My partner just got fired. I'm in the midst of my last 6 months of school which is all unpaid clinical practicum. Our savings are not in great shape for this.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Any words of wisdom?
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Uuuuggghhhh. The good news is everywhere is hiring for seasonal work. Your SO can get a job somewhere like Target tomorrow until something more in line with your life plans turns up.
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I am sooo sorry
Do you currently budget? I'd def jump into action with some kind of plan. And def for your partner to just get in some currently hiring seasonal work to get by if you really need the $. Again, I am so sorry! This really sucks to be happening right around the holidays.
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@lilyofthewest: I'm so sorry! The timing is so inconvenient, with your school, the holidays, etc. I don't have any advice but am here for support. Seasonal work does seem like a good patch, hopefully your partner will have a new job within a few months, and you not too long after that, after your program is complete. Hugs.
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@lilyofthewest: Oh dang. What field is s/he in?? Could s/he SAH with your little one to save on daycare, or are you SAH now?
Can you put your training on hold ? Could you work per diem as a nurse (for some reason I deduced you were a nurse)? Sorry girl. right before the holidays, what happened?!! -
I'm so sorry! Try not to panic. Are they eligible for any sort of unemployment benefits? Can they stay home with the kids for a while to save on daycare?
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I'm so sorry. This is just awful. My DH unexpectedly was fired several years ago when we had just bought a house and had our first kid under 1 year old. It was a tough time.
I don't have a ton of wisdom. It was just hard. We ended up taking on some debt while we cut costs across the board. We had some rough times in our marriage too - his self esteem tanked while my stress rose bing the only income for a bit. Stay loving, stay talking, and just really pull together as a team.
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(My partner is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns
)@crazydoglady: / @pachamama: My partner does computer things -- full stack development.
Our 4 goes to a preschool where we signed a contract for the whole school year. We can potentially apply for some hardship funds, but, for the most part, we're on the hook for his tuition through July. The baby we could pull...but we will have to think hard about if it will be beneficial. We'd lose his spot and under 2yo daycare spots often have a long waitlist around here. It might be very difficult to find new childcare on short notice when new employment comes around. Where we are now is also extremely affordable compared to average infant rates for our area...there's a good chance that the immediate savings of pulling him now could cost us a lot more in the medium and long term.
@pachamama: Yeah, I'm an RN/almost NP. Right now, I'm working one day a week plus commuting to clinical about 2 hours away for two 10s a week. I think I could manage an additional work day, but haven't checked if my work actually has need for me. I work next on Monday and I'll check about it then.
@crazydoglady: Sweetie was offered a severance buyout where they can resign. Voluntary resignation = not eligible for unemployment. Fired = eligible after an 8 week exclusion period. I'll need to crunch the numbers to be certain, but, I think the severance buyout will be a better deal for us. Especially since the buyout would wipe the adverse employment action from their file and potentially make it easier to get other job offers.
@graceandjoy: We certainly don't budget well! No time like the present... Sweetie's first day of unemployment is going to be filled with tasks like trying to renegotiate our rate for our internet service and canceling anything we don't truly need.
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@lilyofthewest: You can do it! I never really hardcore budgeted till I had kids and realize it's do or die! Is their industry really niche in your area? I hope they are able to find something soon; might just take a little extra time since people will be off during the holidays. But don't fret!!
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@graceandjoy: Not especially - it is fairly competitive, but not niche. Since it is "computer stuff", there's also some remote jobs.
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@lilyofthewest: You're in the same general area that I am (I'm right outside DC) and like your partner, my husband is also a programmer! This seems to be a good place for that type of work--I hope they can find a job quickly. But I know this must be super stressful, I'm sorry.
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So sorry this happened right before Christmas!
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This sucks! I’m so sorry. I’m guessing the severance/resignation will be better (and they could ask for more) because unemployment can also get really weird with seasonal type gigs, so be sure to read up on the law.
If you are only working one shift a week and have a family of four, you might also qualify for food stamps or TCA. I recommend at least running the MDSAIL calculator and seeing if you’re eligible. -
Does anyone have any suggestions for negotiating severance? Or pushing off the official severance date?
The most difficult part is figuring out COBRA vs exchange plans on a tight timeline. Sweetie's official termination date is currently slated to be in the last week of December. Right now, Sweetie is still technically currently employed and it is open season to pick plans (or pick our COBRA situation) through Monday. We'd intended to pick plans this weekend...but when Sweetie was unexpectedly fired on Friday afternoon they lost access to the system. Now we can't view any of the plan information or self-enroll; it all has to go through HR sending us the information on paper and entering the elections for us. HR is Mon - Fri, 9-12 and 1-4.
We hadn't even been considering switching to a different plan...but we might need to since we have no idea what the full OOP cost of the options is.
If we're going to get on an exchange plan and have it be active Jan 1, we need to make our election by December 15th.
It's just a really tight timeline to make these decisions. Healthcare is a big deal since we have an ex-premie with 5 different specialists and multiple hospitalizations in the past year.
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You shouldn’t have to do open enrollment for the exchange. You’d be eligible to enroll at anytime due to circumstances so I wouldn’t freak about the deadline of the 15. In my experience cobra is fucking expensive. So is the exchange. Did you check into if you or the kids would be eligible for Medicaid. Might be a good idea esp with known health issues
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@gotkimchi: Our kiddos may be eligible for Medicaid...which I think would be fine for our big kid, but would mean switching ALL of the baby's specialists. Which is a big headache, but, I'm more worried that something would be missed in the handoff by losing continuity.
The only concern with the 15th is that our application would have to be in by the 15th in order to have coverage active by Jan 1...and we already have a slew of baby appointments scheduled in January. We could do the retroactive COBRA coverage thing if necessary I suppose (if we have the COBRA already active, then we're not eligible to enroll in the exchange outside of open enrollment). Ugh.
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@lilyofthewest: If the kids are eligible for Medicaid, the 15th doesn't matter. They'll get coverage back to the date of application (technically 3 months before the date of application, but definitely not after the date of application).
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Ugh, I’m sorry this happened. It sticks any time of year but especially at Christmas. I hope they are able to find something relatively quick.
Do you currently budget? I'd def jump into action with some kind of plan. And def for your partner to just get in some currently hiring seasonal work to get by if you really need the $. Again, I am so sorry! This really sucks to be happening right around the holidays.
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