Debit and Payment problems - No Job but some investments

[NewfromTO]

Just lost my job - wondering how to operate for the next few months until I get another job.
(I am in Canada)
Basically I have monthly bills that far exeed my now $0 monthly income. I hope to be working shortly - but would like advise on the best way to get by right now - for possibly a few months.

Im 40 /
Have $250K (CND) equity in a $500K Home, thus $250K MTG
$50K Line of Credit (LofC) (Maxed) -- 20K in CC Debit and various monthly household and school bills for my kid - and I have some money in RRSPs' (approx $125K) ...other than that - I dont have any cash flow at the moment.....

Heres my senerio:
Monthly MTG $2300
Monthly LofC $1500
Monthly Tuition $1200
Montly CC Min $700
Montly Utilities $400
Montly Prop Taxes $400
Montly Other $600

Montly Income - ZERO!!!! - My Credit is maxed and I have no cash flow to pay my monthly expenses!!! Also - I now need to purchase a vehicle of some sort!!!! (as I had a company leased vehicle)

I am thinking about - asking my bank to put my line of credit balance onto my Mortage .... and hoping that they keep my line of credit open - so that I can use this for bills durning the next few months while I seek employment.

I dont know if it is a good idea to take money from my RRSP (my tax bracket for 2008 is easily 40% --- though in Jan a new fiscal year will start - and its not likley that I will be in the 40% for 2009 --- so perhaps I could take some RRSP money out in Jan????

I would appreciate any and all advise - and can provide more details if anyone needs - Thanks in advance

 

[Raskolnikov]

This is an Irish forum, so I doubt you'll the best possible advice. I'll try throwing my two cents in anyway. Your situation looks so serious, I think you need all the help you can get!

As I understand an RRSP, cashing out a part of that should be an absolute last resort as you will be liable for tax clawback.

As for income, have you not being paying into Employment Insurance? If so, then you should be able to get some assistance relative to the proportion of time you've been paying it.

Personally, I think your fianances look so bleak that you really need to look at selling your property, extracting the equity and using that to pay off your huge amount of personal debt.

When you get out of this situation, I think an important lesson to learn is that you really need to have a contingency fund of at least three months pay to allow for a crisis.