Saving While Unemployed: Bills Are The “Big Rocks” You Need To Avoid. Part 2

Should you use your credit cards or lose them? Credit cards can give you a cushion as you wait for your first unemployment check. After that it would be best to pay them off and put them away. It may be that you have so much debt you can’t pay them off, and even making the minimum payment is a “big rock” You hopefully have credit insurance to make that payment for you. Keep your credit cards available for real emergencies, but do not use them for monthly expenses.

Check your bank accounts for fees. If you were having your fees waived because your paycheck was direct deposited, you might now be subject to fees. Or you might fall below the minimum requirement to have your fees waived. See if your bank offers a more basic checking account, or search for a bank that does not have minimum requirements.

Do you taxes carefully. Unemployment checks are subject to tax, even if you opt not to have it withheld when you start receiving them. If you took money out of an IRA or 401(k) plan, you may have tax penalties. But if you worked for most of 2008, you may still have a refund coming. Do not squander any of your refund by taking advantage of the rebate loans to get the money now. It will cost you interest, and delay your effort to live within your budget.

The Unemployment Diet

Here are some suggestions on how to eat cheaply. Learn to cook. Start with something simple like pancakes. For breakfast, store brand waffles have gone up from $1.19 to $1.79, but are still sometimes on sale for $1. A box of 10 is good for 5 meals if you are thrifty. Pancakes made from mix are a bit cheaper and more filling. Be sure to read the back of the box and get the kind that is “just add water” so you don’t need to get extra ingredients. Actually, the mix where the instructions ask for milk and eggs does more or less work if you only add water. You can also have 6 pancakes from a cup of pancake mix, vs. 2 frozen waffles. The round bulk packages of plain oatmeal are cheaper than the individually packaged bags of maple & brown sugar (or other) flavored oatmeal. Toast is cheap, and sometimes almost expired bread is on sale for 50 cents. Cereal is kind of bad because it is relatively expensive and tempting to eat half a box at a time.

Eat some of the old favorites for lunch. These are the famous peanut butter and jam sandwich, the grilled (or toasted) cheese sandwich, and the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. Add some canned soup or Raman noodles, the cheaper ones that are a brick in a bag, not the more expensive ones that come in a bowl you can add water to.

For a healthy snack, you can have an apple, banana, orange, or yogurt. These are about 25-50 cents each.

For dinner, frozen microwave meals give a lot of variety to people who can’t cook, look for sales where they are $2. Michelina TV dinners are often $1. You can cook spaghetti if you can boil water. Look for cheaper packages of meat, on sale because it is almost expired. Frozen or take out pizza is often good for two meals, save some for tomorrow’s lunch. You can get fish in the meat section of the store or frozen microwavable packages.

Give up luxuries like eating out, and expensive bad habits like smoking. Drink less alcohol and pop, drink tap water instead. If you must eat out, the value menu hamburgers are not all that different from the regular menu burgers.

Make lists of what you need before you go shopping. Look for bargains in advertisements and look for coupons. They are often in the Sunday paper, which is also a good source of job ads. But always compare prices to the store brands. Even with a coupon, name brands are often more expensive.

Be aware of unit costs. For example, you might be able to get 38 trash bags for $6.19, or 90 of the same type for $10.99. Each bag in the cheaper box costs 16 cents; each bag in the more expensive box only costs 12 cents. Stock up on thing that won’t go bad if they are on sale and the cost isn’t excessive. 90 trash bags should last until the economy improves. I hope.

So now you have considered the “big rocks”. You have some idea how much money you will need each month and considered if and how you can eliminate the big payments. You will know if you can survive on unemployment alone, or need to also draw on some of your savings to make ends meet. Here is some final advice on how to deal with unemployment. Beware of “phishing”, scam emails from the unemployment office asking for your personal information or unemployment agency sign on and password. Banks don’t ask for that kind of information, and neither does do unemployment offices. Internet connections are very useful for looking for work, so beware of cutting them off. . But don’t use “I need my internet connection” as an excuse to keep expensive cable or hang out in places with free wireless but really expensive coffee. Use the library for internet access and entertainment. Libraries often have shared computers you can use, or wireless connections. They also have books you can read, and often movies you can check out for free.

Here is a link to “Saving While Unemployed: Bills Are The “Big Rocks” You Need To Avoid. Part 1″