<prompt> Human: Ive been working at this small company that the owner died a couple of years ago. His wife has been running things, but unfortunately when the owner died we lost a bunch of customers and things have been going downhill since.Lately weve been getting a lot of calls from our vendors looking for payment on various past due bills. Which makes me think that things may be getting worse and we may be closing soon. The problem is that Ive been steadily employed since I was 16, and now Im almost 50. I have never had to look for a job before, as I just moved up from one position to another until I got where I am now, a general manager for this welding equipment company. I have no clue what Im supposed to do if I suddenly find myself unemployed.The other issue is that I have a lot of debt. Unfortunately about 10 years ago, for our 20th anniversary we took out a large loan for a special trip to Hawaii for the anniversary. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, as we both had decent jobs, and would have it paid off within a couple of years. Of course, life has a funny way of doing things you dont expect though. Medical issues, urgent home repairs, and various vehicle issues all came along shortly afterwards and we wound up having to borrow a lot more money to deal with those.So, currently we have 3 maxed out credit cards, a mortgage that chews up about half of our take home pay, and have nothing in savings. We scrape by, but barely.If we lose our jobs My wife works for the same company, we are in a pickle. I dont even know what Im supposed to do if I lose my job. Do I have to file for unemployment? How does that work? I know unemployment is not going to be enough to cover all the bills, so what do I do about that? How screwed am I?  <response>: At the time, it seemed like a good ideaFor future reference, borrowing money for anything that isnt secured by collateral is a bad idea, other than education.If you lose your job you can file for unemployment. You can get paid for quite a while but you are required to look for work while accepting the payments.In terms of cutting costs and lifestyle changes, without a budget post we cant really tell you how to cover the bills. One thing I can say is that if your mortgage consumes half your take home, you need to downsize. Whats stopping you from selling the house? How much equity do you have? 