My business was destroyed in Hurricane Ike , roof was blow clean off, floors buckled , ect.

I've never been without a job 15 years +. Now I'm unemployed , rather sickning feeling , I made a pretty good living , now I'm broke .

Times are going to be tough for alot of Americans out there, I just have to remember to hold my head up high and keep moving forward somehow .

DALE HANSEN -- How did you do it?   Entreprenuer in the making. :)

-Eddie

I feel like I have prepared for this crisis. When my youngest child was 2 mos old(4 children in all) I went back to college.A year later my husband and I divorced. He disappeared. I graduated and taught school for 3 yrs. Proration came and there went my job. I went to work as a bookkeeper at a funeral home. 4 yrs later I found a job at a car dealership. Worked there 7 yrs. Went to work at a bank for 2 yrs. I am now working at another car dealership...which is probably going to go under soon...very soon. I am 55. (My ex was finally located...when my youngest turned 18!).  I have no one to depend on but myself, but I DO know how to stretch a dollar-learned from my past experiences. I feel like I will make it, somehow...but right at this moment I am feeling a bit of panic.  Don't know what to do about that.

I agree with Dave in some aspects, many people do work paycheck to paycheck, especially if you have a family to support. But many people can save if they put effort into finding savings. I recently saw a news story where this young lady went with her coupons to the store every week and would buy about 200$ worth of food and her bill at the end would be $5 or $10 dollars. It can be done with effort. I've mentioned this to some people but they tell me they would be embarrassed  to do that in a crowded store,but if you have a family to feed, so what, right? Times are tough and people need to survive so do what you can and try to save. Consolidate trips in the car also to save on gas.  I try not to drive 1 or 2 days a week and I notice  less fill up at the pump. It can be done but with tremendous effort.  Good luck to y'all.

Dave,I'm a single Mom who own's her own home.  I have save over 30, 000 dollars

in 7 years.  I work two jobs.  I don't spend money that I don't have.  No cell phone, big cable bills.  I do go on small vactions.  I think before I spend.  I make sure I save a little each week.  Oh! I work part time working for 8.00 hr and full time as a waitress. By the way when I get Child suppot it is 53.00 per week.  Dave, You need to grow up....

Dave, I'm sure by now someone will have already said something similar but I'd encourage you to read the blog again. The guy had 12 month of expenses with his severence package and vacation time. So he likely only had 6-8 months of cash in the bank.

It's also a good idea to have something in the bank period. 6 months is a good target. But that's 6 months of expenses, aka bills and debt and groceries and gas. It's not easy to get there. I just started working 6 months ago. For the first couple of months my bride and I didn't save because she wasn't working yet (she's a nurse so she was studying for her boards and then had to wait for training to start before she could start working and getting paid.) Part of that was because we were just starting out and since we knew that she would be working soon, we over extended ourselves on our rent to get what would turn out to be a good deal. Now that she is working we've indulged a little bit (we're just starting out so there are still some first time expenses that we're getting; furniture, etc.) but we've also started having money automatically withdrawn every week. (I get paid weekly, she gets paid every other week so pulling money out each week just works for us. But it's basically a certain percentage of our pay checks.) Since it's taken out about the same time as the paycheck goes in, I don't even notice it. If you were to start today, try just taking $10-20 per paycheck and putting it into a savings account. Eventually that adds up.

For my wife and I, I base what goes into savings based on certain things we want to save for, like vacations, a downpayment for a house eventually. We also save for expenses like auto insurance and other bills that only get paid every 6 months or every quarter. For the auto insurance it's cheaper to pay lump sums every 6 months than to pay monthly. (Of course this first one will be a hit in the wallet since I haven't been saving for 6 months but after that we should be good if everything works out like I think it should.)

So Dave, you can do save. You just have to trick yourself a little at first.

BTW it's ok to slip up from time to time. I have a feeling with holidays coming up, and with my wife's personality and generousity, we'll probably tap into the savings a little but that's partly what it's there for. Good luck

Sign up for unemployment insurance; in Texas, it can all be done on-line.

Being laid off is painful and in these times down right scary. The worse part of being laid off is no health insurance. Cobra co-pays are very, very expensive and there is no way in the world that unemployment will pay enough for health insurance, mortgage or rent, car payments, food, etc. But it is the lack of health insurance that is the real killer for workers in their fifties or sixties. Good luck to us all as it looks like many os us are going to need it.

The very first thing to do get signed up for unemployemnt.

One time I was layed off at 8:30 AM I was at the employment office by 9.

People who are crying now because they have nothing to fall back on deserve (or 95% of them ) to be where they are now. When times were  good how much money were people putting away? Most I know, nothing. It was more important to get the bigger house, better car & go on vacation. So unless you have been living beneath your means this is what you get. I have always saved & lived where I paid myself first, and now I'm not rich, but I have plenty of money to live on. Tell your kids now-pay yourself first because there will always be a crisis on the horizon and you only have yourself to blame if your short handed.