I hate to share a sob story, but that's what I've got and I need to pick brains for ideas I may be missing.
I am a 40yr old guy. After 20 years with the same company, I was just laid off from my Senior Technical Analyst / Senior Technical Support Engineer position. A few years ago, I began to have severe trouble with my back to the point I could not even navigate my own home. This did not affect my work, however, because I was already telecommuting full-time (and have my entire career).
Finding a similar job is proving difficult, given the limitation that I can not leave my home for an interview or for the actual work. (And mind you, there is no reason my position can not be fully performed remotely). Unless a job specifically announces it is remote work, I'm not sure how to squeeze into it anyway, and ask for my need to be treated as a "reasonable accomodation". I am perfectly capable of doing the work I've done for the last 20 years. Literally the only thing holding me back is an employer's unwillingness to set me up with a PC, VPN, and phone remotely.
INCOME / DEBT:
At the moment, nothing. Some 'unemployment' payments should be coming in for a little while, but that's it. I should have a little money coming in from being laid off and it'll be just enough to pay off my $6k in credit card debt.
My income up until this point was a base salary of about $86k, but with shift-work and on-call pager-duty, was about $135k this year.
SAVINGS:
I have $190K in a 401k and $10k tied up in a Prosper account. The 401k has an outstanding $18k loan, which I've been told by Fidelity that I can let "default" after 45 days and then (I think) that $18k will be treated as income and taxed the same for the year it defaults in (and then I'll also pay an extra 10%, so probably totally $7500 on this?).
I have enough money in my checking account to pay my mortgage on December 1st and January 1st. Then I have literally no more money.
That's all my savings. That's it. Yes, I used to have a lot more saved and invested. Yes, I know I should be in a much better situation than I am. Given the length of my employment (entire adult life with this company), I took the risk of helping a friend to the tune of $200k over the last two years. I expected that I would buckle-down in 2018 and regenerate my safety-net from that point on. I was not expecting to lose my job this Thanksgiving of all times. Yes, this was stupid. I just really wanted to help my friend out and didn't realistically thing it would destroy me.
ASSETS:
I have a home in the Denver metro area that I bought for $195k in 2010. It has had about $100k or so invested in it (gutted the basement and two floors to update them from 1969 styles, insulated the attic, updated the 50amp electrical panel to 200amp, added some 20amp outlets on two floors, added a very nice new bathroom, installed a new boiler, installed new baseboard hydronic heating, new evaporative cooler, new roof). It could still use some finish work to make it presentable for a sale. Zillow claims it could sell for something like $330k. I have no idea how accurate that is or how fast it would go. I still owe about $140k on it.
MONTHLY EXPENSES: (~$1,950)
- Mortgage: $825
- Property Tax: $200
- Homeowner's Insurance: $220
- Power: ~$250-$300 (It has been about $140/mo while I'm here alone but I may have a sibling and their sigifnicant other move in and last time they did that it easily jumped up to about $300/mo).
- Cell/Ting: ~$20 (this includes my service and a phone for my aging mother).
- City utilities (trash, sewage, water): ~$40-80 (Is around $40 when I'm alone. Probably more like $80 with guests in the house).
- Internet: ~$100 (Need it to job hunt or do just about anything else, since I'm not able to get out of the hosue to even go to the unemployment office and file things in person, for example).
- Medication: ~$5 (I take blood pressure meds and urgently called my doctor the day I was laid off to get them to update my prescription for a full year and I can probably fill it at Walmart for this).
- Food: ~$150 (Denver is stupid expensive for food. I think I can maybe get enough calories and protein in my body if I mostly focus on rice and beans.)
- Misc: $20 *(I have an elderly cat. I figure $20 or so per month for litter and food).
This doesn't include medical coverage. With the ACA, I don't think I can afford that with no income. It seems to be about $300/mo for the privelege of having them pay about 40% of some expenses after I've met like a $6k deductable for the year. With a very minimal income, it seems I might be able to get enough tax credit to pay only $60/mo. Still, for something I can't afford to use, so this is literally money that I'm just paying for nothing. Alternately, I can pay like $700 penalty next year and have no coverage (which seems even worse, being I'm 40). This also doesn't include dental coverage. I need some dental work and it looks like dental coverage would be at least $60/mo and I wouldn't even be able to get anything significant done until the second year and even then only up to $1500 with them covering 50%. This also doesn't include vision. I don't think I can afford to have any of these things and my best bet is to find $700 somewhere and just pay the government to not give me health coverage.
HELP?!
How can I make the best of my situation? I'm really scared, because I'm 40 and in poor health and am worried I may not be able to get a job again at all -- much less an equivalent one. At this rate, I see myself ending up old, literally broke, never being able to retire, and scrounging at some awful job just to barely get by. I never saw my life going this way... It is the way my parents have gone and I don't want to suffer like they have had to.
My sibling and their significant other are probably going to move in in a couple weeks and we have discussed what we can do. It is likely that we will split things three ways (including mortgage) and I will give them their share of equity in the house if I ever sell it (calculated as whatever percent of overall mortgage payments they wound up covering).
If that works out, it could take my monthly expenses down to about $800 including food and pet, but not including ANY sort of health, dental, vision or anything else.
I can only think of two ideas.
Sell House:
I can get someone to help me do some work on the house and then sell it. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll sell fast and for like $330k (the last owners had it on the market over six months before I came along). I'll eat a big loss considering I spent about as much to renovate the house as it has (maybe) increased in value. Then I could pay the bank back the $140k and use the remaining $90k (or whatever I get after paying a real estate broker and taxes) to live on. I'm not sure how or where I would live very long on $90k, but at least I'd (maybe) have up to $90k.
Cash Out 401k:
I can cash out my 401k. It was $179k last I looked. Subtract that $18k and it's $161k. Figure 30% tax and 10% penalty, so I keep 60% of it. Maybe that leaves me with $96k. Use $7500 of that to pay off the 401k loan tax and penalty, leaving me $88k. That's $88k to live off of for as long as I can stretch it while having my house to continue to live in (though I'm then paying whatever portion of the mortgage and expenses still).
Which is better to lose? The 401k or the house? Either way, I feel I am just delaying the inevitable and have no future. I've been living every moment of the last two weeks like I'm constantly hyperventilating.
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for any consideration you give it. Thank you for any advice you offer.
Regards.
Submitted November 27, 2017 at 10:03AM by throwaway154298 http://ift.tt/2zsripg
