Survival strategies for those of us approaching 45?

Anyone have ideas for those of us approaching 45? I've been out of work since May 2008 - two years now. I've effectively given up trying to find work. To make matters worse, I have exhausted unemployment benefits, and the prospect of Tier 5 extensions are looking somewhat doubtful at this point. During my search, it seems the only hiring that is being done is among young people, those leaving college. Age discrimination is very real, folks. As I approach age 45, generally considered the end of 'youth' by any measure, I'm having real doubts about my ability to survive to retirement age. How are others similarly situated dealing with this? What are your strategies for survival?

Those seem to be the only retirement options many of us have.

I hate our fucking society

was a video on a resurgence of those trying to eliminate social security and Medicare. One of the last things some of us have left. There seems to be a movement under foot in this so called country to see if everyone can get thrown out on the street. So much for working your ass off in this country to lose your Job just before retirement and stock investments too. Good old USA, Inc. Each day it sucks more and more. This country isn't even remotely the country I was born into.

there is virtually no hiring in that field going on.

Most insurance offices are losing tons of business as strapped customers cancel their policies because they can't pay the bills.

I have thought some about going back to school, but in what field? Plus I have no desire whatsoever for more academia/debt.

When is this Administration going to quit dicking around and get Tier 5 coupled with some MEANINGFUL job retraining programs for older adults passed?

To me that's way more of a priority than any climate change legislation, important as that is.

contact FEMA about contract adjuster opportunities ? Pay & per diems, etc. pretty "good".

I'm assuming the u/w skills transfer and you worked p&c

Going for my second bachelor's right now, and as soon as that's done, I'm going to grad school. Might as well go all the way, get the PhD - you're more likely to get fellowships and assistantships if you go for a PhD, but if you just do the masters, you're more likely to have to pay for it yourself (assuming you can).

So far, I've been getting awesome grades on the second bachelor's, so I think my chances are good - as long as I can get a decent score on the GRE...

Granted, the ones majoring in French Literature are gonna have a harder time...

I went back to school and got a second bachelor's and master's degree. It took me six years, part-time. I remember before I made the decision to do it, I said to my husband, "But I'm going to be FORTY by the time I'm done!" and he replied, "You're going to be 40 anyway, might as well do it."

Now in my second career, I'm a speech-language pathologist. We've relocated three times since then, and I've gotten a job everywhere we've moved. I get e-mails weekly from places looking to hire. Our youngest is going to college and will be majoring in communication disorders (speech therapy) and our middle daughter will graduate and go to grad school for a master's in occupational therapy.

Speech, occupational, and physical therapists are sorely needed, in almost every market.

Depending on the field, it can almost make you LESS employable (I know - I have one).

like selling on the web.

Meanwhile, I'd pressure Congress into putting in a Tier V:

Tier V to Survive

For the Trades were you can still make a buck, like Plumbing and Car Mechanics, you have to spend money in Tools and Equipment at least,
even if you self-Train with Web Resources.

Candidate A: "I received my training at Harvard University."
Candidate B: "I received my training at MIT."
Candidate C: "I trained myself by reading stuff on the Internet."

Which one is least likely to be hired? Indeed, never to be hired?

Last week was my last week to file for unemployment benefits. It has been an awful time and now it will only get worse.

I am 67. Need I say more?

pool our talents and make some money happen for us instead of waiting around for social security to kick in or for us to kick off.

I mean we got a pool of talent that is so deep we should be able to keep ourselves working for a long time.

Trust me, I'm trying to come up with a way to use that pool of talent, here, now and in the United States of America.

Can we start banks? Microloan? do all the things that we're shut out of now. Hell I know a bunch of us know how to fix things the correct way.

I've recently come to the conclusion that I can't sit around and wait for employers to start hiring, especially those over 40.

Let's brainstorm on that!

t

I wonder what sort of bank they could start... :shrug:

at 67 there should be some SS unless the only income over the years was farm income.

people born 1943-1954 are eligible for "full SS" at age 66. This means they can make any amount of other income and still collect a full SS check without penalty. I'm 64, and believe me, I'm counting the days till I'm 66.

Become a plumber or electrician.
They are hard to find anytime, make pretty good money.

Till then, get or become a room-mate, barter for rent money doing the cleaning or cooking or ...?

I don't know where you live.
I know Craigslist can be a good source but needs to be combed thru for the "good guys".

My poorest days were when I was in Seattle, had little money, but there were lots of room-mate
opportunities, lots of under the counter money gigs, a little here, a little there.
Friends and family helped out when they could.

