After Being Unemployed For Almost 4 Years, I Finally Got A Job This Week

[stopbush]

39. Well, my wife works part-time, so she brought in some income.

But we basically had to go through our savings and retirement funds, which weren't huge but weren't insubstantial, either.

I just this month got rid of my 2000 VW Beetle, which finally died on us after 15 years and 135,000 miles. We own our "good" car as well, so we didn't have car payments for the four years, though repairs on the VW were getting more frequent and expensive, and came at the most-inopportune times. We stopped eating out almost entirely. We stopped socializing to a great extent. It's amazing how much $ you can save when you hunker down into a bunker mentality and try to ride out bad financial times.

At age 60, there is no way that I can replace the retirement funds we've gone through. I fully expect to never retire, and to work pretty much up until the day I die. Of course, at this point, that sorta precludes us relocating to a cheaper area of the country because the job is here where I live.

Taking one day at a time, but breathing a whole lot easier than I was a week ago.