Take a deep breath.

You have multiple years of savings. You have an in demand skill that won't go out of demand any time soon. You have enough fundamentals of that skill so if you had to switch from one language to another it wouldn't be a huge stretch. Sounds like you have yours and your wife's health. Also sounds like you don't have to worry about immigration problems from losing your job (not on an H1B or some other work permit).

This is what helped me when I was feeling anxious about losing my job due to immigration issues in the USA.

1. I continued to keep in contact once every 3 months, just saying hi, to previous co-workers. It's a system I learned here: https://courses.jordanharbinger.com/courses/6-minute-network.... Literally just saying "hi" and not asking for anything. This means I always have a warm network of people who'll gladly send me a job in case anything ever were to go wrong.

2. Because of #1, I'd have an inbound interview probably once every 3-4 months I would take. Most of the time I'd turn down the job, but it helped me emotionally know "I got this".

3. I paid off all my debts, cut up all my credit cards, and stopped borrowing money from anyone for any reason. Ya I'm losing some arbitrage opportunities. I don't care. I'm optimizing for psychological comfort.

If you have skills and relationships you will _always_ make money. Full stop. A lot of engineers only focus on the skills. Keeping relationships is VERY easy. EVERYONE is bad as proactively reaching out and saying hi to people so if you JUST spend five minutes a day proactively saying hi people WILL remember you.

You don't need to make new relationships, you just need to nurture the ones you have.

I'm curious why you consider credit cards a bad thing. I find them to be very convenient because I then don't have to keep track of how much money I have on my bank account; I just buy everything on it, pay it all in one go once my salary drops and repeat. I get cool bonuses and the good benefit of being able to revert fraudulent purchases, and it's all free because I don't buy things I can't afford to pay immediately.

They're not inherently "bad" or "good" it's just one layer of abstraction I personally don't need. I like dealing with just one big global money state variable for personal finance.

What made me switch was one day I had to come up with a deposit for a new apartment with a couple of room mates. Two days before I went to get a cashiers cheque my credit card auto-paid itself and I had significantly less cash than I thought and couldn't cover the deposit. I felt embarrassed and stupid. Should I have checked better? For sure. Now I _always_ check because the money _always_ comes out of the same account. If I'm cash short one day and want to buy something... I just wait a few days.

I also make 90% of my purchases via cash day to day. Every Sunday I take out a chunk of cash and use that for coffee/beer/taking my girlfriend out to eat etc. Part of it is because I live in Taiwan and it's still very a much a cash based society (e.g. they'll take _cash on delivery_ for most things too).

I'm not particularly frugal. I order Uber Eats all the time, I have a personal trainer at a nice gym nearby, I go to nice restaurants with my girlfriend, I'll buy a round of drinks for friends at the bar, etc. But for me, there's definitely something to looking at my wallet, not seeing as much cash as I thought, and thinking "On second thought, I went out two nights in a row, I don't need to go out again."

I don't ever take out personal loans on anything either. Including car loans, those have always been cash. I'm not opposed to taking out a mortgage in the future, but I do like the idea of buying a house all out in cash and not having to owe a single person anything.

When I was younger, I would frequently come up with reasons to buy something "early" because there was some perceived benefit. But I would carry a balance and end up paying more for EVERYTHING.

So I tore them up, used a debit card for everything and only bought things I had money for. When everything was paid off and I had no debts, there was a real change in my demeanor. Best thing I ever did.

I will say I tried to buy a car a few years after having made this change. When they ran my credit, I remember the guy saying - I'm having trouble getting you a loan. It's not that you have bad credit, it's that you have NO credit.

So at that point I got a loan for a couple consumer purchases to build credit. Later I caved and got a (costco) credit card, and paid it in full every month.

Now a credit card is not a big deal, but I think I had to get to the point where I was ahead (and maybe slightly more mature)

Wow, great post. @OP I have the same fears and just survived layoffs but not years of money on the side. But I live in central europe with a more stable safety net.

I do the exact same think as mentioned here, but on top of that I even go as far to have a list of 3-5people that would get me a job instantly. I keep in touch and ask what skills I should refine (in case I would jump ship in 6mth to 1 year).

> You have an in demand skill that won't go out of demand any time soon.

How do you know? OP didn't mention what he did.

You're right. I just assumed they worked in a tech or tech adjacent role.

