Who we are
Our website address is: https://howtobeunemployed.com.
Comments
The short version: the only personal information this site asks for is an email address, and only if you choose to give it. It goes to our mailing list provider and nowhere else. We don’t sell it, we don’t rent it, and we don’t send anything except what you signed up for. Everything you type into the online planner or the free tools stays in your own browser and never reaches us at all.
Who we are
This site publishes How To Be Unemployed — How to Keep Your Sanity When You’re Out of Work by Nora Barrow (ISBN 979-8-89704-479-5), and the free tools that accompany it.
Nora Barrow is a pen name. The book is published by Stronger Technology, LLC, which is responsible for the information described in this policy and can be reached at:
32 Walmart Plaza | #214 | Clinton NJ 08809
What we collect
Your email address, if you give it to us. Two places on this site ask for one: the launch-day notice form, and the form that offers you the 30-Day Sanity Planner. Both are optional. The planner is downloadable without giving an address at all — the link to skip the form is right underneath it.
That’s the entire list of what we ask you for. We don’t ask for your name, your location, your employment status, your income, or anything about your job search, and there is nowhere on this site to create an account.
Information your browser sends automatically. Like nearly every website, our web server keeps access logs. These record the IP address of the device making the request, the page requested, the date and time, and the browser and operating system reported by your browser. We use these only to keep the site running and to investigate errors or abuse. We don’t use them to build a profile of you, and we don’t connect them to your email address.
Comments, if the site ever accepts them. WordPress stores a comment’s text along with the name, email address, and IP address of whoever posted it. We don’t currently run a comment section; if that changes, that’s what would be stored.
What stays on your device and never reaches us
This is the part most privacy policies bury, and it’s the part that matters most here.
The online planner. Everything you type into the 30-Day Sanity Planner at howtobeunemployed.com/planner/ — your budget figures, your networking notes, your application log, everything — is saved in your own browser’s local storage, on your own device. It is never transmitted anywhere. We cannot read it, because it never reaches us. It isn’t backed up, and it doesn’t sync between your devices.
Because it lives in your browser, clearing your browsing data or site data permanently erases it. If what you’ve written matters to you, print it or use the downloadable PDF.
The free tools. The runway calculator, the panic cap timer, the interview practice prompts and the 50-state benefits lookup all run entirely inside your browser. The numbers you enter into the runway calculator are never sent to us or to anyone else.
Analytics
We don’t use Google Analytics, and there are no advertising pixels, social media trackers, or third-party tracking scripts on this site.
Cookies
We don’t set tracking cookies. WordPress may set a small number of strictly functional cookies — for example, if you leave a comment or log in as an administrator. The planner and the free tools use your browser’s local storage rather than cookies, and nothing stored there is sent to a server.
Who your email address goes to, and who it doesn’t
If you sign up, your address is sent to and stored by Kit (formerly ConvertKit), the email service that runs our mailing list. Kit is a US company and processes the address on our behalf so we can send you what you signed up for. You can read Kit’s privacy policy at kit.com/privacy.
Our website is hosted by InMotion Hosting, whose servers keep the access logs described above.
Beyond those two, we do not share, sell, rent, trade, or otherwise disclose your email address to anyone. We don’t use it for advertising, we don’t build audiences from it on social platforms, and we don’t hand it to the book’s retailers or distributors. The only other circumstance in which we would disclose information is if we were legally required to — a court order, a subpoena, or a similar legal obligation.
What we send you, and how to stop it
If you signed up for launch-day notice, you get one email when the book is available. If you signed up through the planner, you’re on the same list.
Every email we send includes an unsubscribe link, and it works immediately. You never have to email us or explain yourself to get off the list. If you’d rather we deleted your address entirely rather than just marking it unsubscribed, write to info@howtobeunemployed.com and we’ll remove it.
How long we keep things
We keep your email address until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it. Server access logs are kept for a short period — typically no more than a few weeks — and then rotated out automatically by the host.
Your choices, wherever you live
You can ask us to tell you what we hold about you, correct it, or delete it. Write to info@howtobeunemployed.com. Because the only thing we hold is an email address, these requests are usually straightforward, and we’ll respond within 30 days.
For California residents
If you’re a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA gives you specific rights. Here is the required disclosure, in the plainest form we can put it.
Categories of personal information we have collected in the past 12 months:
- Identifiers — an email address, if you gave us one; IP addresses, from server access logs.
- Internet or network activity — the pages requested from our server, and the browser and device reported by your browser, from those same logs.
We collect these for the purposes described above: to send you what you asked for, and to keep the site running and secure. We collect them directly from you or automatically from your browser.
We have not sold or shared personal information in the past 12 months, and we do not sell or share it now. “Sharing” here has the specific meaning the CPRA gives it — disclosure for cross-context behavioral advertising — and we do none of that. We also do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any purpose that would require an opt-out, because we don’t collect any.
Your rights. You have the right to know what personal information we’ve collected about you and how we’ve used it; to have it corrected if it’s wrong; to have it deleted; to opt out of sale or sharing (there is nothing to opt out of, but the right exists); and to not be discriminated against for exercising any of these. We do not offer financial incentives in exchange for personal information.
How to exercise them. Email info@howtobeunemployed.com with what you’d like us to do. We may need to verify that the request is really coming from you, which for an email address usually just means replying from that address. An authorized agent may make a request on your behalf with written permission. We will respond within 45 days, and will tell you if we need longer.
Children
This site and book are for adults navigating unemployment. They are not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us an email address, write to info@howtobeunemployed.com and we’ll delete it.
Links to other sites
The site links out to state unemployment agencies, assistance programs such as 211, SNAP and LIHEAP, free learning platforms, and crisis resources including 988. Those are sites we don’t control, and once you follow a link, that site’s own privacy policy applies. We deliberately don’t proxy or mirror them.
The companion app
NextChapter, the free companion app, has its own privacy policy at app.howtobeunemployed.com/privacy.html. The short version is that it collects nothing at all — no accounts, no analytics, no servers — and everything you enter stays on your device.
Security
We serve the entire site over HTTPS. Your email address is held by Kit, whose security practices are described in their own policy. No system is perfectly secure, and we won’t pretend otherwise — but the honest reassurance here is that we hold very little, so there is very little to lose.
Not professional advice
This site and the book offer general encouragement and personal experience. They are not medical, legal, tax, or financial advice. Unemployment rules, benefit amounts, and deadlines are set by each state and change over time; always confirm current details with your state’s official agency before relying on them.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If we ever make a change that materially affects what we do with your email address, we’ll say so in an email to the list rather than quietly editing this page.
Contact
Questions about this policy, or about anything we hold:
info@howtobeunemployed.com
32 Walmart Plaza | #214 | Clinton NJ 08809
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.