Bri (Listener)
Appearances
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
I justify it by saying, you know, if it's a piece of clothing, I'm trying to keep my wardrobe as updated. I'm a big furniture person as well. And I just constantly rotate things in and out of my space. And so I just usually think to myself, okay, well... You know, this is my current desk is ugly.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Let me get a cuter looking desk, maybe something that's a little more functional, which the functional aspect of it is what trips me up because it's just a desk. Like I have, you know, two screens on it, my laptop, that's it. I just need a surface. I don't need something that's, you know, hundreds of dollars.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Correct, yeah.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yes, so... So I implemented minimalism years ago. I mean, like we're talking maybe like 2017. And back then I was working and I mean, like it wasn't my official big girl job, but minimalism really helped me curb off that. You know, to just keep me at the bare minimum of what do I actually need? You know, food, water. Okay. Can I wear this t-shirt more than five times without it disintegrating?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Okay. Maybe instead of spending $7 on a t-shirt from a fast fashion, maybe I just do $48 or $30 or something like that so that I can keep re-wearing the t-shirt over and over again. Minimalism really helped me just kind of like... honestly live better and make better choices.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
When we get the lifestyle creep that I've been experiencing, especially with like a big girl job and my own, you know, adult money and that kind of thing, then I'm like, okay, well, instead of just, you know, kind of stereotypically sticking to maybe like black, white, and gray for like a minimalism aesthetic, you know, I can get color.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
And like a lot of clothing comes in different colors and styles and patterns. And I'm like, I need it all. Like give me all of it.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Ooh, So no, but you know what? I resonate with the word enough because I think, you know, based on the way I grew up, I always felt like, you know, whether I wasn't enough or I didn't have enough, that kind of thing, it's kind of translated into adulthood as I want it all.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yes, definitely. Let me pull that. So I have quite a few personal loans, credit cards. What is quite a few? Ooh, let's count them up. Let's see. About three. Personal loans.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah. And then I have about... Five credit cards that have gone into collections. What are your balances? So it looks like all of them are under $500. I have something from Mission Lane, $460. Nordstrom, $380. Apparently, $28 on a Capital One credit card, which... Don't know how that slipped through, but it did, unfortunately.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah, right, right. And I was just thinking of a home goods purchase I made this weekend, which it was about $65. And well, there goes some of that.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
So order in, oh gosh, maybe twice a week. Depends on how busy my schedule is from work. Depends on how lazy and tired I am. It's not helping my health all the time. And I'm super aware that I overspend it on Uber. So I definitely know that it needs to get cut way back.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah, I don't track habits probably as much as I should.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Great. Will do. Yeah. Thank you.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
I do. Absolutely. You know what? I feel like I have a really good roadmap so far and I'm ready to tackle it. I've been feeling like I've needed help for a very long time and haven't been sure where to start, et cetera. So now we've got hopefully a game plan so that I can stick to it and tackle some of these goals.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah, sounds good. Well, thanks, Sean. Thanks, Magda. I really appreciate it.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Hi, Sean. Thanks so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it today.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah. So I'm an executive assistant. I work in affordable housing. It's really fun. I love helping people. And when I'm not helping, you know, people just kind of keep their day to day together. I have a lot of fun with my dog. She's a Yorkie. Her name is Penny. She's the sweetest little peach in the world.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah, I stay inside and rot. No, you know, I love to be outside. Me and Penny go on very long walks and I love to spend time with my mom and my cousins. Just kind of family time overall. And, you know, just kind of like just enjoy the hot weather before it gets frigid and just unbearable.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
It's rough. The winter's gonna be rough. Totally.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Ooh, gosh, you know, I don't think I had any specific lessons, which is probably why I'm kind of here today. It was more like my dad was a breadwinner and my parents had a production company back in the early 2000s, 90s. So they were entrepreneurs and business owners. That was great, you know, until they got divorced in like 2004. I was about nine and I kind of saw my dad, you know, just kind of,
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
you know exit the family and it was just my mom and i she's a stay-at-home mom um and it was just kind of well how do we survive you know if if dad's not here who's gonna make money um and it came down to essentially just being on food stamps a lot of the time um there's occasionally yeah it's okay you know it's character building i guess um
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
we, there was a couple of times when maybe the electricity was off. We didn't have the luxuries like being able to have like cable TV back in the day and way before the streamers. So it was, it was a weird childhood growing up because I also went to private school and it was like,