OP if you're working as a newspaper printing machine repair person disregard everything I said and get a new trade :P

>put a solid deposit down on undeveloped land on the outskirts of an are that will grow over the next decade

This is not without substantial risk. Land that is developable in a certain way today may not be be tomorrow. If the area is in fact getting wealthier you're basically racing to develop faster than it gentrifies. You have to thread the needle of buying when cheap and developing before "the wrong kind of people" show up and make that impossible except at the highest end (unaffordable to the private individual) in order to make bank selling to said demographics.

To shake this kind of feeling, I like to "calculate" how things should go wrong for the worst case scenario to realize: if there aren't enough steps, I know what to work on, but usually it really makes me realize that I've built enough safety nets.

E.g.: right now, there are two possibilities: that I get laid off, or not. If not, everything good. If yes, there are two possibilities: that I find a job in a month or less, or not. If yes, all good. If not, I still have 2 months of savings that I can easily spread to 4 months reducing all accessories expenses. Is it enough time? If yes, all good, if not, I can buy other 6 months selling assets. Are they enough? If yes, all good, if not, I have different layers of social nets that can help me (I am not going in details here, but I have at least other 5 steps before becoming homeless, and all of them have a very low probably of failure, barring a nuclear war).

So, the worst case scenario is less probable that being hit by a car while going to my current job, so not really something I should worry about

This is a great approach. Planning out the worst case scenario is a great way to deal with rational anxiety.

> I like to "calculate" how things should go wrong for the worst case scenario

I like to calculate, too. When I bought my house, it was just far enough from the closest large city that I would probably survive if that city was hit by a typical thermonuclear bomb....

;)

You might want to update your model based on the latest bombs’ radius of impact. And conclude that you are safe nowhere. Literally.

> You might want to update your model based on the latest bombs

The "latest bomb" hasn't changed significantly in the last 50 years. Typical Russian strategic warheads that are actually deployed are between 250KT and 1MT. While they CAN make bigger warheads, those are not deployed in large numbers. There is also the Poseidon class nuclear torpedo (with a 100MT warhead), but I don't think my location is a very likely target for that.

If you haven't seen it already, this site has a rough simulation of how far you need to be from a nuke detonation site to suffer various effects:

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

> And conclude that you are safe nowhere. Literally.

I didn't say safe. I said, if one bomb detonates in the nearest city, I'm more likely to live than not (as in >50% chance to survive the blast itself).

In the event of a nuclear holocaust, the lucky ones die in the initial blast, so you may want to move closer in

You do what is right for you. Anyway, my thinking didn't only consider a holocaust. The bomb could be part of a limited exchange, or it could be a terrorist attack.

All well and good unless your 'worst case' is only a step or two away, which look plausible or even probable.

True, but then you can build an action plan.

And, OP says

> I have more than a couple years worth of savings.

They are definitely not a step or two away from the worst case

worst case scenario is less probable that being hit by a car while going to my current job

And even in that case it may be possible to buy insurance against the consequences. For example, if I am hit by a car and cannot work again, I get paid an inflation-linked sum of around 60% of my salary until my retirement date.

If you have no debt, two years of savings, can afford one parent to stay at home, and work in tech, you are ahead of the overwhelmingly vast majority of people. If this simple fact doesn't make you feel secure, I'd suggest that no amount of money will make you feel secure.

Instead, focus on increasing your employability. If the economy crashed, could you easily get a job? If not, what skills do you need to learn to be in that position?

Therapy. Seriously. What you're describing is anxiety, and therapy can help you deal with that.

You have a lot of money in savings, and a career in a high-demand, well-paid industry. You could be better off, and it's good to strive fore more security, but no matter how secure you are, there are always going to be reasons to worry.

Learning to cope with anxiety is a must-have skill, in my opinion.

Yes, I was diagnosed with anxiety but gave not been consistent with sessions. I feel I often have a hard time articulating what I’m anxious about.

Yeah, it can be hard to identify. Anxiety can take on a life of its own.

One of the first things my therapist introduced me to was called the ARC model of emotion, which stands for Antecedent (whatever is happening just before you experience an emotion), Response (how you feel and what you do) and Consequence (the results of your response).

Basically, by taking note of what is happening when you are anxious, you can start to identify what is triggering the anxiety. Simply identifying the source of your anxiety goes a long way toward reducing its hold on you.

https://behavioralassociatesla.com/2015/08/17/understanding-...

One thing (among all the other great suggestions) you can do is to make sure you’ve got a budget in place, so you understand what your projected finances look like.

