http://ductapefatwa.blogspot.com/2003/11/advice-for-new-poor-part-1-some-advice.htmlAdvice for the New Poor
* Part 1: Some advice for the newly outsourced, downsized, and generally unemployed
* Part 2: How long will your child be held for the first offense seeing you can't pay bail money?
* Part 3: What does "working homeless" mean?
* Part 4: This is not the best time for a pregnancy
* Part 5: OK if you really can't get a better job, Why don't you just get on welfare? Then you'd get a free apartment, wouldn't you?
* Part 6: It is an unfortunate situation, in cases like this it's tragic.
* Part 7: Who's life is it, anyway?
* Part 8: Somebody must have seen the fire
* Part 9: Hanging on by a thread
Part 1: Some advice for the newly outsourced, downsized, and generally unemployed
First of all, welcome to the nouveaux pauvre (that's "new poor" to you. Your french phrase days will gently fade into happy memories, like some other things.)
The purpose of this thread is to help you understand some of the changes that accompany this new chapter in your life.
For those of you who still have savings, early withdrawn IRAs, homes or automobiles to sell, or other assets that you have not yet liquidated and spent, you may wish to print this page out and save it. Depending on how hotshit a coder you were, it may be months, for a few of you, either a couple of years, before you need it.
For those of you who have already passed through that "well honey thank goodness we have enough to keep going for a little while" to the "hm, I think we've got enough equity that if we sell the house, we can get enough to tide us over" to the "holy shit! We have a total of $700 to our name, no income coming in, and this $1200 apartment I thought we'd be in for a month or 2 is now asking for month 6 of the rent" phase, some of you will now transition to the "I guess we can go back to Peoria to stay with the folks for a while" benchmark.
Print this and save it. You are very fortunate.
Now those of you are left are the ones who have already sold and spent everything you had, you don't have folks to go stay with for a while, and you have just made a new and important discovery: Your new "survival jobs until.." are not enough to enable you to afford housing. In other words, you are now priced out of the housing market.
If you are lucky, you may find something with a roof that with one more shift you can afford, where you will learn many new things, and so will your kids.
You always knew that there were neighborhoods like this, but you never thought YOU'D be living in one, especially not with kids, who you have had to take out of the progressive alternative school and place into the one with the metal detectors and the very reasonably priced nearly new Glock swap meets in the parking lot, from which they will return every afternoon to discover their new neighborhood while both of you work your second shifts.<snip>
http://ductapefatwa.blogspot.com/2003/11/advice-for-new-poor-part-1-some-advice.htmlhttp://ductapefatwa.blogspot.com/2003/11/advice-for-new-poor-part-1-some-advice.html