very bad news yesterday

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When getting ready for work yesterday morning, I saw on the news that a major tech company, one that employed a household member, was cutting 12K+ jobs. I wondered if that was going to impact us. And it did. He found out via email, as did everyone else in the company who was laid off. Needless to say, this is a huge blow for all of us as he was the one who had been earning the largest paycheck. His name is also the only one on the mortgage. The good news: he seems to be getting a decent severance and the medical benefits are good until the end of March (this affects him, another household member, and two of the children), so we have a little bit more cushion than we thought at first. I still have my job and my partner has his job, and both jobs are relatively secure right now. This means we still have some income coming in, although significantly less than before. The bad news (besides the job loss itself): my income largely pays for our groceries and some extras. His income paid the mortgage and utilities. The remaining income now has a large gap to meet. Our internet and cell phones were also subsidized by his former company, so we either have to reduce what we have or pay the full amount ourselves now. His laptop was a company computer, so he no longer has a laptop (although he's going to borrow a household member's Chromebook so he can look for work... although at 55, it's not going to be easy for him to find another good tech job, especially with 12K+ other candidates all looking for work at the same time). So, because it's the easiest financial change to make, we're not going to buy many groceries for a while. I'll bring home freebies from work when I can and our meals will be made from those plus what we have on hand in the pantry and freezer. We won't starve by any means, it just means that the picky kids are going to have to learn to deal with foods they're not big fans of (like beans). The 3 oldest kids have jobs (one is still in high school, and the other two are adults in college). We talked to them yesterday and told them that any extras that they want (Doritos, Starbucks, etc.) will have to come out of their paychecks. If the two adults need us to pick them up at work instead of using public transit, we'll need them to help out with filling the gas tank sometimes. The severance is significant enough that if we made no financial changes at all, we could live pretty much the same way for about 6 months or more. Obviously, we're going to make those changes; this is just a cushion to make sure we survive until he finds employment again... or to give us time to make other changes, if necessary, like selling off the house and moving to a cheaper area, with some of us going off in different directions. Our collective goal is to disrupt the lives of the children as little as possible. It's gotten more challenging, but we're going to do our best. In the meantime, the laid-off household member is filling out unemployment paperwork and has signed up with DoorDash in hopes of earning a little bit extra here and there for now. Happy New Year, eh?