If you have been laid off, do this today: file for unemployment.

Benefits are generally payable from the week you FILE, not the week you were

laid off. Every week you spend researching instead of filing is a week of

benefit you cannot get back, and in most states it is not recoverable later.

File first. Read this second.

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The market is full of $9 resume tools. Almost nobody is building the thing

that actually decides how long you last: the money plan.

You're not unemployable. You're arithmetic-ing at 2am while distracted.

That's fixable — it just needs a sequence, a set of deadlines, and someone

having done the sums.

WHAT YOU GET

A 15-page playbook that walks the first 90 days in order, plus five

spreadsheets that do the arithmetic and explain their own reasoning.

Each spreadsheet ships twice: a blank one to fill in, and a worked example.

01 - Runway Calculator

How long your money actually lasts — and the date you need a job by, eight

weeks before you run out. Most people never calculate this, and it's the only

number that tells you how urgently you need to be working.

02 - Severance vs Staying

If you have a chance to stay, that's a real offer and it should be priced

like one. Also surfaces the question almost nobody asks: does your severance

quietly reduce your unemployment benefit? In a number of states severance is

treated as wages and offset against your claim. A package that looks generous

can be worth substantially less once you count that.

03 - COBRA vs Marketplace

The hard deadlines on one page, then a genuine cost comparison that accounts

for your deductible — because COBRA looks unaffordable until you ask whether

you'll actually spend more than that deductible before you find work. Often

the answer flips the decision entirely.

04 - 401k Options

Leave it, roll to an IRA, roll to a new plan, or cash it out — with what a

cash-out actually leaves you in your pocket. Losing a job is NOT a taxable

event; taking a distribution usually is, plus a 10% penalty under 59½. On a

typical balance that's a third of the money gone before you spend anything.

05 - Unemployment Filing Tracker

All 50 state agencies pre-filled, a document checklist, certification dates,

appeal deadlines and a contact log. Miss one certification and payments stop.

ALSO INSIDE

The eight mistakes that cost the most, ranked by damage. Eight questions to

ask your employer. And where to verify every figure yourself.

FORMAT

PDF plus five .xlsx files. Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers and

LibreOffice. Live formulas throughout — change an input, everything

recalculates.

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A note on state numbers: this deliberately does NOT hand you state-specific

unemployment figures. Waiting weeks, benefit caps, earnings tests, filing

deadlines and severance-offset rules all differ by state and all change.

Those cells ship blank with the official source beside them. A confident wrong

number from a stranger costs more than the ten minutes it takes to check the

real one.

This is information, not advice. Not financial, tax, employment or legal

advice, and not a substitute for a professional who knows your situation.

Rules vary by state — verify anything that matters before you rely on it.