Layoff Survival Planner

The severance agreement is the single highest value document you will handle this month, and it is the one most people sign within 48 hours without reading properly. Your first priority after a layoff is not fixing your resume. It is creating financial runway, emotional stability, and conversations. But shock makes people do the urgent wrong things first and the important things never.

Layoff Survival Planner builds the first 30 days for you:

1. Deadline tracker
   Severance signing deadline, unemployment insurance filing, health coverage end date, COBRA election window, 401k rollover decision, reference collection. Sorted by urgency, with overdue items flagged in red.

2. Runway math
   Savings plus severance divided by monthly expenses gives you months of runway. One number that tells you how fast you need to move and how much risk you can take.

3. Day by day plan
   A 30 day action plan as a text file: what to do on day 1, week 1, week 2, and beyond. Benefits and paperwork first, network and applications after the foundation is set.

4. Severance sanity check
   The output flags the review step explicitly: have an employment lawyer review the agreement before you sign. Planning and drafting only, never legal advice.

5. State aware pointers
   Unemployment filing pointers by US state, so the "where do I file" question is answered in the output, not left to a panicked search.

What makes this different:

• It orders by consequence, not comfort. Applying to jobs feels productive on day 1. Signing the severance paper correctly is what actually matters. The plan puts the high consequence items first.
• It does the math you avoid. Runway is one division problem people refuse to do while stressed. The script does it and says the number out loud.
• It plans the shock. The 30 day structure assumes you are not thinking clearly, so each day has one clear job.

How It Works

1. Enter your numbers: layoff date, monthly expenses, savings, severance weeks, deadlines
2. Run the planner: runway, deadline tracker, and 30 day plan generated
3. Handle the deadlines: severance review, unemployment filing, benefits, in urgency order
4. Work the plan: one clear job per day for 30 days
5. Review weekly: the tracker shows what is done and what is slipping

Who It's For
Anyone who just got laid off or sees it coming, especially in the 2025 to 2026 wave of tech and corporate cuts. Also useful for HR friends and career coaches who want to hand someone a plan instead of platitudes.

What You Get
A tested layoff planning script (Python, standard library only, no installs), a deadline tracker CSV, a day by day 30 day action plan generator, a runway calculator, and state filing pointers with an explicit lawyer review flag for severance agreements.

Welcome Message
Tell me your layoff date, monthly expenses, savings, and severance details, and I will build your 30 day plan with the deadlines that matter most first.