I use YouNeedABudget (YNAB: https://www.youneedabudget.com/) which gives me a lot of confidence about my finances.

It’s not just about making sure you’ve got enough money either, it’s about spending it guilt free, because in your budget, you’ve already spent it. This helps me budget for things like haircuts, and other self-care things without worrying about it or feeling guilty. The net effect is that I look after myself in new ways and feel more confident about where my money is earmarked. This could be a way to help shake your feeling.

It sounds more like you’re asking about an emotional block than actual financial health. Give yourself some credit. A multi-year safety net is far more savings than most people have, and you shouldn’t dismiss that just because you haven’t bought a house. Just remember that there are people who raise families doing all kinds of jobs that earn less and offer less security. Your skills probably won’t evaporate like some JS framework. You were capable of skilling up to get where you are, and if you needed to you could reskill.

Maybe invest some of that pile in a few therapy sessions to see if you’re still living some maladaptive coping strategy that helped protect you when things were thinner. It helped me, anyway.

> I have more than a couple years worth of savings

Not counting retirement/pension? That's actually pretty great!

It might be most effective to invest time in networking. That would be a prerequisite for any kind of entrepreneurship, but more practically would help you find a new job quicker if you were laid off.

Yes the savings does not include my retirement accounts.

What would you suggest for networking. I could respond to more recruiters I leave on read on LinkedIn. What else can I or should I do?

If you have a couple years worth of your monthly expenses in your savings then I wouldn’t be so worried about it. What you have done with that is to buy you time while you figure out the situation. This is enough for most problems you would face wrt employment.

What calms me down when I’m feeling anxious like you is to write down some plans with different scenarios: good, okay and bad.

Once I have a plan for the “bad” scenario I feel way more comfortable and can chill.

Having even 6 months of savings (outside of retirement funds, money you might be saving for a house, etc.) puts you in a very good place, and well ahead of most people.

With a second child on the way and having seen co-workers get laid off, it's entirely understandable that you're nervous. Diversifying your income isn't what you need to do, instead you may benefit from talking to a financial advisor to make sure you're allocating your excess income appropriately to prepare for the future. Talking to a therapist about your concerns could also help you work through the anxiety.

The best you can do is set up some financial reserves, revise your spending and accept that life is a series of uncertainties.

It sounds like you already covered the reserves, good. You should have at least a few months of emergency funds, especially with kids and family. Layoffs are not the only reason for these funds, you might get sick, have an accident, need to take care of someone etc etc.

Also take a look at your costs. Are there any unneeded expenses that you can cut, maybe temporarily? Do you really need Netflix, Spotify AND DisneyPlus right now? Cutting some expenses may not be THE definitive answer, but it gives you some sense of control and might help with anxiety.

And lastly, try to accept that life is somewhat random. There are lots of things you simply can't control. You can de-risk certain bad events, but there's never a 100% guarantee for anything. It took me a while to realize this, but once you're there you get much calmer :-)

A budget is good to have, but a worst case budget is even better. I have a worst case budget so that I can see how long our money will last in the worst case that can happend (both my and my wife are out of jobs, private job endurance runs out (it's a Danish thing)) and were are totally fucked.. economically.

You’re fine. If you don’t feel fine the good news is you can afford years of therapy and still be very wealthy. It seems likely you’re feeling insecure because you’re comparing yourself to others around you who are even more wealthy. This is not a good use of your energies. Go hug your kid, kiss your wife, and sleep well.

Have you considered taking a look at your expenses?

Maybe there's an opportunity to improve - reevaluate your eating habbits, car, fun?

Download csv of last 3/6/9/12 months of payments from your bank

get into Excel and start querying and thinking about it

Isn't it healthier to think about how you can make more rather than how you can spend less though?

Depends on a case by case basis. There was an article posted recently which said that 1 in 4 people earning >$200k live paycheck to paycheck. It's very easy to succumb to lifestyle inflation and not improve financial security despite higher pay.

When you have zero income the aim is to spent as little a possible.

How many celebrities, pop stars and lottery winners ended up bankrupt after earning/winning millions?

For most people making high wages in tech, I would guess that it's much easier to spend less than it is to make more. Not spending 100$ has the benefit that you'll have an "extra" 100$. When you make 100$ you have to split it with the tax man :)

Then you gotta ask yourself a different question: Is it easier to spend $100 less or make $200 more?

"Healthier"?