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
I'm seeing all of these children and who are my age back in the day who are, you know, having these very luxuries experiences going on these nice vacations and that kind of thing. And then I come home and like, ooh, we have food in the house, you know. And it was kind of a weird way to grow up to be surrounded by people who came from wealthy families.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
And then I myself was not, you know, things just really fell off once my parents got divorced. Yeah.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah. So it's definitely altered my little lizard brain, unfortunately. Some for the good, some for the bad. For the good, it's kind of set a bar of how I would like to live and how I feel comfortable living and that kind of thing and how I strive to, you know, whether it's make money in my career or just kind of maybe a lifestyle.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
You know, maybe we see on social media, you know, a lot of the, you know, glitz and glam, even though those are usually highlight reels, that's sometimes how people live. And that's kind of been the standard that I've set myself.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah. It's very aspirational. And I think it's helped me out a lot in terms of how I want to tackle my career and how much money I want to make. And it's at the end of the day, not been the best, you know, it's, I've, I've been trying to live within my means, you know, I don't own any real designer items.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
I mean, I've got like a vintage indie bag from like Poshmark, but you know, it's never been like going to buy one of the, you know, $10,000 Chanel bags, you know, I don't go to vacation in Monaco or anything like that.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
I am so irresponsible. It actually angers me because I've tried to slow down on my spending and I've tried to adopt better habits, but for whatever reason, it's just like swipe the card, ching, you know, whether it's Just me, just blindly shopping online, late night scrolls. You know, I just realized, ooh, probably shouldn't have bought a $50 item at two o'clock in the morning.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah, totally contradicts everything I want to do. I hate it. Yeah.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Ooh, oh my gosh. So this has kind of been a long road of how I got here. And I can kind of pinpoint exactly where it started and why it's happened, why it snowballed. But essentially, a very long story short, I'll probably try to do the SparkNotes edition of it. I ended up moving into a complex called River City, one of Chicago's kind of more famous architecture buildings, that kind of thing.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
I think my rent was like... 1995. And so I was fortunate enough to, during the part of the pandemic, stay with my mom and save up a little bit.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
But the amount of money it cost me to get into that building, I used a company called the Guarantores, which is a lovely company, helps people who don't have maybe the 700 credit score that all the landlords really want you to have or anything in collections, that kind of thing. I use them. So they charge a service fee more or less. They want to hold... this amount of rent.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah, for a security deposit. Yes, thank you. And then I had to also pay the additional building fees, which was another security deposit and dog fees, move-in fees, that kind of thing. So all of the money that I'd really saved over COVID just kind of went down the drain there. And, you know, I didn't think that anything of it, I was like, oh, spend it back, get it right back. It'll be fine.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
It was not fine. Yeah.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
That was basically the starting of it. You know, I emptied out my savings and was never able to recover.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
It's been some years. Yeah.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Sure. I would say some of my goals are savings for sure. I would really like to just kind of save in general at some point in the near-ish future, maybe like five years. I'd love to make a move abroad. And so that costs money. And so whether that's finding a flat and paying whatever visa fees that need to be paid, I would like to save, you know, 30, maybe 40 grand. Give myself a cushion.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
And then I would also like to save and, you know, get this debt out of the way. It's about 25 K, but it's, you know, a monster when, you know, you, you,
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
It does. Yes.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
I have not. No, this will be a first.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Ooh, it's been not thoughtful in the case that I've been just going full force into lifestyle creep, but then it's been thoughtful in a way of, ooh, it's happening. How do I stop it?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
You know, I think I just... Go for it. And I see, honestly, that it's made a small dent in my account, but not so much where I'm going to be eating ramen noodles for the next 13, 14 days while I'm waiting for my next check. I'm kind of in the mindset of, unfortunately, again, spend a check, get it right back. And as long as my account's not at zero, I can... afford it theoretically.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah. So I get paid semi-monthly. So for me, it's the 15th and about the 30th of every month. And it comes out to about $2,900. Okay.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yes.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
So I do not have anything left over because of my egregious spending habits and shopping and whatnot and Uber Eats, et cetera. So besides the pre-arranged payment plan that I'm already on, I'm not really tackling the debt like I'd like to.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
