current emergency fund because it just feels a little tight or twice or whatever that might be. Maybe I did three months, man, I'm really gonna shoot for six months once I get back on my feet because. This is too much pressure to try to get it done in the extra months, whatever that might be. Just again, reevaluate what security looks like for you from a financial standpoint, and then make sure you're integrating that into your goals going forward. in the end, like being laid off. It's painful, but here's what I would tell you. It doesn't have to define your future. How you respond and the actions you take does determine your future though. And so that's what I would say is focus on protecting your essentials first. Use this time to invest in yourself and get clear on what you want to do and where you want to go. Your comeback always is gonna start with a plan. Not panic. If you're panicking and you're not creating a plan you're likely making panic decisions. And more often than not, when you make a panic decision, when you look back on it, you're like, man, I wish I would've just taken a step back and thought about it for an extra minute, an extra hour, an extra day, and really like got myself in a state where I'm not letting my emotions control my decisions. I'm letting the reality of the situation and I'm critically thinking about what I can do next, and that's what's controlling the decisions I'm making If you're going through a layoff right now, I'm sorry, these things are hard. I feel for you, I hope you look at some of these things and I hope you're already executing them. And if you're not, please revisit them. Please go through them. Hopefully this is helpful. Hopefully most of you go through this episode and go, I don't have to worry about that right now. And hopefully you don't in the future either. But if you do, the episode is here. And if you know anybody else that's experiencing a layoff or just might need this information because they've been telling you they're worried about their company laying them off, shoot 'em a link to our episode. Tell 'em to subscribe to our YouTube channel. I hope you're already subscribed to our YouTube channel, but if you're not, I encourage you to do so. We're just trying to put out information into the world to let people live a better life, get outta that paycheck to paycheck cycle, and really help grow their financial picture and build their net wealth. Thanks for joining today. My name's Jim. Have a great day everybody.