A hipster on food stamps responds
I am one of the subjects of Jennifer Bleyer’s recent article about hipsters on food stamps. I am writing to address the particular sort of ire that this article drew toward people like me — educated,...
View ArticleHow I lost my middle-class life
Recently I read an article in the New York Times Magazine by Dominique Browning, the former House and Garden magazine editor who lost her job when the magazine folded in 2007. Like “The Bag Lady...
View ArticleYou don’t know squatting: A movement returns
Pete stood at the bottom of the brownstone stoop in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and watched Rob disappear around the corner of the block. He reappeared giving a double thumbs-up with his gloved hands...
View Article“Cheapskate Next Door”: The cheapskate’s revenge
Before the economy imploded, cheapskates were considered a pitiful bunch -- frumpy coupon moms racing across town to save 19 cents on baby wipes, joyless penny-pinchers subsisting on ramen noodles....
View ArticleI thought I’d beaten the foreclosure crisis
This is the story of a home with red doors. A home where a family has unpacked wedding crystal, changed new diapers, buried pets, watched far too many DVDs, fought over space on the bed/couch/floor,...
View ArticleI will write your college essay for cash
My clients never fail to amuse."Can I have a military discount?" one asked."Do you give student discounts?" asked another.No and no, I thought, hitting Delete on those e-mails. In the business of doing...
View ArticleYoung, overeducated and selling pot
It's harvest time in downtown Oakland."Paul" leads his roommate "David" (not their real names) into their apartment's spare third bedroom. They are soon joined by their friend "Adam," who has come to...
View ArticleHard times? TV can be your lottery ticket
A tweet from NBC reporter Ann Curry: Ok, here's a smile: update on our doc on recession/poverty. I love America http://bit.ly/btt50h Here's the text you get when you "share" the video report Curry's...
View ArticleMy blessed budget Christmas
I was downsized from my job in October 2008 along with a few dozen others at the company. At the time I was let go, I had $35,000 in carefully accrued savings and an IRA with a little more than $8,000...
View ArticleRegrets of a stay-at-home mom
We had wonderful times together, my sons and I. The parks. The beaches. The swing set moments when I would realize, watching the boys swoop back and forth, that someday these afternoons would seem to...
View ArticlePutting down the vet clinic I loved
We sealed the envelopes yesterday. I commented to our technician and our office manager that it felt like euthanasia, a really prolonged euthanasia. As I slid the moistened sponge across the gummed...
View ArticleRegrets of a subprime mortgage lender
I was 22 years old when I decided to go into mortgage sales. I was finishing an undergraduate degree in criminal justice and had decided that I didn’t want to go to law school as I had originally...
View ArticleA mortgage broker with no apologies
I was 28 years old when I became a mortgage loan officer in what is now the worst market in the country, Las Vegas. I didn’t have a damn thing to do with the recession, except for being a victim of it,...
View ArticleHow the recession turned me into a scavenger
I hear a bellow from above, unintelligible but happy."What?" I holler.The bellow again. I detect words, but distance and thick underbrush are the enemies of meaning."He must have found some more up...
View ArticleScraping by on stinging nettles
Stinging nettles have been the enemy for as long as I can remember. Nettles grow lush and huge here in Deadwood, Ore. When I was a child they were an impediment, tall sentinels blocking the path to the...
View ArticleScavenger: How my grandmother taught me to eat weeds
My grandmother Maki was the sort of person who was apt to have a conversation with her own sweater. It wasn't senility or schizophrenia, but rather an abiding and unspoken belief that all things --...
View ArticleHow I became a hillbilly
The Great Depression has been invoked time and time again since the market crashes of 2008. Not everyone's life has done a back flip to 1932, but sometimes I think mine has. The other day my husband,...
View ArticleHow to make the perfect recession martini
The martini has no legitimate place in a series about budget living, but after a winter of huddling by a smoldering fire eating legumes and one-pot meals, I feel in the mood for something decadent. And...
View ArticleThe devastating layoffs that shook our lives
When a fellow Latin teacher asked last February if I had read the most recent posting of the school board's minutes, my reply was, "Why the hell would I read that?"Unfortunately, her answer changed my...
View ArticleHow did I end up at Mom and Dad’s?
“Forgive me for being nosy, but are you back around here and working at _____?” I closed the message without replying.“Here” was the town where I grew up. Population 9,800. The message was from a high...
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