As I announced yesterday, this is my last week of “unpaid/unplanned vacation” before I head back to gainful employment. Meaning that it’s time to crunch some numbers and wrap up some some planning.
Time on the Job Hunt: From when I started my job hunt to when I received the offer that I accepted was almost exactly eight weeks, or right about two months. Which aligns with most of my other job hunts. The average time it takes me to find a new job when I’m on the hunt is right in that 2-3 month range. This includes my 2011-2012 job search during the Obama Recession.
South Dakota Unemployment is Broken. This is the first time I’ve been out of work since moving to South Dakota. Unemployment rules in this state require that new claims be audited and verified before funds can start being released. In a state with a population of less than one million people, and a jobless rate that’s typically lower than the national average, this usually means that people only wait one or two weeks before they start receiving benefits. As of this writing, I’ve been filing every week for eight weeks, and have yet to see a penny hit my bank account. I’m told that in in the March-May timeframe, people were waiting over three months to see their initial claim processed. There are a lot of households which really can’t afford to spend three months going without any income.
We Were Okay. Following the Dave Ramsey system means always having a plan. When I lost my job, we popped the seal on our emergency reserve and went into conserve mode. This would have been sufficient to keep us afloat (barely) during this time of no money coming in, however, it turns out that we have an amazing support system in our local church. I was privately taken aside by a couple of different people and assured that if we needed financial help, we only needed to ask. We didn’t need to worry about food/lights/mortgage. We also had some family and friends give us food, send us some food money, or anonymously put some gift cards in the mail for us. Which made a huge difference in stretching our grocery budget. We’ve still been eating a lot of waffles, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and ramen (for different meals) but we’ve still had ground beef and chicken dishes too.
A bit more on this – one of the other things that Dave Ramsey talks about is knowing your “why” for why you want to get to Baby Step 7 so that you can live and give like no one else. This is definitely part of my why. So that someday down the road, I can be part of helping someone else when they’re going through a rough patch.
Personal App Dev is Paused, Not Cancelled. Some folks may have noticed that I haven’t written anything about my mobile app development after Week 1. The truth is that other priorities (mainly getting started in the CAP Cadet Program for my Civil Air Patrol Squadron, and now getting my home office set up) have put app dev on the back burner. I still want to get back to it, but it’s paused for now until I get ahold on the responsibilities of the new gig. Fulltime work, plus running my squadron’s cadet program, plus running, writing and streaming, may just be a bit more than the equivalent of two fulltime jobs.
Adventure Awaits! I’m excited to see what’s going to happen next!