The difference between a good account and a poor one can be several hundred dollars a year on the exact same balance, with no added risk and no ongoing effort after the first hour of setup. It seems almost too easy, since opening a new HYSA is relatively simple, but the benefits really are that big.

The end of the year is filled with travel plans for many of us. Thanksgiving at your sister's. Christmas back home. A cousin you have not seen in three years asking if you are flying in this year. In a normal year, you would book the flight and move on. But if you were laid off this year, you are counting weeks of runway instead of counting down to the holidays, and every expense hurts more than it would have in years past.

Out of pure laziness (I have never bothered to go into the bank and cash them in), and because I did not want to pay the taxes, they are still sitting in a fireproof envelope long past their maturity date. But if I was laid off? I would be cashing these in immediately. No sense in having them sitting around if I need all the cash I can get. They are also part of my emergency-fund liquidity plan, a way to make sure I am preserving cash wherever I can in a crisis.

So instead of feeling the holiday magic when the lights go up, the ads start, and your kids begin listing what they want, you are sitting with a severance check (or no check at all) doing math you would rather not do about how to keep this year's celebrations from being a disappointment for the people you love.

When I am in the depths of my spiral, I start looking at all of the extra places I put my paycheck. Outside of the obvious ones like cutting subscriptions or canceling the gym membership I don’t use, I look at the amount I put in my 401(k) every paycheck and think "that sure is a lot of money."

Here is something I learned after nearly 15 years in corporate tech. Layoff readiness is not a feeling, and it is not about being a hard enough worker to be spared (plenty of excellent people get cut for reasons that have nothing to do with their performance). Readiness is a set of specific, slightly boring, measurable things: how much cash you have, how current your resume is, whether anyone would actually pick up the phone to be a reference, whether your skills still sell.

Be honest, if you came across this article in 2025, you wouldn't have even clicked. In 2025, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin were at all-time highs, and it didn't look like there was going to be an end in sight. August saw bitcoin hit $124,128 per coin (and it would climb higher still that October), which made those who bought in years ago very wealthy (on paper).

But where an HSA truly shines is in all the ways it can be used during a layoff that other accounts can’t. From helping pay your insurance deductible, to buying necessary items through TrueMed, to covering counseling costs during this transition, the HSA does it all.

So now feels like the perfect time, right? If I can’t work, then at the very least I can put the time to productive use and finally build the gym body I have always wanted. And while this is a great time to set up routines you can carry into your next role, the financial aspect of starting a gym routine might not be so ideal if you are already strapped for cash without an adequate emergency fund.

Here is the short and the long version. Rejecting a severance package almost never unlocks unemployment benefits you could not otherwise get. And accepting one almost never signs them away. What decides your eligibility is not whether you took the check. It is why you left, what your agreement says about why you left, and how your state treats the money once it lands.

Going through a layoff in your 20s, 30s, or 40s is stressful, don’t get me wrong. You may have little savings in your 20s or be responsible for a whole family’s expenses in your 40s. But a new type of worry pops up when you get laid off in your 50s or 60s. Am I ever going to work again?

Lately I have been seeing a flood of ads for new banking apps that break from the traditional accounts of the past. These are accounts where you earn points toward rewards, get savings rates double the national average, or use an app that makes banking fun. They are all intriguing options if you have been using traditional (and boring) banking, and the allure of higher rewards and free accounts can make anyone want to sign up. What these accounts do not come with is a warn

It seems that anything I want to do in life now requires a subscription of some sort. Even if I just want to use an app for a single day, it now requires a subscription. Then I have to remember to dig into my Apple Subscriptions and cancel before the free week ends, or I get charged. Annoying. That means a large chunk of my budget (and probably yours as well) is being eaten up by subscriptions.

Wait, sinking fund? Surely my emergency fund is enough? Or do those mean the same thing? This may be your first thought if you're hearing the word “sinking fund” for the first time. If you've already saved an emergency fund, good for you, only 47 percent of Americans have enough savings to cover a $1,000 emergency, according to Bankrate. But realizing you might need to save even more to be fully prepared for a job loss can feel daunting.

"When something looks too good to be true, it usually is" In most cases, that does hold true. Nothing in life is ever free, so no one is going to just hand you a check for money without asking for something in return. Normally that is true, but in trying to find out what happened to an old IRA of mine, I stumbled across MissingMoney.com.

Even if you have stumbled across this post and are not facing imminent job loss, this advice applies to anyone working today. American society has very few safety nets for job loss relative to those in other highly developed countries, and it will be on you to weather the storm. A cash cushion is the single most powerful tool for turning a financial shock (a layoff, a car repair, a medical bill) into a manageable inconvenience rather than a crisis that follows you for years.

Maybe you aren't as severely attached, but you at the very least view your phone as an absolute necessity. Not just for life, but for taking phone screening calls, browsing jobs on LinkedIn in your spare time, and combing through your email for what is hopefully not a rejection. So that means there is nothing to do about this expense, right?

After reviewing my COBRA benefits information, instructions for rolling over my 401(k), and details about the loss of my RSUs (ugh), I noticed one more document. It stated that my PTO would be paid out with my last paycheck from the company. What a welcome piece of news! I had not realized that my not going on vacation was going to give me a nice little bonus as I walked away from my job. Fast forward a decade. I was leaving another job, fully prepared to enjoy that PTO p

It feels that way since many people’s most expensive bill is their housing payment each month. And the worst part of that bill is that it can feel so out of your control. If you are locked into a mortgage for 30 years or just signed a year-long lease, that number can feel like a noose around your neck if you get laid off and have no steady income coming in.

I will admit it: I love to spend money. If I am bored and out and about in a city, I might start ducking into local shops to see if there is anything I “need” inside. If I hear anyone throw out the word “happy hour,” I am the first to ask when we are going. This desire to spend money to have fun is not actually a problem in some cases (experiences over things, for example), but it becomes a lot more difficult when there is no longer an inflow of money to speak of.