So, here we are, looking back at 2020. I still get cold sweats thinking about that year. The title sounds all fancy, like I was checking my star chart every day, but let me tell you, I was only looking at the Pisces outlook because I was flat-out panicking. I was desperate for any guidance. I was flying totally blind when that thing hit, and it woke me up to how little control I had over my own money and career path.
The Big Scare That Kicked Me Into Gear
I was cruising, man. I was thirty-something, had a decent tech job, and thought my savings account was enough. My financial planning was basically “don’t spend more than you earn” and “buy stocks when they look cheap.” I was an idiot. A comfortable idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.
Then, February 2020 hit. My company had been talking about a big merger for a year, but it was just office gossip until the very second they announced huge layoffs. Me? I wasn’t fired, but they completely restructured my whole team and moved my job role to another state. I was given three options: pack up my entire life and move across the country, take a drastically downgraded position locally, or take the severance package. Suddenly, that nice little savings account looked tiny. It was a massive punch to the gut. I felt disposable. I realized I was one bad decision away from financial ruin, and I had a mortgage and two kids. I just stood there, looking at my laptop screen, feeling like the biggest clown on earth.
The whole world was going crazy right after that. I was home, trying to figure out if I needed to learn Mandarin to keep my job or just start driving for Grubhub. My stress was through the roof. I found myself googling things I never had before—like “recession proof jobs” and, shamefully, “Pisces financial moves 2020.” I figured if the stars told me I was screwed, at least I’d know for sure. It sounds ridiculous now, but I was grasping at straws.
My Four Emergency Financial Moves
Forget the stars. What I actually did was basic, boring groundwork. But I did it with the ferocity of someone whose house was on fire. I took the severance, but I immediately started treating it like my only lifeboat. Here’s the practical, down-and-dirty process I followed, and I tracked everything in a basic Excel sheet I still use today.
Step 1: I Built a Moat (The Emergency Fund).
- I took two-thirds of the severance pay and slammed it straight into a high-yield savings account (HYSA). It wasn’t “investing.” It was “survival.”
- I calculated our total monthly burn rate—everything. Mortgage, groceries, utilities. The total was depressing.
- I committed to having 9 months of that burn rate locked down. Not 3, not 6. Nine. That was my concrete goal. I achieved it by July 2020, but it felt like climbing Mount Everest. I didn’t touch a single cent of that money for anything except survival. That was the rule I set.
Step 2: I Killed the Stupid Debt.
- I had one high-interest personal loan left from a terrible boat purchase years ago. It was a stupid burden.
- I used the remaining one-third of the severance to pay that thing off completely, right then and there. I just pushed the button and watched the balance zero out. The psychological relief of killing that single high-interest anchor was probably worth more than the money itself.
Step 3: I Found Two More Engines (Diversified Income).
- I knew I couldn’t rely on one paycheck again. Ever.
- I spent two weeks straight networking and found a small consulting gig helping a friend’s startup with basic IT setup. It was only 10 hours a week, but it was a second, separate stream of income.
- I also started selling random crap we didn’t use anymore—old electronics, tools, even some hideous furniture. It was humbling, but I recorded every single sale in the same sheet. It wasn’t about the money; it was about the action of creating income from nothing.
Step 4: I Simplified the Investment Mess.
- I looked at my cluttered investment account—I had like 30 different stocks I barely tracked. It was a mess.
- I liquidated most of the smaller, weird positions. I moved that money into three simple, broad-market index funds. Just three. I wanted to stop trying to be a “genius trader” and just track the whole damn market. I set up automatic transfers every month, so I didn’t even have to think about it. Automated, boring, simple. That was the ticket.
The Payoff: Why I Share This Crap
That initial shock was brutal, but it forced me to implement the moves I should have already made years before. The funny thing about the Pisces outlook for 2020 was that it talked about “radical transformation in your career sector” and “a period of intense reorganization.” Guess what? That’s exactly what happened, but it wasn’t fate; it was the result of a terrifying severance package and my own sweat.
I ended up landing an even better, fully remote job six months later, but I kept the side income and I kept those four steps locked down. My entire focus shifted from how much money can I make to how stable is my money. I don’t care about getting rich quick anymore. I care about being layoff-proof and market-crash-proof. That experience made me realize stability is the real financial luxury.
If you’re reading this, the key move isn’t what the stars say. The key move is building that damn 9-month moat before your boss hands you a severance envelope. I learned the hard way that when the whole world goes crazy, all you have is the buffer you’ve already built. Everything else is just noise.
