Adapting Slowly

One thing that I discovered the last time I was unemployed for a significant time (which was thankfully quite a while ago) was that I spent more money while unemployed then I had before! Looking back on it, it still doesn't make much sense to me.
Here's on article on Yahoo Finance that reminded me of that:

Life on Severance: Comfort, Then Crisis

This article details the experiences of various people who lost very well-paying jobs, but did not immediately adjust their standard of living to compensate. Losing a job should require serious "stepping down" in each area of your expenses.

There were a number of other points I noticed in the article:

1. One women was sending out ten resumes a day through Monster.com. Another fellow figured he'd sent out 3000 copies total. Though it is a useful website, it's possible to send out a lot of resumes with poor results. Without networking and a good resume, you can easily send out hundreds of ignored resumes.
2. If you've saved enough before losing a job, it can actually be a great time to work on your education, giving you a chance to get a better job than the one you lost.
3. Identify and track your expenses, so that you know what to cut to make the biggest difference.
4. Try not to worry about what neighbors or family will think when you are cutting back. Trying to "keep up with the Joneses" is foolish enough when you actually have a job.