Article: 5 Pieces of Advice for the New Paupers

Full article here.

I've been worried about the economy's myriad aspects.  I'm a student, a home owner, and my career aspects (cultural resources) are viewed by the public as far from necessary.  I'm not related to commodities (food or mineral production), or even to vice at any level (bartender, musician, exotic dancer).  Instead, I depend on the government having enough money to enforce proper resource management on development projects, which in turn depend on agencies having been alloted the money to actually carry out said projects.

Oy veh.

John Dolan's article describes lessons he has learned in leaving grad school and entering the current economic reality.  And honestly, I forsee it as a viable possibility.  I'm only unable to get food stamps because my car is worth too much (according to this article I should sell it anyway).  The primary reason for buying a house was because it was much less then renting (and still is), but with renting when things break they get fixed.  I have the limited electrical knowledge, but lack the chutzpa to risk putting it into use as possibly frying myself or short circuiting my entire house, so I have two rooms without lights (the bathroom and the laundry room), and only two of my meager heaters work... sorta.  In the winter my house is primarily heated in sections with a transportable space heater and the oven.  Work is done in bed, with two cats cuddled under the covers against my thighs.

In fact, it is sympathetic to this exerpt from the article I'm drawing attention to:

"We had only an unheated boat, and that was not enough. We woke up to the thump of sea ice banging against the hull and realized that the old world was still very much in session. When we finally fled to stay with family, we stayed in our blankets up against their gas fireplace for weeks. You won't even want food much after a while. You'll want heat itself, not the chemical middleman. You are going to realize that cold is the most frightening thing in the world."

Yeah.  Happy winter.