Lost your job? Here is what to do, in order.

How do you file for unemployment, and when?

Unemployment insurance is exactly that: insurance, funded while you worked. Filing is not a mark against you and waiting does not make the claim stronger, so file promptly, in the state where you worked. If you received severance, you may still qualify; how severance affects timing and amount varies by state, so file anyway and let the state make the call. Your state's unemployment site is the one source that is actually authoritative for your case.

Two practical things make the difference between a claim that goes through and a claim that stalls. Before you start, have your identification details, your work history for the past couple of years with employer names, addresses and dates, and the separation letter with your last day on it. After the claim opens, most states require you to certify each week and to record what you did to look for work, and missing those weekly steps is one of the most common reasons payments stop. If a claim is denied or your employer contests it, there is an appeal process with its own deadline printed on the notice, so read the notice the day it arrives. If you worked remotely for an employer based somewhere else, which state to file in is genuinely not obvious; your state's site will tell you, and it is worth getting right the first time.

One thing to know before the money arrives: unemployment benefits generally count as taxable income, and many states let you have tax withheld from each payment, usually as a choice inside the application. Choosing withholding now is easier than finding the money at tax time.

COBRA or the marketplace: how do you compare them?

Losing job-based coverage opens two doors, and both stay open long enough to compare them. COBRA lets you keep your exact plan, with you paying the full premium; you typically have 60 days from your election notice to decide, and if you elect, coverage is retroactive to the day you lost it. The insurance marketplace treats losing coverage as a qualifying event, opening a special enrollment window, typically 60 days, where an income-based plan may cost far less than COBRA. Price both before defaulting to either.

Expect the COBRA number to be a shock, and know why. Continuation coverage commonly runs up to 18 months, and the premium is the whole price of the plan, including the share your employer was quietly paying, plus an administrative amount on top. Nothing about your coverage got worse. You are seeing the real price of it for the first time. That is also the reason to price the marketplace with the income you now actually expect for the year, because those plans are priced against your income and your income just changed.

Check the other doors before you decide, and price coverage for everyone on the plan rather than only yourself, because the cheapest answer for one adult and the cheapest answer for a household of four are often behind different doors. A spouse's or a parent's plan may let you join within a set window after you lose coverage, and a parent's plan is generally available to you until you turn 26. Medicaid and CHIP have no enrollment window at all and are judged on your income now, so a household whose income just dropped can apply at any point. And if anyone covered is in the middle of treatment, put the continuity of their doctors and prescriptions in the comparison next to the price, because that is the part a spreadsheet does not show. Your election notice, healthcare.gov, and your state's Medicaid site hold the numbers that are actually yours.

Is severance negotiable, and what should you ask?

Sometimes, and the honest answer is that it depends on things you can partly see: whether the offer is one standard package applied across a whole group, whether your circumstances are unusual, and how much the employer wants a clean signature. Asking once, politely, in writing, before the review period ends is normal and is rarely held against anyone. The likely answer is still no. That is worth saying plainly, because the internet's answer to this question is usually that you have no leverage, and being told that repeatedly is not the same as being informed.

Two facts help you read the number in the letter. Severance is wages, so it is taxed, and lump sums are often withheld at a flat supplemental rate, which means the check may be smaller than the number in the letter. Withholding is not your final tax bill; it is a prepayment that gets settled when you file, and the IRS site explains how severance and unemployment are treated. And if anything in the agreement is unusual, or you do not understand what you are giving up, an employment lawyer's hour is cheap against a signed waiver.

What happens to your equity and your retirement account?

This section is mechanics, not advice, and it holds the least forgiving deadline on the whole page. If you hold stock options, vested options typically have to be exercised inside a window that closes after your last day, commonly somewhere between 30 and 90 days, and when that window closes they are gone for good. Your own grant documents and plan rules hold your actual number, which is why they were on the list of things to save. Restricted stock that has already vested is generally yours; what has not vested generally returns to the company. A severance agreement can change equity terms, so read those clauses alongside the grant rather than on their own. What to do about any of it depends on money, timing and taxes that this page cannot see, so if the amounts matter to you, the hour to spend is with someone who is not selling you the answer.

Your retirement account balance stays yours whatever happened to the job. Typically you can leave it in the old plan, move it into a future employer's plan, or move it to an account of your own, and each of those has consequences that depend on your plan and your tax situation, which is why the choice deserves an unhurried hour rather than a panicked afternoon. Two things are worth doing this week even so: find out who administers the plan, since that gets harder once your work login is gone, and if you have an outstanding loan against the account, ask the administrator what happens to it now, because the rules differ by plan and the surprise is an expensive one. Nothing else here has to be decided quickly.

Who do you tell, and how?

There is a version of this week where you tell nobody, keep leaving the house at the usual time, and hope to have a new job before anyone finds out. It is a common instinct and an understandable one. It also tends to cost more than it saves, because the money decisions above need a household that knows, the people who could pass your name along cannot do it, and the gap between what happened and what you have said only gets harder to close the longer it runs. Tell the people who share your finances early and plainly: what happened, what money there is, and what changes for now. Children need less detail and more steadiness, which usually sounds like the job ended, you are looking for another one, and the things they count on are being handled. Parents and friends will ask questions you cannot answer yet, and saying that you do not know yet is a complete answer. For colleagues and your wider network, one plain sentence is enough, and it is the same sentence you will use in interviews: the company cut the role, and you are looking for the right next one. Layoffs are common and read as business decisions. You do not owe anyone the whole story, and you do not have to sound fine while you tell it.

What is your runway, and who should you call first?

Dread shrinks when it becomes a number. Add up what you have and what arrives (severance, final pay, unemployment), list what leaves each month, and divide: that is your runway. Then extend it calmly: pause subscriptions and anything else that pauses, and call lenders early rather than late, because hardship options exist mostly for people who ask before missing a payment. Before drawing on retirement accounts, check what an early withdrawal actually costs; it is usually the most expensive money available to you.

If the number is short, the earliest calls are the ones that help most. Mortgage servicers, credit card issuers, utilities, and student loan servicers commonly have hardship, forbearance, or income-based options, and most are far easier to arrange before a payment is missed than after. Ask what programs exist, ask what it does to your account, and get the answer in writing. If the gap is wider than that, the public safety net exists for exactly this month and is worth checking before your savings are gone rather than after: food assistance, Medicaid, utility assistance and local programs listed through 211 are judged on the income you have now, not on last year's.