I just started using the Monarch app, which seems to be really great. There's a lot that I had to kind of go in and toggle myself, but it gives me a really good kind of overall view of where my money's going. So I've spent a lot of money since January on Uber between Uber Eats and Uber itself, which is about $3,500. Okay. Not awesome.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
So it says shopping is kind of like the next, the third biggest group. It says I've only spent $802 on shopping. I would say, you know, maybe this month. You know what? Let me double check. Oh, yes. In the month of July. Thank you. Yes.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Yeah, no, no, no.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
No, yeah. Okay. So that's, yeah. So for the month of July, it's been about $800. Travel and lifestyle for the month of July has been about $796. I mean, my goodness, we're only in the 15th. Food and dining, $367. I'm assuming they're counting Instacart or any type of Aldi's run I do. Health and wellness, which is $286. That includes my personal trainer and gym membership.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Live Financial Planning Session: Expert Budgeting and Spending Tips
Is a personal trainer necessary? Probably not. And then the rest is like bills, utilities. It's got auto and transport in there. I don't drive. Pretty detailed breakdown, though. Yeah, it's very detailed.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
in savings and things like that to go for four to six months or so, I would say. I have other options beyond that, like tapping into my retirement. I have credit cards that are untapped. I could take a personal loan. There are options. Some of those are absolute last resort for me and that I really, really don't want to do them. But I just am curious about how I should think about
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Tapping into something like that versus adjusting my job search criteria.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Yeah, that totally makes sense. The very first thing I did was file for unemployment, and thankfully that was approved. I certified for the first time last week, and one of the questions is, did you turn down any paid work?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
And that's in the back of my mind as I think about like a part-time role, for example, where it's something to help get me through, but does that compromise or jeopardize the unemployment rate? if I say yes, that I turn down something or even a full-time role for that matter.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Yeah, it's interesting. I've done contract work in the past. The instability of it makes me nervous. And so I think if my back was against the wall and I was choosing, I'd probably take even an in-person part-time role locally in Chicago and keep searching for something more before I did contract work, just to have some sort of stability and reliability along the way.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
That's a really great point. I had not thought about that.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Thank you for saying that. That's really refreshing to hear, to be honest, because it's been something that's been weighing pretty heavy on me. And that has definitely created probably some undue stress in the process as I kind of do play out the what if.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Yes, absolutely. I'm sure my friends are tired of it.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
My network personally and professionally is amazing. One of the things that I did early on was I did communicate with my close friends about what was happening and I kind of put it out there that like, if we're going to hang out and do something that costs money, I can give you one day a week and I can give it $20. And that's what I have. So smart. And they, they're great.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
So I don't know why this surprised me, but they have been so supportive and aware when they invite me to things or it's just been really great along the way.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Oh, thank you.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
One silver lining in all of this is that my position was eliminated right at the beginning of the month. And so my insurance actually goes through the end of this month. So I'm covered on my existing plan right now. The COBRA is $971 a month. And just to kind of put that in context for me personally, my total monthly expenses without insurance is roughly $2,600.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
So $971 is a big thing for me to swallow. But I also did go into Marketplace and submit the application there. And it's... saying that it has sent it to the state for consideration for Medicaid. And I'm just kind of in a holding pattern there. So I kind of feel like my hands might be tied and I might have to do the COBRA. That's kind of where I am right now.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
I haven't. I have tried to go in and do that, and it won't let me go any further until the state makes a decision about Medicaid.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
I had mentioned, I applied for unemployment immediately. I cut back immediately. Aside from my mortgage and my HOA fees, my biggest expense was travel and eating out. And neither of those are necessities. And so it was pretty easy to cut back. But I also knew myself that I get tempted to travel really easily because I love it so much.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
So one of the first things I did was I actually, to your point, Sean, made a list of lots of free and reduced cost things to do because I knew when that urge to travel came up. I was going to need to have something to replace it. So that list sits on my kitchen counter. So every time that urge comes up, I just go to the list.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
I'm like, oh, let's go to the dog park or, oh, let's go check out this festival or those kinds of things. But then I also knew like... It's a big swing to go from spending to nothing. And so one of the other things that I did was I created goals within my job search and decided ahead of time how I was going to reward myself for hitting each of those goals. And those earlier rewards...
