Like many, I have loved the Refinery29 Money Diaries series and, with my unemployment coming to an end this week, I wanted to do a bit of a twist on that, especially now that I will solely be living on my savings. Something I always hated about the Refinery29 series was there was no follow-up, no real context to what was being read other than the snapshot information of each person. Sure it’s cool to read about how other people live and spend their money, but I eventually lost interest in investing my time in reading about someone I’d never hear about again. The other thing, it was fun to escape into stories of people and their ever growing disposable income purchases here and there but those were more the norm than the rule in the diaries I’d come across and it went from being fun to mildly depressing real quick. I couldn’t make 99% of the purchases I’d read about even when I wasn’t needing to apply for extended unemployment benefits because, bills aside, all my monies seem to go to something for my kids, so the only thing disposable around here (for now) are the paper plates in my cabinet.
Original Unemployment Determination
Even though it didn’t exceed the amount I was bringing in with my actual jobs (I had 2 and was furloughed from both about a month apart), the additional $600 a week from federal was truly a Godsend given state was only giving me $90 a week. North Carolina is one of the worst states with unemployment and I have no idea how they expect people to survive on something so small as $90 a week – for a maximum of 12 weeks at that. I would need all of those weeks in a lump sum just to pay my half of shared rent and utilities for one month with my significant other.
Exhausting My Benefits
If you live in North Carolina you may also know they did extend the benefits through the end of the year (26 December 2020 to be exact) for an additional 13 weeks but it doesn’t just magically keep coming into your account, you have to reapply – I did that this morning. Ordinarily, I file my weekly certification on Sunday mornings when I wake up and did this per usual on yesterday morning before catching my flight to Boston. The difference – last week was my last week of receiving unemployment as my funds were exhausted. That also meant I was now eligible to apply for extended Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, so I logged in this morning and where it normally says, “file weekly certification”, it said, “apply for Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation”.
Applying for Extended Unemployment Benefits
You go through the same process you did to apply for unemployment originally, except your information is saved from your original filing, so it’s a much quicker process. Do note, you CANNOT apply until AFTER you’ve exhausted your original benefits but the link does appear the following day (or after your final check has been deposited into your account). I am curious about 2 things: 1. The length of time it will take to get the first payment because while it only took me 14 days I know it took some people months before they finally saw their first unemployment check. 2. Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation ends on 25 July 2020 (some places say the 30th but don’t believe the hype, you will not receive payment for a time past Saturday the 25th), and it doesn’t sound like it’s getting extended, BUT the wording on the NC Division of Employment Insurance reads as though you will receive the additional $600 as long as you’re receiving Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, so do extended unemployment benefits count? I’m interested to see if it will be included in any additional payments I receive during that time frame.
At writing, I’ve got enough money saved in emergency savings for 3 months worth of bills.