Depends. If you can stop spending on some irrelevant shit, then I don't see it being more healthier.

If you have to stop spending on better quality food, then yes.

Either way: why not both? earn more and spend less :)

I review my transactions on regular basis (once a month), using apps like mint or similar to see trends in each category, it takes 5mins. But I catch a lot of delayed payments, insurance companies increase payment, recurring payments that you wanted to cancel but did not, extra charges that you didn not recognize and so on..

These number catch up, simple review transaction is saves a ton of money.

The risk with this is everytime your earnings go up, your expenditure follows suit. If your motivation to earn more is because you spend too much - that underlying reason isn't going away once you get that big pay rise unless you really look at how and what on you are spending your income on.

One of the most relavatory phrases that really got me thinking (and changing) is "live under your means".

Get a job doing something 'boring'.

I work for a company which makes control systems for large industrial machinery. Our order book is about 10 years long. The products we sell will be in use for at least 30 years, and if at any time during that a safety issue is found, we are required to fix it. The team is quite small and we are fully stretched to meet the product requirements. In other words, layoffs are pretty much impossible

Would it pay as well as big tech co? In the Bay Area where I live that might cause me more anxiety.

I could leave but I’d be further from family and further from tech jobs. Feels like I might trade one anxiety for another.

Control systems is not boring, CRUD ecommerce sludge is boring

What's your salary? Where are you located?

You probably can't. This is just a fact of modern life in a society that's polarized along a division of wealth inequality. If you're on the wrong side then you have to get used to never feeling secure. Any single catastrophic event can end your economic security.

You can hedge against it with good insurance, but that doesn't protect you against a lot of externalities (you can't insure against a second great depression for example). The only way to actually resolve it is to become "fuck you money" rich. Very few people manage that.

The best route forwards is to stoicly resolve to enjoy what you have while you have it and accept what life gives when things change. This might be harder than getting fuck you money though.

> Any single catastrophic event can end your economic security.

This quote and your comment as a whole sum it perfectly, imo.

We used to have stronger family/friend connections that were very helpful for times like these, i.e. for when catastrophic events were happening. Nowadays we're most probably living hundreds if not thousands of kilometers away from our very close family, and not sure about other HN-ers, but I personally would feel very uncomfortable if I were forced to ask for some financial help from my very close friends, as I think they would turn me down.

Again, that wasn't always the case. One could "pass" the kids to said kids' grand-parents for a while, because most probably they were living in the same town/village, and the same goes for sharing economic resources in times of need with friends. Now we're into all this alone.

And I wonder if remote work cannot help there. I did choose to stay close to grandparents and friends but did huge commute before and now thanks to covid the question of relocating is off the table. I think we can hopefully find that what you describe back in the future.

> This is just a fact of modern life in a society that's polarized along a division of wealth inequality.

This kind of thinking induces a highly toxic form of fatalism, and is not helping. The reality is that a tech worker in a western country (with a health insurance) is probably more secure than 95% of people through history.

Fatalism, though, often leads to people neglecting to do those things they actually can do to reduce risk, including:

1) Limit consumption to a level you would be able to live on for years, should your income go down.

2) Limit borrowing similarly. Don't borrow so much that you'd have to sell your assets at a loss if you're fired during the next depression.

3) Take care of your own mind and body. Exercise both, and continue to learn new skills continously.

4) Be careful when chosing a partner. Look for someone who is wise, dependable and a bit thrifty over someone who's exciting, overconfident or is wasting money and resources.

5) Once married, make sure you do what you can to keep the relationship healthy. Treat your partner with respect, and ask for respect back. It's a lot easier to face life as a team.

6) Also, take care of your extended family, friends and local community. Be there for them when they need it. Within limits, don't let them take advantage of you.

7) Treat your coworkers with the respect they deserve, or even a bit more. Build a reputation as someone who makes a difference both for company and the coworkers.

8) Be mindful about how to invest your financial assets. Spread the risk between asset classes. 25% each of stocks, bonds, real estate and cash/deposits is a very stable mix. But 30/30/30/10 or 50/20/20/10 are also pretty good.

9) Don't expect your saving to make you rich quickly. Consider it a store of value, not a lottery ticket.

10) Adopt a mentality of stoicism. Be content with the fact that you're already doing the things that makes the world safe and healthy for you and your family. Dont let those things you cannot change freak you out, nothing good comes from that.

