by Jen Thorpe

Created on: January 13, 2010

Losing your job is one of the most stressful situations a person can face.  Suddenly, you have gone from being gainfully employed to panicking about how you will manage to pay your bills.  You might be feeling a whole range of emotions from anger, to anxiety, to depression.  I discovered all of this when I lost my job, with absolutely no warning.  I had no choice but to find my own ways for coping with unemployment.  Here are a few things that worked for me.

(1) Sign up for Unemployment Insurance Benefits immediately!

You can do this online.  Type "how to sign up for unemployment" and the name of the state you live in into google (or your favorite search engine), and this should bring up the link you want.  Fill out the form online.  Do this the day you officially become unemployed, and do not procrastinate! It can take a month or more for the government to sort out your application, assign you to a "telephone interview" and decide if you are eligible for benefits.  You cannot receive your first check until after that.  For me, it took 38 days from when I applied for Unemployment Benefits to the day I got my first Unemployment Insurance benefit check.  By then, I had gone through the money from my last paycheck from the job I lost, and the check they sent me to pay out the vacation days I never got to use.  It eased my mind to know that I would, in fact, be getting Unemployment Benefits after all!  This is not a "handout" from the government, it is the money you, yourself, accrued from all the hours you worked in your entire employment history.  It is supposed to be there for when you need it, and you need it now.  So, don't feel bad about needing this benefit.

(2) Start looking for work.

Most people who become unemployed want nothing more than to find another job.  If you are receiving Unemployment Insurance benefits, you are required to continue to look for work.  But, where do you start?  

* Craigslist

There should be a Craigslist for where you live, (or reasonably close to it).  One good thing about is that you can sometimes find local jobs here that are not listed anywhere else.  One bad thing about it is that Craigslist doesn't charge anything for a person to place a want ad, and so, the site can be cluttered with Spam.  Be extremely careful who you send personal information to.  Do a little research about who the company is that you are about

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