Submitted by sunghan t3_11mex7e in personalfinance
I am the majority breadwinner in the home, so her layoff is not too worrisome financially, but we'll definitely need to tighten our budget especially with a baby on the way.
The company has given my wife two options.
- Relocate to a different state and keep position.
- Take a 5 month maternity leave with 100% of wages, and then if she wishes, she can return as a part-timer.
We're based in the SF Bay Area and not looking to move (recently purchased a home). So we'll be taking option two, but the wife does not want to return as a part-timer upon the end of maternity leave. She rather find another company to advance her career or start doing her own thing. So what's our best course of action here?
She is based in fashion, and not many companies are hiring at the moment. We'll take the extended Maternity leave (which I'm assuming comes with her current health insurance), and that should take us to Oct/Nov. If she hasn't found work by then, is she eligible for unemployment? Is she eligible for any kind of subsidized health insurance? I can add her onto mine of course, but the premiums are over $500/month.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
EDIT: Wow, these are a lot more responses than I anticipated. Apologies to anyone I couldn't respond to. I'm going to be showing this thread to my wife later on, and we'll take everyone's advice into consideration.