“mentally I never saw it coming okay totally blindsided um financially we're we were prepared in terms of like being conservative um we've been very conservative for a long time and so it's like thank goodness”

Years of conservative spending is what makes a layoff survivable

Aaron was blindsided by a PlanetScale layoff coming off paternity leave with four kids under three. The only reason it wasn't catastrophic: years of conservative spending built a buffer that turned a job loss into an opportunity. Treat financial conservatism as insurance against blindside events, not as a personality flaw.