Over time, your capital will grow, including your, skills, relationships and savings. This will take you from the 95% most secure in human history to the within the 99% most secure.

Now, if you LIKE risk and excitement, you can of course break any or all of the above. You will still probably come out ok. But that's for another personality type than the OP, I think.

We wrote the same post, but your version is a lot less concise and ignores the possibility of something not working out. You can ignore that if you like, but that doesn't make my post any less true, and if you're someone who's actively anxious about the possibility of things going wrong (like the person who started the thread) saying "It'll be fine!" is really unhelpful.

I’m not in your life situation but been wondering this same question recently. I also have at least 6 months worth of savings paid, but my wife works a decent job

First off it’s important to remember you really are fine. You have more savings than majority of people. You work in a lucrative field and have a set of skills that are in demand. Even if the economic situation is dire. Your savings runway alone has me confident in your situation

It’s scary though! The best I would do is worry less about trying to bring in a second income yourself. Don’t deprive yourself of time with your family. Reduce costs at home where you can and pocket those savings.

Downloading my expenses from the past year into CSV and just plotting that out in Excel helped a lot.

> I have more than a couple years worth of savings.

You seem to be quite well placed. However, as yourself a few questions.

How liquid are those savings? I.e., how fast can you pull those savings into bank account, if needed.

Where all have you saved them? Equity, debt etc. And for each of those asset classes how vulnerable are your savings? Assume stock markets were to go down by 30%, how will that impact your savings?

Post 2008 major financial institutions and banks were required to periodically conduct stress test simulations and publish results. I suggest you do the same for your situation. Run a few scenarios, maybe even a worst case. Whatever you believe is going to be the worst case.

I would Leetcode, clean up my resume, and start practicing interviews. Never hurts to look around and being ready to interview will reduce the amount of time to find another job in the event you end up in the next round of cuts. Some of my coworkers are leaving for higher paying jobs without there having been any risk of layoffs at my company. Otherwise if you weren’t part of the initial cuts, you are probably fine and remember layoffs come with a few months severance so you’re already getting a few months of runway in the worst case.

Interviewing takes time and I hate the leetcode grind so never have the motivation too. I know I’m making excuses and this is probably one of the more pragmatic steps I could take.

There is multiple answers here, for me they fall into two broad categories: advice in how to deal with yourself and advice on how to deal with this as an society

If you have multiple years of savings and still feel anxiety, you might consider that this could have to do more with your own character, psyche and situation than with actual real risks, especially if you are working in a sector where people of your skill are always sought after.

The other answer would be worker rights — so either live somewhere where they exist or start fixing them by joining an union. As someone living in a country with universal healthcare, decent worker rights and social services I don't have to be that afraid of what happens when my boss decides to hand me my 3 months notice (including a valid cititation of what I did wrong) or if they don't prolong my 4 year contract. They also cannot throw me out if I have an accident and cannot come for half a year. I also won't pay a penny in health care costs when that happens because universal healthcare.

Having a solidaric environment directly translates into ease of mind. I am still a (too) hard working person and I earn well, but I don't have to worry about certain things and I like to work in an environment where others don't have to worry either.

So fix yourself and/or fix the world

Multiple years of savings is the definition of security in my opinion, well done and don’t overthink it. A lot of us don’t have anywhere near that in savings, you should be fine.

I don't think there is much you can do. Based on what you have written, I would assume you already invest a good portion in 401K, index funds, and other options.

If you have savings which aren't counted in that, you are better than 90% of the people out there who are happy and chugging along.

I would recommend building document with your backup plans and runaway. That should give you ample time to reflect.

Your wife should invest in skills / employability to the point that she can get a job with benefits (who cares about the pay). If you are worried about your job, I would recommend this first.

If your wife can step in and provide baseline benefits and income, that frees you up for higher-wage contracting/consulting/entrepreneurship.

Certainly don't get a house now. What if you need to move to another city for a job? You are obviously living below your means. That is a goddamn superpower in today's economy, which relies on people being under the guillotine constantly.

If your wife makes you feel more uncomfortable about your collective economic security rather than provides a backstop, then, well, that's why wives are the #1 enemy of feminism. You and your wife should have a willingness to face good times and bad with a collective desire to work and be secure.

Since you haven't lost your job yet, the time to get on this is now, to discuss possible uncertain economics with her to set expectations.