I was 45 when I dusted off my degree, which had NO value on the West Coast but was worth
money in the South. And I was close to a hard bottom when i did that.
You might have to move to where better opportunities are, if you can.
sometimes people stay stuck in one place until it is too late for options.

if there is no money?

Get a "roommate"? Are you serious? I am having to move in with relatives and give up an apartment I have had for 12 years. There will be NO fucking money at all after July.

that's how Asians are getting employment via the web.

They learn English, web programming etc.

for instance

web design
html programming
internet
buying and selling on ebay

that's the area I know most about but there are plenty of webinars and tutorials for many subjects

Web designers are YOUNG, and even the young ones are being undercut by people in India.

html programming? seriously? for html all you need is a WYSIWYG program (dreamweaver) or a programer from India. Real programing takes a lot more time and talent to learn.

internet????? google adsense? ya, right.

buying and selling on ebay - your're about 10 years late to that game. It's overcrowded with imports and fakes from china. CEO meg whitman (currently trying to purchase CA gov's seat) made the climate next to impossible for small sellers.

webinars and tutorials teach you about 2% of what you need to know to design a website.

Even if you get one job or a half job a month that can
add several hundred dollars to your income.

My husband, at age 68, was laid off from City Hall last year and forced into retirement with a small pension that was not enough to make ends meet (he had planned on working at least another 5 to 7 years). Looking for regular jobs was fruitless. First of all there were few jobs and second, he was 68.

So he designed his own job, utilizing his skills set and his background and contacts in city government and in the meantime he kept up his contacts and began a volunteer position for the city's aldermen. He then "sold" the idea to the new executive officer of a regional planning group that was interested in many of the same issues my husband had dealt with during his ten years with the city. It was only part time but was still enough to bridge the gap.

The point is that he looked at his situation as if he were selling a car or a house. Only it was himself that he was marketing, so he asked himself all the questions a "buyer" would ask and wrote his proposal accordingly. Basically, he was saying "Here's what I can do for YOU."

He starts his new job July 1. And he is NOT a "salesman," far from it. But this challenge fired up his interest and he really didn't want not to be involved in issues that had made him so passionately involved before.

I'm sure there are many variations on this theme...Good luck!

I got an awesome job, but had to move to the UAE to get it.

I am 43 and hope to have enough squirreled away that I can move back to the US and open a small business in the next 10-15 yrs.

My solution came about a year ago, when I ended up having to 'double up' with a very dear friend of mine. Since I'm a single mom, I'm lucky and can get food stamps; that is currently my only income.

I know that's not much help, but like you, I'm at a loss. It has been a huge blow to my psyche to have to face the fact that I may never work again, and may never be self-sufficient again.

Hey, I feel for you; there are a lot of us in that same depressing boat!

:hug:

What worked for me may or may not work for you.

My advice is to dust off your bucket list, see if any of those things will create net worth and make a plan to get started. Cultivate new skills.

For me it was building a house in the country and a shop in which I could build boats. I picked up a few short term gigs along the way.

Age discrimination is very real indeed.

cost of land?
materials?
taxes?
tools?

not much of an option for someone without income unless they've already got all that stuff.

note that he said this happened in 2003, sadly, this is 2010 and the construction trades in many areas have simply been devastated

i don't think it helps much to describe our individual small businesses, for instance, for years, i was an editorial/service writer for magazines -- a "job" if you can get it which pays less than it did in 1975 and is no longer worth the start-up cost, i kept it going longer than it would be profitable for a newcomer to the field, simply because of old contacts, a newcomer would be expected to have certain educational credentials and to know the right people to even begin to compete for the very few remaining (and generally shitty-paying) jobs -- so i didn't even throw it out there, although you'll see all the time people on internet discussions/websites still putting freelance writing out there as a viable business...they are quite simply lying or trying to sell a "how to" course for something that no longer works

"stuff" you already have is, as you rightly point out, key -- sometimes the "stuff" is tools, sometimes the "stuff" is contacts...all you can do is look over your "stuff" and see if any of it has any remaining value

but the OP, like all of us, is going to have to carve out his or her own niche, if there was an easy way to make money in your post-employable years, we'd all be doing it already -- too many people thought that easy way was flipping houses/construction for example

I said I built my own house. The fact that many other builders were scrambling for work didn't affect me except for the rare occasion that I needed some help on a particular task (e.g. plumbing) in which case, because of the downturn, I tended to get good pricing.

The act of building created significant net worth (even accounting for the subsequent drop in RE values), improved my health and gave me new skills and confidence.

