The point is not to chill and just burn through the savings and not work. How would having that much money saved, change the way you look for jobs?
10k is “a hefty savings”? That money is gone very quickly if you have a family and a mortgage, etc.
I don’t think 10k would change anything, I would still need to hurry to get a job.
Ok in your case, let’s say you have 80K in savings. How would that change the way you go about looking for a job?
I would then take time to find a remote company which to some degree would align with my moral values. I would not need to rush to keep working in the automobile industry, but instead would try to get in somewhere where they would need my experience and work with renewable energy or smart grids or something similar. For that I would probably need to spent some time doing some courses on that topic and educate myself so I’m employable. The 80k would give me that possibility.
(My case is rather specific that I also need a work visa sponsor to be able to stay in Korea, so that makes it much more difficult.)
The problem is that unless you had enough investments to be generating an income you can live on, all a neat egg does is focus your mind on the fact that it is diminishing and that could be used as a deposit for a house or just a rainy day fund.
What it might do is encourage you to get something lower paying just to pay the bills while you are waiting for the dream job or you might be able to undertake an unpaid apprenticeship as long as there’s a solid job offer at the end of it.
Ok, now we’re talking. That will get me through a couple of years if managed well, so I would have the luxury to be choosy about my next job, get multiple offers (hopefully) and not have to sacrifice on having fun while looking. Still, I’d be planning to get a new job in 2-3 months max, ideally.
10k hefty savings lmao
Hefty savings? $10k? Is that us dollars? 10k is not much, that would not last more than a few months at most for most people
Everyone in the comment section is just talking about how much 10K is to them and completely ignoring OPs question lol smh
How much 10k is to you is relevant to the question. For some of us that’s a month, for some that’s six months. It makes a difference to how you respond.
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Appreciate you calling that out thank you ❤️
Me, me, me haha. If you have the money to live nicely for awhile, spend time finding out what jobs youre really passionate about and go for those. Even if your under qualified it cant hurt to apply. Sometimes they can offer entry jobs to get were you want to be. If you already know what you want to do, spend some time updating/improving your resume and see if you can get a a few companies to fight over you. There’s a lot of power being able to walk away from the negotiation table if you’re qualified and its just not the right time.
I would be broke in about 4 months with $10K in reserve if I dialed back everything to the bare minimum. It would make my job search extremely urgent.
I have more savings than that and I don’t think it’s enough. Those are rookie numbers, gotta pump those up.
hefty savings of 10k
That is not a “hefty savings.”
You want to have enough savings for about 3 months expenses, for just such an occasion, so I’d just do my normal job hunt here
That’s what I was thinking. $10,000 for me is about 2-3 months of expenses. Of course, if I lost my job and knew things were going to be tight, I’d cut back on spending. I could probably get that $10,000 to stretch to 4-5 months, but it still wouldn’t make me relax my job search much.
Now, if I had $100,000 in the bank, I’d be quite a bit more relaxed in my job search. Give me $1,000,000 in the bank and I’d question if I even needed to find a job. $10,000,000 in the bank and I’d retire and live off of the interest.
Oof 10k
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This is the answer. We are in this position now. Husband still unemployed, but has turned down several low offers. If we didn’t have savings, he would have taken a job below what is enough to live on, but at least it’d be something.
With the cushion, he job searches full time instead outside working hours.
What everyone in this comment section calling out “10k isn’t much” are failing to understand is that over 60% of the USA live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have any savings to speak of. Extend that to the world and you would go pale.
Check your privilege and get educated.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paycheck-to-paycheck-6-in-10-americans-lendingclub/
https://www.lendingtree.com/debt-consolidation/paycheck-to-paycheck-survey/
…everyone’s point isn’t “wow you suck for having only 10k in savings”. Everyone calling out the OP is saying “in my country/area cost of living is very high and with 10K in savings I would be in a bit of a panic”.
Also telling people to “get educated” while they react to the US cost of living being out of control just makes you sound like a dick.
Um… I like never said that. What medication are you on?
You can link all the articles you want, but I challenge you to check apartments near you and try to find the cheapest one.
Your point is valid, but LendingClub’s numbers are bullshit. People keep quoting that press release like it’s science.
LendingClub’s business is in person to person loans (they act as a middle man between the investors and borrowers). Person to person loans are risky because the kind of people taking them out tend to be desperate and have no money, so unless everything goes right, they end up defaulting on the loan.
LendingClub puts out this bullshit article inflating the number of people “living check to check” to try and make it seem like their person to person loans are less risky. They want you to think you’re lending money to people with a 6 figure income could just sell one of their Teslas to pay you back, not people who took out the loan because their 1991 Chevy Corsica needed repairs and without it they can’t get to their job at Burger King.
Yea seriously thank you. I’m like mind blown that ppl don’t think that’s a lot of money. 10K would last me almost 2 years not working. I’m single, no dependents, my rent is cheap and I own my car. What’s the deal here man? Why’s everyone pissing on 10k as chump change? That’s a lot of money man
How in the world are you able to live off $5k/year? My last months credit card bill was $2.6k and I don’t even pay rent or tuition on my card. I’m also single with no dependents, own my own car, and have extremely cheap rent.
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It’s not usually that high but it’s not totally uncommon for me to spend that much a month. I usually try to keep my spending between $1,200-1,800/month but that doesn’t always happen.
Don’t blame the responders, look at your question. If what you really want to know is “if you had 2 years worth of savings to live on”, ask that. The low end average cost of living in the US anyway is $2,500 a month, so 10k is 4 months of living expenses. That’s also about the average length of a job search.
Tell us then, how do we get rid of family that we have to provide for, and where do we get that sweet cheap rent?
