steam

I can't decide if it matters or not, but I feel the need to vent just to set my thoughts straight. Maybe I'll feel less stressed if I see it in writing.

We have health insurance as a family through C's 2009 employer. Having worked X-number of hours in 2009, he earned coverage for 2010 without any premiums to be paid. As a result, we did not take advantage of the insurance offered by my employer, which did involve monthly premiums. COBRA availability is based on an employee's selections that are in effect at the time of termination, and C works for the business we started this year so he did not log any union hours that would have earned us coverage in 2011. So, in addition to losing my paycheck, we are now slapped with the cost of health insurance for the three of us. I'm not even sure that COBRA would have been any less expensive than buying coverage privately, but I'm miffed that they did this just as we were about to depend on my job for health insurance. That was one of the biggest reasons why I returned to work at all after Charlotte was born... so that we would have employer-sponsored health insurance in 2011.

My calculations...
Unemployment pays out roughly half what my salary was (it is half, but I think there's an additional allowance for dependents). Since there will be no contributions to my 401K or FSA, take-home will be a little more than half even after taxes are taken out.
My salary paid our mortgage. That's it. That's all my salary covered. Low salary? Too-big mortgage? Maybe both.
Health insurance for our family will cost about half as much as our monthly mortgage payment. So, unemployment will cover our new monthly insurance premium and C's paycheck will have to cover the mortgage and all our other living expenses.
I decide how much C gets paid, since I own the business. Luckily, we have no investors to appease. It would have been nice to run a profitable business, but I'm glad C isn't in his old union job because if he were, we'd both be laid off right now. I guess the business will earn just enough to cover expenses and the rest will be our income.

Nope... I don't feel any better. I'm very worried about our finances, but I'm also relieved that our insurance decision has been made (for us). We'll be buying insurance privately for the whole family, and since we're buying it in MA all MA mandates will apply. IVF will be covered. It won't be a luxury purchased just so we can launch Project Sibling. Some of my guilt over considering buying redundant insurance has lifted now that the redundancy has been eliminated. And since my mother was laid off too (we worked in the same office), I have a willing babysitter for those daily monitoring appointments.

Damn... even unemployed, I'm still finding a silve lining everywhere I look.