Yes, everyone has to carve out their own niche, but it takes some experimentation to find it.

I simply don't think it's beneficial to consider our individual financial situations hopeless. Even for the 20% of us for whom it is.

building your house & space for your boat building.

you may have done it on the cheap, but it nevertheless has a cost which a lot of unemployed people couldn't even begin to cover.

i take your point about finding a "niche," but for the propertyless, savings-less, that niche is going to be selling drugs, working under the table, working cheap dangerous jobs, going to garage sales & trying to resell the bargains, stealing copper wire, etc.

none of those niches are going to provide middle-class stable livings for most of the people who try them. strictly survival.

i saw a picture of your house, it looks very nice. i don't know your situation but it doesn't seem to me to represent the situation of the people in my neighborhood.

Dad was a carpenter. I was NOT. All I'm saying is that sometimes the solution is far outside the box - the self image we acquire.

Thanks for the compliment on the house Hannah, and I don't disagree that we were both somewhat lucky and reasonably well prepared for employment catastrophe. Unemployment absolutely couldn't have built the house, but proceeds from jettisoning all the "working-years crap", did.

(at least) 20% of the population is propertyless & savingsless. all they'll have is their bodies & whatever knowledge/contacts they've accumulated to "invest" to find their niche. which will often be something officially illegal.

or maybe just slow death on the margins of the welfare state.

i remember those times when it was ok, i've been dealt a very shitty hand in life, now get up in the morning, cry for 15 minutes...now what? crying is boring, let's try something

building a house is not something i could do but you definitely have to experiment here and there to find what you CAN do

"what worked for me may not work for you".

Complicating my reality was the fact that my 3 year old was diagnosed with a disorder which precluded normal day-care. Someone was going to have to stay home with him, and my wife was in a more employable position.

Luckily, we had some net worth to work with so, we sold the stuff and our big-ish home that we could no longer afford due to lack of income. I built a smaller one. We still have a mortgage but it's far less than rent would be for even a small apartment.

My whole point is that people can get stuck on the idea that they have to keep doing what they've been doing; the only conceivable solution is to replace the lost income with another job as much like the old one as possible. It doesn't have to be like that. For me, unemployment at 40+ was a time for a panic-button reboot. I knew within 3 months that only 20-somethings with the phrase "Bachelor's degree" prominently displayed on the resume for the OCR program to see get jobs. I knew I had to preserve what I had, because there was no time for a do-over. We now live comfortably on about 40% of our peak income.

Gather up the assets in a big conceptual pile. Discard the ones that don't serve you. Pay off debt. The boat? Cable? Vacations? The second car? The Harley? History. Life insurance? Kids college fund? Repurpose it. (Besides, with low income, the kids are eligible for FAFSA)

Sometimes there are obvious solutions. Sometimes there are non-obvious solutions. Sometimes there are no solutions. My suggestion is relevant to group #2.

Plenty of rejection letters though. My husband just turned 68 yesterday and he holds onto his job for now. I'm very discouraged and find myself more and more wondering if I'll end up homeless at some point.

be cautious about starting your own business, most start-ups fail, and then you will have less than nothing, all of your savings gone and the only way to get rid of your debts might be bankruptcy -- too many people rush right into starting some really dumb-ass business, for instance, a friend lost her job and wanted to start a coffee shop, she had ZERO restaurant experience, how's that gonna work, several others thought they would buy and sell real estate, needless to say they're all bankrupt now...be cautious...there is NO easy money out there, forget the "glamor" business, and create some thing or service that you can sell that has VERY LOW EXPENSES

nonetheless i had no choice since i couldn't get hired in a real job but i was able to get freelance/contract work in my field -- be very cautious about avoiding accidents (freelancers usu. don't and can't get health insurance), and if at all possible, don't go to the doctor or hospital because un-insured people can be charged any price the doctor/hospital dreams up -- only insured patients have their bills adjusted (by the insurance company contract)

in time i hope the new health care bill will make it better for middle-aged people but right now, the best way to get health insurance coverage in your forties and up is to marry someone in a secure job that provides family health coverage

some people can claim a disability, if you want to go that route, be aware that it could be years (in my state, louisiana, it can take over two years, to collect-- much longer and you need a special lawyer if the disability is a mental illness)

basically you have to find a way to get some kind of income until age 62, so you can start collecting social security early, and a way to get some kind of health coverage until medicare age, or everything else is subject to loss the minute you get a big health care bill

