It’s never a good time to make a redundancy, but it was an especially tough time for Simone Austin when she received the dreaded email notification from Human Resources in January that she was losing six-figure income.
After owning a home in North Carolina for less than a year, Austin, 33, racked up $2,800 a month in mortgage and credit card debt to afford the space himself.
As she worked through her feelings of shock and anxiety, Austin told CNBC Make It that she immediately started cutting her budget down to the basics. She estimates she now spends $1,000 less per month than before she was laid off.
Reduce your monthly budget by $1,000
First, Austin went through her expenses line by line to identify things that had no value to her and could be cut out completely, such as entertainment, subscriptions, and purchases for fun.
With the money she had left, she researched ways to get things she valued cheaply or for free. For example, she replaced paid yoga classes with free videos online. She indulges in free or low-cost hobbies, such as borrowing books from the library.
This year, my brain has been rewired in terms of how I view money.
In some cases, she may tap into her network to obtain items at a discounted price. Austin has been a member of a local Pilates studio for a while and began working as a virtual assistant at the studio in 2024. She built those relationships over time and now earns $300 plus free classes by working 10 hours a month at the studio.
Austin says her biggest tip for saving money is to change where you shop. Instead of defaulting to branded items, look for fake or cheaper alternatives. “I used to buy beauty products at Sephora, but now I’m an elf girl,” Austin says of the affordable beauty brand.
She no longer buys in bulk, only getting what she needs when she needs it.
She also recommends getting creative and shopping in less familiar places. For example, Austin is now a regular at the local farmers market after learning about a deal where he could buy bags of produce for $25.
“This year has rewired my brain in terms of how I view money,” Austin says. “Even if I ever find a full-time job again, I plan on carrying many of the habits I developed to save money into the next chapter of my life.”
How she went 10 months without tapping into her emergency savings
In October, Austin spent about $4,400 to cover housing, food, minimum credit card payments and student loan balances, health insurance, car repairs, gas and other necessities.
After being laid off in January, Austin’s final paycheck included payment for accrued vacation time. She also received a final bonus and a small severance package.
She immediately applied for unemployment insurance and was eligible for 12 weeks of unemployment aid of $600 per week, totaling $7,200.
The bulk of Austin’s income this year came from her YouTube channel, where she posted a viral video in response to her firing. The clip has been viewed over 700,000 times on YouTube and over 1.6 million times on TikTok.
Her YouTube channel, “Life and Numbers,” brought in more than $21,000 through ad revenue, sponsorships, and brand deals, as well as $3,000 in digital products like job search trackers and physical merchandise like sweatshirts.
Thanks to her new source of income and focused budgeting, Austin said she kept her $40,000 emergency fund unused for most of the year and didn’t take on any new credit card debt.
“I found out I was a lot stronger than I thought,” Austin says. “Throughout the year, I still felt a lot of anxiety and depression at times, but I’m still here.”
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