Ellis Family Unemployment Fund

In November 2022, Tim lost his job at Redfin.

His position was eliminated in the second round of three layoffs that impacted over 1,500 people at the company. It was a job he loved, at a company that he believed in, with co-workers he really enjoyed. In early 2023 he was able to land a new job, but it was ultimately not a good fit and only lasted a few months.

The job market is really rough right now.

As of today, Tim has been unemployed for over five months. He has networked extensively, applied to over 500 jobs—many with an internal referral—and yet has only been able to get nine interviews, none of which has led to a job offer. Despite what you may have heard about official unemployment and jobs data, the tech job market right now is downright awful.

If you know anyone who is hiring for any data analyst, data scientist, or data product manager roles, please reach out! Here is Tim's LinkedIn profile.

Our savings are drained.

State unemployment benefits are capped at a level far below what we were earning and well below our fixed monthly bills. Even after cutting out virtually all of our discretionary spending, our savings has been depleted and our budget is running on fumes. Plus, unemployment benefits only last for six months, so even that small income stream is going to end very soon.

Business at the tea shop is too slow.

You might be wondering: "But wait, don't you own a business? What about Chai Cupboard?" Unfortunately the tea shop is actually costing us money every month. Business has not picked up like we hoped, downtown Everett just isn't busy enough to offset the high rent we pay for the space, and we are locked into our lease until September. I wrote a detailed post about this last summer, and the situation hasn't really changed since then.

The bottom line.

Without doing something drastic like raiding our retirement account or taking out a loan, we are running out of options to pay our ongoing bills (let alone the $12,000+ in medical debt we have hanging over our heads for the June 2023 birth of our son Robert, pictured above). So we're reaching out to friends and family to ask for some help. The $10,000 goal we set above will be enough to at least pay our bills for a few more months. Hopefully by then Tim will finally be able to find a new job.

We realize that times are tough for a lot of people, so if you aren't in a position to assist, please do not feel bad!

Thanks.