AI and your money

How many months you could cover if the income stopped tomorrow. Take the money you could actually reach without penalty or paperwork, divide it by what one month costs when you are being careful rather than what an average month costs now.

We are not going to tell you what that number should be. There is no correct answer, only your answer, and the point of writing it down is that every decision further down this page gets easier once you know it.

Most people first read it on the day it is handed to them, which is the day they have the least leverage and the least attention. Read it now, when it costs you nothing.

Where it lives: the employee handbook, an intranet HR page, or your offer letter and any subsequent amendment. What to look for: whether it is a formula or entirely at the company's discretion, what it is calculated on, whether it requires signing a release, and whether anything changes in a reduction in force as opposed to an individual termination.

Two separate questions that people merge. Whether you are owed notice or pay in place of it, and whether accrued time off is paid out when you leave.

The handbook is not the last word on the second one. In the United States whether unused vacation must be paid out is set by state law, and some states require it regardless of what a policy says. Find the rule for your state, then read the policy, and note where they disagree.

If you hold options, this is the item on the page most likely to cost you real money, and the one almost nobody checks until it is running.

Find three things in your grant documents and plan document: how long after leaving you have to exercise vested options, commonly ninety days but set by your plan and sometimes much shorter; what exercising would cost you in cash; and whether exercising triggers a tax bill in the same year even though you cannot sell anything. For restricted stock units, find out what happens to units that have vested but not yet settled, and to the next vesting date relative to your last day.

Finding these out is not a decision. It is the information without which the decision gets made for you by a calendar.

In the United States, continuing your employer plan under COBRA is an election you have to make inside a limited window after coverage ends, and the window is measured in days rather than months.

Two things worth knowing before you are in it: the coverage is generally retroactive to the day you lost it, so a gap can be closed later within the window, and you pay the full premium rather than the share you are used to seeing. Find the current federal window length and your own plan's monthly cost now, so the number is not a surprise. A plan bought on the public marketplace is the other option, and losing job coverage opens a special enrollment period with its own deadline.

Eligibility, the amount, how long it runs and how soon you can file are all set by your state, and they differ more than people expect.

Two practical notes. Benefits are generally not backdated to the day you lost the job, so filing promptly matters more than filing perfectly. And a severance payment can affect timing or eligibility in some states, which is worth knowing before you agree to how a payment is structured.

If you have borrowed from a 401(k) or similar plan, separating from the employer often changes the repayment terms, and the balance can become due on a short schedule rather than continuing as payroll deductions.

The rules are set by your plan document and the consequences of not repaying are tax consequences, so this is a question for your plan administrator and, if the sum is meaningful, someone qualified to talk about the tax side. Find out whether it applies to you at all before you need to care.

Money you have already set aside for a purpose, which stops being yours on a schedule tied to your employment.

Check the rules for each: a health flexible spending account is usually forfeited for expenses incurred after you leave, a dependent care account has its own rules, and a commuter benefit balance often simply stops. A health savings account is different and stays yours. Find which of these you have and what each one's cutoff actually is.

Write the list while nothing is urgent. People cutting under pressure tend to cut whatever is easiest to cancel that week rather than whatever costs the most, and they often protect small comforts while leaving a large recurring commitment untouched for months.

Put it in order and keep it somewhere you will find it. The value is that on the day you need it, the thinking is already done.

The other half of the same list, and the more useful half. Name in advance the things you are not willing to reach for, so that the question is settled before the month it would be tempting.

We are not going to tell you what belongs on that list. It is genuinely yours, and it depends on things about your life this page knows nothing about.

If anyone else depends on this income or shares decisions about it, they need the same picture you have, and the worst version of this conversation is the one that happens late because you were protecting somebody from it.

You are not asking them to solve anything. You are telling them your number, what you have found out, and what you decided in items nine and ten.

The companion to the trigger in the ninety-day plan, which is about your job. This one is about your runway, and it is the number at which you change what you are doing rather than waiting to see.

Decide it now, in writing, with a date on it. Reviewing your own number against a line you set while calm is a different act from looking at your balance and feeling something about it.