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
are free so like sleep an extra hour or paint your nails or you know just random stuff and those goals that are closer to an actual offer are the ones where I have like spending attached to it so like I have my eye on a new pair of tennis shoes that I really want or a pottery class still very like low cost but that way I have something to look forward to but I don't feel completely constrained on the spending side of things I love that
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
This has just been so helpful. I'm wondering when I do land that next job, what's the fastest way to replenish what I used so that if something were to happen again, whether it's job loss or some other financial emergency, I can as quickly as possible be prepared for that.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Oh, thank you.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Yeah, so this is actually part of the reason why that is like a no-no for me in terms of options. When I mentioned earlier about cashing out is because early in my career, as you all have mentioned, you make decisions that you learn from. And I did cash out a retirement account when I changed jobs.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
And now seeing how much I miss out on because of that choice, it's just like a hard no for me moving forward. And I also have been working really hard to make up that loss. So I still am not at the place where I need to be at my age to have the retirement that I want. The gap isn't so large that I'm freaking out about it anymore. Like it feels very doable and like I can do this.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
I can accomplish this in the time that I have.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
That makes a lot of sense. All my previous jobs, I did previously roll them all into one because it was getting too much to take care of. And I also have this assumption that that's a good choice because the larger the balance, the more compound interest over time, I think. But what are the pros of keeping it separated and not rolling it over?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Yeah, absolutely.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
I feel really good. I've had confidence all along on the job search side of things, especially considering I'm finding so many jobs that are in alignment. But definitely the financial side has been just this quiet chirping in the background that is getting louder and louder the more time that passes. And so this has been really good to just touch base and have some reminders for myself and
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Thank you so much, Sean and Elizabeth. I appreciate it.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Hi, Sean. Hi, Elizabeth. It's so nice to meet you all.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Right now, it feels good that I have enough funds to get through the next four to six months if I have to. I should probably mention part of the reason that I'm here is because of job loss. My position was terminated three and a half weeks ago now. Sorry about that. Thank you. So I've already stripped down to the bare essentials in terms of my budget.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
And I feel really good about my ability to be disciplined with substantially cutting those back. I live a pretty simple life. So even though I had a well-paying job, I don't feel stressed about managing things for several months if I have to.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Thank you. It's been eye opening because that's something I've stressed about a lot in the past is do I have enough emergency savings? Interestingly, part of the reason why I do is because I was in the process of moving to Chile when all of this happened. So I had been building up extra savings for that already. So I have easy access to a good amount of money that I feel good about.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
On the stressor side, I'd say the two big stressors right now are health insurance coverage and secondly, not really knowing how long this is going to last. So on the health insurance side, I did get the COBRA information from my company and it's very expensive. But I have seen all my doctors recently because of that planned move. So I don't anticipate that I'm going to need something.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
But of course, there could always be some sort of surprise, right?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Emotionally, it's been a roller coaster. I was completely blindsided by this decision. I had no idea that it was coming and really honestly didn't get much of an explanation other than restructuring and cutting back. They've chosen to eliminate my role in that process.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
So that's really been challenging to not know why and if there are things to learn on my end that I can do that for future opportunities. But they gave the impression that there was nothing on my end. Both the CEO and my supervisor wrote letters of recommendation for me, which I'm so grateful for. So that's reassuring.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Absolutely. It really is. And so I've kind of gone through the range of emotions of confusion and anger to frustration to everything in between. Optimism about what's to come. Excitement trying to view it as something better will come of this.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Start Feeling Better About Money Today and Learn How to Manage Finances After a Layoff
Yeah, that's a great question. So I would say in short right now, I'm prioritizing remote work and I'm really not looking at hybrid or in-person because of those personal life goals that I want to continue with. If push comes to shove and things are not panning out, obviously I've got to be open at some point in the process to consider alternatives. I got enough easy access to funds