[ryandrake]

If so, that's really generous, given the cost of having to pay for COBRA.

Either way, I'd still be shitting my pants. 16 weeks is not a lot of time to find another job in today's environment. I know devs who have been out of work for years and had to resort to stocking shelves at Home Depot to tread water.

[kelnos]

I would sincerely hope that anyone making tech money has some savings put away and isn't living paycheck-to-paycheck.

[Sohcahtoa82]

Seriously.

Everyone should do their damndest to get 6 months worth of bills into savings. This should be easy for well-paid tech workers.

I've been making tech money ($200-250K) for about 5 years now, and my savings is enough that I could ride out a job loss for at least a full year with no change in lifestyle. With some minor belt tightening (I eat out WAYYYY too much), I could go 2 years before I had to start worrying.

[ryandrake]

The point I'm trying to make is that even if you have savings and are eating into them, you should still be shitting your pants and acting as though those pants are on fire, because you're handling an emergency. That's why you call it your emergency fund.

If we are not employed, then we have N months until we are broke. This is true for what, 99.9% of us? Whether that N is a high or low number, the slope of the line is still downward and that makes it an emergency. Unless you are retired, and are hoping for N to be greater than your life expectancy.

[kakacik]

It would be a reasonable, even logical expectation, but everybody does sometimes less-than-logical things, takes some risks etc. Most of the time it works out somehow, sometimes it doesn't.

I've done my share - after buying one smaller apartment some 12 years ago, paying all legal fees, taxes and full reconstruction I was, overall, -1500 euro worth and now with 2 parallel mortgages on my shoulders. Had to take short term employer's loan to get back into positive numbers (that loan, if fired/let go, would be conveniently ignored so that has been be my main motivation for taking it otherwise its a dumb move on its own).

Getting fired during that period and maybe next 6-12 months afterwards would be still devastating for me, I don't have rich parent/family to fall back on, smart moral hard working folks didn't get paid well during socialism/communism. This is where rich kids have massive non-obvious advantage - like ie Gates, they can go and take big risks that are not that big for them, and come crying to rich daddy if they screw up, or be a hero if lucky. Folks like me, they have to risk everything to even get the chance to play the game (which has its own risks which luckily didn't materialize).

I see it even now with my colleagues - nobody would take any big risk, all very risk-averse because they can. My risks though took me further than they managed to get with a massively better starting position. Sometimes, austerity is a great motivator.

But it was a temporary dip, and I had a bit of luck through it. To be in software engineering and having long term no savings, thats... bad life strategy in most cases.

[abnercoimbre]

Financial literacy isn't taught as much as it should, and I know devs who grew up in generational poverty who tragically mismanaged their paychecks. Nobody pointed them in the right direction before it was too late. The younger they are, the more I feel they have reasonable excuse.

[abnercoimbre]

Yep, I also know of multiple devs going into nursing. It used to be the other way around!