I shaked that feeling many years ago (2008 crisis, so same anxiety as you I guess; layoffs all around etc) by buying a house. I did not have much money so I had to move to a much cheaper country, but the weight did suddenly drop off as at least no need to pay rent or mortgage (paid cash; interest was high at the time), and the house will gain in value as well. Moving turned out to be greater than we thought; everything is cheaper and suddenly after everything, monthly cost was slashed by 60+% which now became pure savings. And as I always worked from home as software engineer, so my income went up while cost stayed more or less equal (with some inflation, however even this year, things here didn’t really get more expensive for us outside gasoline).

Anyway; for me, owning a house removed all the (unfounded) money worries I had while renting.

One of the effects of layoffs/firings, if not always the primary intention, is to put the employees in a state of insecurity and anxiety -- to make you work harder, longer, etc.

Best solution I can think of is to try to form a union, so you have some ability to fight back if and when someone lays you off, fires you, harasses you, etc.

That said, both the process of forming a union, and then trying to exist post-union, can get you fired or effectively fired. Companies, e.g. Tesla, will just close down entire factories to escape labor laws, etc. Of course, in IT, it's much easier to outsource jobs. Other companies will just shut down to kill a union, and sometimes re-form once the union is dead. This is all in America, which is a very anti-labor country.

That's about all you can do really. The thing I found is make yourself invaluable. That means throwing what interests you technology wise under a bus and learn stuff that isn't glamorous. Pick a niche with a perpetual vacuum yet hedge on something ubiquitous. For me I do AWS crap for the ubiquitous and Linux sysadmin for the vacuum. There are very few people around who truly can do the latter. I picked 20/30 different career paths and scanned around job sites for stupid salaries and contract rates where I don't have to invest much and just do that.

But always have 12 months cash in the bank. That doesn't have to be 12 months of luxury, but 12 months of survival.

Shortened: minimise risks through security and skill hedging.

It helps if you can live somewhere where (a) buying your own home is achievable without giant cost (this is still do-able many places if you ignore posh areas) (b) amenities e:g decent shops, schools etc are walkable , work is remote or cycling distance or reachable by half decent public transport, and living without a car for some time is feasible. This enables you to overpay a mortgage once you have one, and/or be resilient to loss of income due to layoff , or increase in costs. Or continue to run a car but know its not the end of the world if it breaks or you have to go without one for a while. All the above are of course much easier to achieve in UK or Europe than much of USA though I dare say .....

I like the idea of job security vs career security.

Job security is your boss likes you and you did do most of that new project by yourself, nobody else even really knows how it works. Seems unlikely you would get fired.

Career Security is you keep up with the most effective approaches in industry, you learn new languages on the weekend, bias for transparency and training your replacement, going to conferences, expanding your network, interviewing once a month for fun and practice. Usually this approach leads to more job security too but the arena you're playing in is the total market for tech workers rather than one company.

It's a slider scale too, you can do more or less stuff but thats kind of the way I think about it.

Having an emergency fund is nice too.

What you’re telling me is career security isn’t possible while raising young children, so optimize for job security.

Solo entrepreneur and freelancer here, for 10 years+. I know this feeling very well, I have a wife and two kids.

Something that can potentially help you (it helps me, alot!) is to do liquidity planning as if you're a business. I use a Google sheet to track monthly spend, and income, as well as yearly stuff such as insurance premiums, mortgage payments and taxes. Add your liquidity (bank account in your case) and see how far it goes.

Doesn't have to be super precise (it can't be), but it should give you a rough idea of how long you have. And in your case, as you are on very solid financial footing, it might calm you down a little.

For me personally, it gives me a feeling of being in control, if only a little, of the uncontrollable.

I grew up working class, and am a product of public schools. I gruadated with 75k of student loan debt and then struggled all through my 20s before finally landing a career. When I got my first "big kid job" at 27, my manager recommended the book "I Will Teach you To Be Rich" by Ramit Setih. Ignore the hoaky clickbaity title, the book saved my a$$ and very likely my retirement. It's a 6 week program and by the end of it just about everything is automated. I have to log in every december and tweak my investment portfolio, that's about it. Please do yourself a favor if you are starting from the same level of knowledge that I did (zero) and check out that book.

Spend less. Regulate indoor temps, cook for yourself, and . . . you're already married so that part's fine.

Live outside the bay area.

Stop to smell the flowers. Seriously. It will help you focus on something other than money. Then plant some flowers. Pass it on!

Spend some of your bankroll on your wife learning monied skills! Seriously, she's a second income while you're together and a reason you don't pay alimony if she's skilled and you break up.

