Comments on: Privilege, luck, and taking time off work

By: The Problems of Unemployment

The Problems of Unemployment — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:44:34 +0000

[...] There’s the obvious money issue: you have no income, at least at first. You may have to live more cheaply than you did while you were working. Besides money, these are the problems of [...]

By: miketuritzin

miketuritzin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:26:00 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Kim. (And nice site!)

Yeah, health insurance is definitely the trickiest of the issues I mentioned. You’ll generally have a higher deductible with a cheaper plan. I don’t go to the doctor much (well, at all), so I’m only insuring myself against catastrophe, really. A high deductible isn’t such a horrible thing if you have some money saved to cover the cost–and it’s easier to save the money with a cheaper plan

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:03:45 +0000

Hey Mike,

Good tips. I totally agree – the only thing I would add is that I recently looked into health care and to match my current cobra plan, it would be more like $500 a month! with a lower cost plan, you’d pay a fortune out of pocket if you ever needed to go to the hospital or get various procedures done. but i found a way to be willingly unemployed with not much money in the bank. my only real concern is health insurance.

thanks for checking out my site!

By: miketuritzin

miketuritzin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:07:52 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Chris, and good points!

Point #1 is interesting. It’s odd that dental “insurance” is such a scam. Do you know if all dental insurance plans are like that, or just some of them? Certainly many people who DO have jobs couldn’t afford $4000 in sudden dental costs.

Point #2: Yes, I did think about student loans when I was writing this. If you go to a public university, the loans shouldn’t be too bad. Another way of looking at this is that you’re tied to your job until you pay off the student loans, at which point you’re “free.” And if you live as cheaply as possible, you’ll pay off the loans much more quickly.

By: Chris Turitzin

Chris Turitzin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:48:54 +0000

A couple comments on this:

I agree with most everything here with a couple of caveats.

1. I have always felt very money frugal and independent also. The first time where money moved to the forefront was this fall when I had $4000 of dental work done. This clued me into the fact that surprises can come, and it is VERY useful to have a nice big cushion of cash. Though not everyone has this.

2. For people in their 20s, student loans can be a big deal. I’m not sure if it is actually how much they actually cost or the apparent burden. Having something like a student loan is very similar to having a dependent, your perceived freedom shrinks quite quickly.

Otherwise, I have difficulty feeling sympathy for money complaints of co-workers when they go out to get $10 lunches everyday in San Francisco.