-How long were you unemployed?There have been two gaps in our marriage where neither DH nor I had a job. Give or take a few weeks of employment/schooling on the ends, these gaps were about seven months each. We had no source of income during this time.
-Did you have any sort of 'stache when it happened?We have always been cash hoarders and have a tendency to be more cheap than frugal. During the first stint, we lived off the cash we had built up. We were more savvy by the second stint and had a dedicated emergency fund. Both times we were able to find work before the pile depleted.
-Did you end up getting any type of unemployment?No. We quit our jobs, so I don't think we were eligible to receive this. However, I encourage everyone I know to explore all their options without shame or embarrassment.
-What did you do to generate additional income during your unemployment period (if applicable)?We didn't. We were admittedly lazy (and possibly depressed). I'm not proud of this. I guess I spent a few days helping a woman pack her house to move, but that only earned a trifling amount.
-For those that were hit hard, what were the biggest lessons you learned while unemployed from the standpoint of how to mitigate the impact and be best prepared if it were to happen again?These stints taught me that we are just not fast movers. We like to take our time and process. This is not a virtue when money is running out. As a result, I have increased the size of our Emergency Fund to 7 months of living expenses. If I implement an Emergency Budget, I could stretch that same amount even longer if necessary.
If you felt the period of unemployment was not that hard for you to get through, please touch on the things you felt that you had working in your favor so that it wasn't as stressful as it could have been.The truth is we got off easy. Before we were unemployed, we already had a lot of things going for us that are largely beyond anyone's control. One of the biggest factors was the fact that we didn't have a lot of debt. Our parents paid for our undergrad and gave us a car. On top of that, our wedding resulted in enough gifts that we really didn't need to buy anything for our household for years. We eventually got a mortgage and graduate loans, but the payments on these were not that high compared to our income.
After we stopped working, we stopped doing anything that required money. We found ways to get free movie tickets, we visited friends for cheap, we cooked everything from scratch, we got free coffee from the lounge at the apartment complex, we rediscovered games we already owned, etc. We went a bit extreme some weeks, but it definitely showed me we could make our money stretch for a long time if we had to.
Additionally, I always knew in the back of my mind that we had lots of safety nets. Credit cards, personal loans, family loans, government programs, charity... I basically figured I had a long way left before I was really in trouble. I'm not sure whether this was a hindrance or a help. I had the luxury of taking my time to find the right job (not just any job that might be a bad fit) but I also never had a proper fire under my ass to make me move.
If you don't mind mentioning what salary you lost upon becoming unemployed versus what you accepted when you went back to work feel free to state this.Our job changes always required a move to a more expensive area. This meant that I actually got paid more after unemployment, but it was generally tempered by cost of living. Every time I filled in "desired salary", I would give what I thought was slightly too high, but each time it was accepted. I'm not a good negotiator.
This link goes to a different thread I started where you can actually see the effect unemployment did and did not have on my net worth.
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/life-story-as-told-through-mint%27s-net-worth-tracker/