Your feeling is from being selfish. Give some. Figure out who deserves it. They'll look out for you, too, if you choose right. Be more social!

> ..I have more than a couple years worth of savings...

> ...How do I shake this feeling?...

Sounds like you could consider meditation. You need to be able to state the scenario that you're worried about to be able to deal with it.

You’re asking about how to change a feeling of insecurity to security. My answer is this: give yourself a sense that you have an abundance of options. The feeling of insecurity may stem from a fear of being left without options. So now, not later, interview at a variety of places.

Prepare well for those interviews, and know that if you make it to even 1 place in 10 that you interview (or 20 - whatever it might be), then you have options in case something happens.

You don’t need to actually take any of the jobs. Just create the sense of an abundance of options.

Putting money aside and living well below your means. Also, a year is a long time.. It's basically impossible to be unemployed for an entire year if you know how to turn on a computer.

Your real worry should be that there is no safe place to store value for regular people.. Real estate is not liquid enough.. Fiat devaluates quickly.. Maybe gold is a reasonable store, but it is still somewhat annoying and what guarantee do you REALLY have there anyway?

Inflation just means not enough people are producing enough. Factor it in to your runway calculations and deal with it.

To feel secure in these times you need to know how your company makes revenue, and specifically how you fit in to that picture. If you can't answer that question, then you are at risk. Once you know how you fit into the picture, you can gauge how your company will be impacted by what's going on in the world.

A lot of tech companies out there don't have a real business plan and it's going to be hell for them.

You're in a good spot.

1) Talk to your wife, make sure she knows that layoffs happened at your company and that you were not affected this time round.

2) Calculate your monthly expenses

3) Work out your exact runway. How many months can you go without working.

If you want a longer runway then reduce your expenses.

Personally I felt completely secure when I bought my house outright, no mortgage. Everything up till that point was just incremental improvements.

Yes I think having a paid off house would probably go along way in reducing my anxiety. But It’s not tenable in Bay Area. At least not at my income/wealth.

I’m assuming you don’t live in california?

Around half of Americans can't afford an unexpected $400 expense. Two years of savings in the bank seems like solid financial security by comparison.

I have worked as a programmer for forty years, through ups and downs, layoffs, recessions. And raised three kids. You roll with it, keep your skills sharp, stay in contact with colleagues, don't burn bridges. Plenty of work always available in the tech industry, paying far more than most people make. Avoid companies that don't make a profit or have narcissists and sociopaths in charge.

If you have more than a couple (I assume this means >2) years of living expenses in the bank then you have nothing to worry about. If you lose your job do you realistically think it will take more than two years of interviewing to find another?

You don't.

Unless you plan ahead and live well below your means, the volatility of what attracts so many new people into this industry will never afford you a relaxed moment, particularly when they do everything possible to keep you spun up.

> Ny wife wouldn’t be able to make high skilled wages unless she invested substantial time into upskilling which she doesn’t have at the moment.

Every day spent with the kids is worth 10 years of being a wage slave imho

Take ownership of your own wealth management outside of work, if possible find a good financial planner and see what they have to say.

Invest your money, save your money, live frugally in the meantime.

Not to be snarky at all but, why just two years of savings as a tech worker? Is it because you are early in your career?

Increase income, reduce spending.

Alternatively winning the lotto would work too

Someone with a couple years worth of savings probably isn't Dave Ramsey's target audience.

Ramsey provides basic advice on a lot of aspects of money management. This can help with peace of mind for a lot of people.

A couple of years savings sounds good, but no mention of debt was made. Debt can have a huge impact on risk and peace of mind.

Couple years of savings accounting for debt which namely is a car loan. Costs me 600/month. No other debt.

That’s simply not true. 10 years of FAANG salaries and a modest lifestyle means you basically have F U money (If your boss is ever a dick you can tell him to F U).

Use shef.com for food.

You have couple years of savings and yet you worry. You are going to be awesome dad.

I am afraid of being poor anytime and never want to have kids. I never buy Elon Musks populate earth nonsense who did fire people in so indecent manner.

r/overemployed

Dont be a tech worker. Especially with a family. Especially if they have placed you in an area where you cant afford real estate.

Corporate robot execs are programmed to exploit that trap/insecurity. They will use it every review to extract as much they can and throw you out when required. They have no other moves cause if they dont do it some other corporate robot will, and take their jobs.