I was first motivated to learn more about real estate and passive income after seeing a layoff at the company I work for and realizing I don't want to rely solely on Corporate America for a bi-weekly paycheck.

Better check out Robinhood :)

My husband is on a,layoff right now, receiving unemployment income.  

Anchorage scares me because the low oil price, north slope lay offs and general economy is teetering there. 

Houston is an oil-driven market, so when oil price goes down, layoffs are inevitable.

., etc.If you put 10% of your GROSS (not net after taxes and insurance) into an emergency fund...and keep a reserve for a certain amount of months in a liquid form (i.e. money market funds/CD's/Municipal Bonds/etc) in case of separation from work and layoffs, and put the rest into a diversified no-load quality mutual fund, then you will also be funding for the future including retirement.

Its a shame, the recent layoffs blew out a lot of long time employees that were really good. 

I think I would be comfortable with 8 digits of assets and I am not there yet but more than half way there.However, if I got a layoff notice tomorrow I would likely "retire" from my W2 job pursuits.Most of my assets have been accumulated since 2012 as the great recession greatly reduced my net value as my real estate was down 20% and that was a large part of my net worth (everything was down). 

The only thing I can think of is if one of the major corporations - amway, Gordon's, steelcase, Meijer have a big down turn where they have to lay off a lot of folks.I got lucky this past fall with a large ranch Nw side.

I've been looking at rental properties before the layoff, now feel even more urgent to start my real estate journey.