I was thinking Warhammer

Canceling the card won’t make a big difference in payments as you still owe the money and the balance is accruing interest. All canceling the card will do is prevent you from spending more on it and resetting your progress. If that’s the only way to ensure you don’t use it, then yes, cancel it. However, if you can figure out another way, keeping the card provides the “credit history” for the future

As it turns out I was you a few years ago. I went from nuclear power, where I made $95k base and $130-150k with OT, to cybersecurity where I started at about $60k/year (government job).

Some things I considered before making the leap (in no particular order):

1. Long term prospects. In nuclear, in order to get paid more I would have to go through two more years of training, at which point I’d get about $10/hr more. The government job, however, was a career ladder, meaning I get promoted every year, giving me a $15k pay raise each year until I hit the top of the ladder which pays about $110k (this would take about 4 years) with no overtime. The new position also has bonuses for certain certifications, mine happens to be 25%, which leaps over nuclear without OT

2. Quality of life. Nuclear is rotating shift work, 12 hours long, while the cyber position is M-F, “9-5” (roughly). While having a 7 day weekend every 5 weeks is nice, transitioning from days to nights every week is painful. Other benefits are also something to consider here. That includes telework, health insurance, PTO, etc.

3. Can I afford it? Fortunately I have a military pension coming in to pay the rent because northern Virginia is on the expensive side for a family of 5. I won’t lie, the first year was tight, the second wasn’t much better

TL;DR answer: ultimately only you can decide, but if you’re unhappy where you are, it might be worth taking the risk. If you can leave in good terms it gives you a fall back plan

Since nobody else is saying it. Apply for unemployment. With that severance you may not be eligible for a month or so, but get the paperwork in now and you should automatically collect once the grace period ends

They’ll probably withhold taxes as a bonus, so you’ll have less available now, but you should get the difference back next year.

That’s what I had to do for state taxes. It took a couple of years before realizing my state taxes made military pension

And, as an added bonus, the majority of your mortgage payments goes toward the interest for the first 5-10 years. Note: typically additional payments or “overpayments” go directly to principal, but check your paperwork to verify

Most landlords will work with you, assuming you’ve been a good tenant and previously paid rent on time. It’s risky to try to replace a good tenant who may just be down on their luck for a couple of months. Talk to your landlord, see if they will accept partial payments while you find a new job

Also current fed. I transferred money from a previous employer with no issue a couple of years ago. That being said, the current management (changed earlier this year) seems to be an absolute nightmare regarding transfers and withdrawals, so unless TSP is in all ways better than anything else you can find, you’re probably better off leaving your money where it is or moving it to an IRA, at least for the next few months or so

In most states you’re required to also have insurance to drive.

Be aware, this is NOT an HSA, so you can only carry over a certain amount if it's not used. That being said, if you know about how much you will use on qualifying expenses (there's a decent list that may include things like gym memberships) you can at least plan for that and have it set aside.

While the desire for expected or desired salary is easily justifiable, I have an issue with them needing to know OPs current (or most recent) salary. There's no reason for that unless they truly want to offer just enough to get them to jump ship while still underpaying them.

I think there's two points to consider.

First is the request for your current salary. In several states it's actually illegal to ask that (I'm assuming you're not in one of those), but regardless, there's a polite way of saying that's not relevant if you don't want to disclose it. If this causes the company to back out, you probably dodged a bullet.

Second is the request for your desired salary. You should have done some research and had a ballpark figure to offer. At the very least, say something like, "I would like to earn something in the $X-Y range, but that's flexible depending on the benefits package." If you're not willing to even do this, the company likely dodged a bullet.

"Acceptable" is questionable at best. The original issue was sick leave, the compromise was more pay, sick leave wasn't addressed.