For more than a decade the "go to" source for Canadian personal finance information has been the Canadian Personal Finance Blog operated by Alan Whitton, more commonly known as the Big Cajun Man (listen to the show to find out where that name came from; having met him to record this podcast, I can confirm that he is a big guy).

The Big Cajun man has accumulated the best resources on the internet on RDSPs, so next month he'll be back to do a full show just on that topic. On today's show we addressed a very common issue:

What can you do when you lose your job?

Alan worked for the biggest company in Canada, Nortel, for 20 years, and he survived many rounds of layoffs until, at age 47, he was laid off. Even though everyone knew the company was in trouble, layoffs are almost always a shock. The Big Cajun Man tells us what it was like to live through that time, with a wife and four kids, and he explains how he survived 11 months of unemployment before starting a new career.

On today's podcast he gives practical advice for surviving, and then thriving, after a layoff.