Budgeting in the time of Corona virus questions

[MrsPete]

Steps to take:

- Your boss is paying you for two weeks, which makes it confusing. Call the unemployment office and explain your situation -- this is a different situation, and things may vary locally. Apply whenever they say you should.
- Ask your boss about your 401K loan /your options.
- Do you anticipate being rehired after this crisis is over? If not, start applying for jobs on your first day out of work; make it your full time job. Two months is nothing, and when you find a new job, you may not begin immediately /may not receive a check for a week or two.
- Take stock of your bills right now and cut out whatever you can; for example, if you're paying someone to do yard work, eliminate that bill. If you're paying for cable TV, consider downsizing to a smaller package.
- Look at what food and supplies you have at home. Focus on making these last /avoid spending more. You don't know how long your current resources may need to last.
- Check your wallet to see if you have any old, unused gift cards rattling around.
- Credit cards were mentioned. Are you carrying a balance? If so, this is not the time to try to pay it off -- make minimum payments, but understand that this is a bandaid /not a solution to the problem.
- As someone else mentioned, you can ask the utilities about a deferment -- does this come with interest? Do realize that a deferment means you must pay, but you can pay later. Again, it's a bandaid.
- Overall, hold onto whatever money you can -- your savings, unemployment checks, etc. Whatever you can postpone paying (without adding interest, which is just going to add to your troubles later).

And good luck!

 

[dvcgirl67]

The way that the bill reads (I made a copy of it) says: "Regular unemployment compensation is increased by $600.00 per week. States have the ability to increase the unemployment benefits they pay by up to $600.00 per week for up to four months using Federally provided dollars"

The way that I interpret this is if I was getting $200.00 a week from Pennsylvania, the federal government would kick in $400.00 a week. I really don't think that you could plan on getting $600.00 a week on top of whatever your state unemployment gives you. I could be wrong on this but would love to hear other's interpretations on this???

No, the way that this is supposed to work is that you would receive an additional $600 on top of whatever you are due to receive from your state unemployment. So if you receive $500 a week in unemployment, you'd get that plus the $600 for $1,100 per week. Right now the federal government is saying that there is a 16 week limit on the additional $600. States vary on how long they offer unemployment.

I will tell you that you need to be patient in most states as they are just not set up to deal with the flood of claims. And I read today that there is a delay in the additional $600 from the federal government. However, so far they are saying that will be retroactive. So you may get your first unemployment check and then a week or two (or three) later, get the extra $600. And again, in theory, you would get $600 retroactively from the time you filed your claim.

Keep in mind that you may need to pay taxes on both the state unemployment and the additional $600. It's a fluid situation and the rules/dates...etc. seem to change quite frequently.



Best of luck!