it's much easier to make freelance/patchwork of temp jobs work if you have VERY LOW living expenses, at 45, you have the house you have and the car you have, it's a bad time to sell a house in this market but talk to whoever does your appraisal and FIGHT to get your property tax lowered, with the car, do everything you can to extend its life, take care of your "stuff"

i've done buy and sell to get extra money, but it's really tough, the old doors have closed-- "dumpster diving" has been killed by the compacting dumpster, Ebay fees and shipping fees took the profit out of that, right now if i find something to sell i do it on craigslist and/or to people i already know BUT it's hard to make anything but pennies from buy and sell these days -- that said, it might be time to go through your "stuff" and take a hard look at what you can sell and how much you can sell it for -- oh, and don't forget, don't do consignment, at least in my experience, once the consignment store has your "stuff" you'll never see the money, notice that part where you have to sign a waiver saying if the stuff is stolen/shoplifted/etc they don't have to pay you? funny that...

i can't tell you how to get a new job because my case is too severe (very bad health when young, severe case of sexual harassment and stalking -- with multiple "problems" it was just plain impossible for me to get any job) -- all i can tell you is that you WILL survive because you MUST survive, you have no choice but to find a way

i'm leery of volunteer work, for the most part, my friends who worked for free NEVER got jobs from that where they were paid -- it's the whole why buy the cow and put them on your health plan thing if the stupid-ass cow will give the milk for free? but maybe that works in some places, i dunno...

but you have to pick carefully and test things.

I mention the negativity because a recruiter said it's the number one attitude that turns off employers.

You HAVE to fake it and same with selling, postive attitude essential.

the trouble with sales and PMA (positive mental attitude) at the moment is that it doesn't matter how positive you are, you are competing with an entire industry of people who have had endless training, seminars, coaching etc. on faking positive mental attitude -- all those real estate brokers and financial services folks who are out of business know how to put on the bright brave face but it matters not -- there really, really ISN'T a job for every last one, there are only so many cars and trucks and "rent to own" furniture stores that need sales staff

also, some "positive negativity" is valuable because it saves time, all those people being brave and using PMA to try to sell time shares in vegas in this market, are just losing time out of their lives because every alzheimer's patient who wanted a time share already has one -- some sales (commission) type jobs should NOT be accepted and who cares if the recruiter is turned off -- too many recruiters are themselves frauds when they're promoting that type of job

a person out of work for two years needs either a salary or an hourly wage, they don't need a promise -- too many sales "jobs" are not really "jobs"

so i guess i'm being even more negative but oh well!!! i've survived and it's more than the time share sellers living in their 80 yr old mom's basement will do...

super negative about life right now. I feel like the youngsters are competition and I don't want to take a crap job and have a young person boss me around. YUK. I can't sell but I guess if it's over the internet it doesn't take the fake smile.

Here's a link: http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html

Once you admit that the US is collapsing, and with that you don't need to be a cog in the machine generating wealth for the top 1%, a great burden can be lifted. Instead of job searching, do what I did today: sleep in, surf the 'net for news, go out scavenging for useful stuff, and be glad that you have no one with 'expectations about your performance' to log them into your "personnel folder". Learn to use craigslist, both for buying things you can use, and selling stuff you can't (along with an occasional money paying gig here or there).

Since you have been forced to quit the rat-race, you have to give up rat-race status symbols i.e., new cars, designer clothes, and borrowed money. Make sure your house and car are free and clear, and that you have food growing at your house, even if it is just a potted tomato outside the door. One thing I noticed in the FSU (former Soviet Union), which will soon be common in the FUS (former United States) is that most single family houses didn't have grass in the back yard; the garden started right where you stepped out the back door.

Watch "Sanford & Son" as an economic tutorial on how to get by buying and selling "junk". Learn to barter before the Repubs commit us all to having to do it. Learn the true price of things; not the sticker price at a mall, but the price something sells for at a flea market or garage sale.

Check out the cheapest way to get to a foreign country with good medical care. Medical care in the US is only for the high-status employed; the lower classes have to do without unless they can make a farmacia run to the other side of the border.

Learn a building trade that neighbors will need. If you can be a handyman plumber, electrician, or carpenter, not only can you keep your house in good working order, you can have some money coming in on the side.

And last of all, don't get too down. You may have been at it for 2 years, but when you've been at it for 7 years, like I have, you learn to enjoy it.

heating bills.

Easier said than done. In fact, that makes the whole thing kind bogus. If I had a house and car 'free and clear', I'm pretty sure I could work the rest of it out myself.