Those are your responsibilities that you need to accept and do twice the work for. That’s the cost of having those things.
People who do not have those burdens are not the bad guy. Focus your energy on ways to help yourself instead of shitting on other ppl.
The amount 10k I put is because that’s a fuck ton of money TO ME. And would help me a shit ton.
If 10k ISN’T enough for YOU then disregard that number and just put an amount according to your life situation that you consider a large sum of money that would help you while you’re unemployed and then answer the fucking question.
Basically, take any amount that you consider a large sum of money, and then apply the same question I asked in the post.
Stop trying to shame and fucking argue. Makes you look bitter
You said in another comment that your rent was $800 a month, two years of that is $19,200. Rent is (supposed to be) about 1/3 of your living costs, so that would be $2400 per month. You’re good for a little over 4 months, more if you live very lean.
Average cost of groceries per person per month in Texas is $289. Let’s say you’re thrifty and only spend $200. https://www.sofi.com/cost-of-living-in-texas/
Gas has averaged about $3.10 over the last year. https://ycharts.com/indicators/texas_retail_price_of_gasoline_monthly I don’t know how much gas your car uses or how much you drive, but lets say you drive a prius and get 50mpg. Most people drive about 1200 miles per month ( https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/average-miles-driven-per-year/ ) let’s say you only drive 1/4 of that, so 300 (75 miles per week). Not bad, only $18.60 for gas. Minimum legally required car insurance in Texas (gets you nothing if your car is damaged) is $47 per month (https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/car/average-cost-of-car-insurance-in-texas/).
Average utilities in Texas (including internet) is $402 per month, again you’re thrifty so we’ll halve that at $200 per month.
So, if you buy absolutely nothing besides bare minimum groceries, gas, car insurance and utilities (I’m assuming you’re on no-cost Medicaid here), that’s $465 per month + $800 rent is $1265. You’re good for almost 8 months. Not a dire as some here are claiming, but also not two years. If you lived like the “average Texan” it would be about 2.5 months.
My apartment, which is about 22 square meters, costs me 1300 dollars a month. Add in a electricity, food, Public transit card, mobile data, and other small necessary things, and it’s at least 1800 dollars a month. And that’s without any extra expenses like fun things.
Which would, of course, last under 6 months. That’s not a lot of time. I’d need to start a job search immediately to be safe.
I don’t buy it. Not in the US, at least. Even if that was exclusively spent on rent alone, that would put it at $417/month. The only way you’re doing that is if you own (at least bought before the real estate spikes since ~2017) or you have a personal relationship with the landlord and are getting well below market rates. Or if you live in a van down by the river.
And that’s even before things like food, insurance, etc.
My condolences for your situation but the reality is that it simply isn’t a lot of savings.
10K lasting you 2 years is a fantasy. If rent is $500 a month, (which is an overwhelmingly generous estimate in this economy), you’re still talking about $500x24 months = $12K. That’s ignoring literally all other costs of living like food, transportation, electricity, etc.
I’m single, no dependants, don’t need a car to get around, and 10K would still not even last me a year simply because my rent is $1100 a month (and that is considered really good for a 1br in my city)
10k will last you about 3 months comfortably, 6 if you’re single and willing to scrimp or live in your car. That’s your time limit to get a new job.
I had about 3x that saved and took a year off after working a decade at my previous position (I was pretty burnt out and hadn’t been able to take more than a week off since I started). Having that padding gave me the time and peace of mind to look for something I really wanted, and gave me the freedom to turn down offers that would have put me back into the burnout cycle.
I ended up with a full WFH position with a 50% bump in salary. Within a year, I made back what I had spent simply by maintaining my budget from my previous salary.
If I hadn’t had the cushion, it would have been pedal to the metal and accepting the first position offered, and I would have likely hit burnout before a year was out.
I’d become an Uber driver, and I’d only take jobs that were 100% definitely better than that. I’d make sure to earn everything I needed so that my $10k isn’t drawn down.
Having the space to reject jobs and take one’s time is an excellent resource during a job search. A nice long one.
I got burnt out between my last job and my current one. I quit and took 3 months off before starting my current job.
Admittedly I had ~30k saved and went through about 15k of that in the 3 months as I went travelling etc. but I wasn’t stressed. I emailed some friends and shot some old colleagues on linkedin saying I was looking. An old friend got me an interview in the first month, went through the whole process in about 2 weeks after that and had a new job lined up 1 month before I was due back home. But I didn’t have that “Oh shit, I need to start my new job ASAP! I’m fucked!!!” panic which was nice.
I was also much more relaxed in the interviews etc. because I wasn’t panicking for work, instead I became super picky about what I wanted and was very open about it. Asked for more money, was open about what I actually want to do and it all worked out. It was amazing - in the past I was more trying to escape a bad workplace vs. going “I know what I want, can you make this work for both of us?”
10k isn’t going to last long, I would be freaking out applying for every job I could if that’s all the money I had available.
Having savings gives you some time before you have to get something part time to help out with bills. When you’re between jobs, it’s not vacation time. Your job is too find another job. You should spend the 8 hours or so you would have spent working instead preparing your resume, brushing up on interview skills, searching for and applying to jobs, and responding to emails. Depending on your field there may be some short term contract work available that will help you pay the bills while you look for something permanent. The point is: don’t just sit on your butt, get it in gear.
Literally just had this situation.
I still looked for jobs, but since I had a good 3 months of buffer I wasn’t hard pressed to take any shotty offers, and was able to accurately apply the algorithm for the Suitors Problem.
Google the Suitors Problem solution for the efficient way to search for jobs and minax your odds of getting a good offer.
