Industry: Fitness (formerly real estate)
Age: 37
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Salary: $0 (previously $225,000). I was laid off in January but I got a few months of severance (equaling ~$50,000). I’m getting unemployment ($605 a week; capped at about $13,000 a year) and I work a part-time organizing job where I make $20 an hour. The hours are minimal and that money just gets deducted from my weekly unemployment amount. I’ll net just over $60,000 for the year if I use up all my unemployment. In terms of the franchise I manage, I don’t officially own it yet and the business isn’t generating money — with classes only running Saturdays, there’s just not enough to it yet. Once I have a full studio, I’ll pay myself something nominal for running the front desk and what not and in a year or so I should be able to take some of the profits out of the business for myself.
Joint income: I’m married, and my husband T. has a severe medical condition so he can’t have a traditional job. He has his own consulting business but he hasn’t made much money in a few years, so we live entirely on my income. We decided that we would share all of our money from when we got married because you never know what could happen. And that’s also how both of our parents did it, so we didn’t know otherwise. He’s in a position where he has a sizeable inheritance but I’m able to make more money in the short term, so we figured it would balance out. This has worked out for us so far and now that I’m not working, I know he can pick up the slack. Once the business is up and running, I’ll be able to pay myself for operating the studio. And hopefully after a year or so, I’ll be able to make at least as much as my previous salary.
Assets: T. and I own our house and have ~$100,000 of equity in it. We bought it less than three years ago and only put 5% down. We have a brokerage account ($364,000); a roll-over 401(k) ($154,000); IRA ($14,000); HSA ($3,000); and an emergency fund ($40,000). Most of what’s in the brokerage account came from RSUs that were part of my total compensation package from my previous two jobs. When I got laid off in January, we took all the steps necessary to secure our assets in the most effective way possible (and moved everything to one platform) so that we had enough for this bridge period until we were both making money again — and it became even more important to ensure that we had enough money for the future since we’re both building companies and won’t be able to rely on things like company sponsored health insurance or 401(k) matching. Since we’re using all the money we have right now to live on, we’re not actively investing into any assets.
Debt: Mortgage: $450,000; four-year car lease: $30,000; 0% interest credit card: $4,000 (to be paid over the next two years).
Unemployment Amount (weekly): $605 gross (previously $5,751.28 net, biweekly).
Pronouns: She/her
Monthly Expenses
When I got laid off, we went through all of our expenses and cut out as much as we could that we could live without. Previously, when I was working full time, I used to contribute ~$2,000 a month to my 401(k) (up to the max amount) and $1,000 a month to either an IRA or brokerage account, depending on the time of year and whether we were maxed out on the IRA. We had a nice savings cushion so we stopped contributing to that account and just let it earn interest. I’d like to get back to investing in the market once we’re in the financial position to do that again.
Housing Costs: $3,500 for mortgage — this includes interest payments, real estate and property taxes, and mortgage insurance, but not any one-time payments like trash and sewer ($600 a year).
Electric/Gas: $264 (we’re on a leveled plan).
Water: $55
Loan Payments: $750 car payments (this includes annual maintenance); $273 on that 0% interest credit card.
Phones & Wifi: $249 (for both our cell phones).
Gym Membership: $79 (for both of us).
NYT Subscription: $6
CRM Subscription: $289
Streaming: $65 for Hulu, Peacock, Netflix, AppleTV+ and Max (however this is covered by various rewards programs so we pay basically nothing out of pocket).
Annual Expenses
Amex Platinum: $695 — but we get more than that back in rewards.
Prime: $139 (which also includes Grubhub+).