House and car payments are part of the expectations of the rat-race, that people take far too long to rid themselves of when they are pushed out of the rat race. If it means trading in your car for "reliable transportation" and downsizing your living quarters, you need to do it.

When you go from living on salary to living on assets, you have to make some hard choices. You have to bite the bullet and make do with what you already have, not what you can expect to pay off given a lot of rosy assumptions. And what to do if you are under water on both your mortgage and your car payment? Well, then you're fucked. Maybe you should do what your grandparents did and emigrate to someplace with a brighter future.

I feel this is a very good thread. Has the potential to help many, many DUers. I hope DUers will continue to share their experiences and advice.

with a husband out of work. I just started reupholstering my grandmother's furniture that she left to me, and I dig it. I might start doing this- picking up cheap or give-away furniture and refurbishing it. It's kinda awesome. But I'm going to start out very slowly and not make any huge up front investments.

Looking for a small band of dedicated people...

Greyhound

I'm hip. Lay it out. What's your plan?

something to get the attention of the pols to the plight of us unemployed suffering folk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_action

Seems to me that might be what it's going to take.

If it is just you and you do not need all kinds of stuff and possessions (which really come to possess you), then how are you not able to "survive"? Or is a certain standard of living required for what you consider to be survival?

I have just myself to worry about and at age 57 I know about job discrimination. I have a decent place to live and food to eat and I make enough money to pay my bills and I only work a few hours a day. My AGI last year was $6600, but I am actually better off being poor and taking advantage of whatever programs are available to me than I would be if I were making 3 or 4X as much. The irony on top of this is that my credit score is over 700.

All in all I am poor, but content. I possess things but they do not possess me and if I lost them I would just make do with what I had.

and my AGI was almost the exact same as yours - and that was because of unemployment benefits. I guess I'm worried that this will be the case for a long time. What programs are you eligible for at this AGI. I once looked into food stamps but was told by people working the desk to forget it... I had way too much assets.

to pay for all of my food. Here in Wisconsin for health care I am income eligible for our BadgerCare Plus program which is Medicaid for adults without children. I get a physical each year with 10 nonemergency visits as well as prescription drug coverage.

Today I will check into a regional program which got stimulus money to help low income people to weatherize their homes, putting in things like a furnace, new windows, a fridge, or hot water heater. My fridge is over 40 years old and doubtless energy inefficient, but it is still working and I bet none sold today would still be running well after 40 years.

My standard of living requires healthy food and a safe roof over my head. Stuff and p;ossessions are not an issue. Never had the vacations, fancy cars, designer clothes etc. Never bought entertainment (movies, dvd's, ipods, etc). I think I do ok, but to ask how someone is not able to "survive" sounds like a blame the victim mentality.

Some people do believe they cannot survive unless they have a big roof over themselves with a nice house under that roof and having to fill it with nice stuff and to pay for that stuff. In that case they have made themselves the victim and have nobody else to blame.

Cong. Grayson had a thought on this..

I know for a fact I will never make it to retirement age..

One problem I see is that you are becoming invisible. If the recession gets better but people are left behind they will be forgotten.

Maybe some organizer will come along. Yours is an issue that should be on everyones mind.

It isn't glamorous but it will provide a roof over your head and an income. You have to be able to pass a DOT physical and have a halfway decent driving/criminal record. 'Mature' drivers are always welcome as I understand it.

but thanks for the suggestion!

Or managing a QuikTrip. Or selling stocks and bonds with AG Edwards.

Once you've got income, you can plan for something better.

seriously-we may need to rethink our idea of retirement.I will be looking for like-minded people in dire straits to bunk with me.I'd like to find someone who knows how to garden,to pool our resources.It wont be lifestyles of the rich and famous but it will be fun.

Yep. That's the ticket.

Where? The plains where there is the best dirt so we can grow stuff?

An island somewhere?

Maybe a bunch of communes spread around?

What about the governing structure so we can keep the kids off our lawns?

So many questions... so little time....

it's back to the commune for the old hippies! ;)

But employers are throwing people away at 45 now (after 21-27 years in the job market)? I knew they were doing that to people 55+, but didn't know it went down to 45. Jesus. What are people supposed to do with the final 40 years of their lives if they need money?

I worked behind a desk for 20+ years, went to nursing school at night, got my LPN license in March and was lucky enough to find someone to hire me! I've been working full-time since 4/19. The ironic thing is, one of the reasons they decided to take a chance on me was the fact that I was "mature". I'm more likely to be on time, not calling in sick or spending my work time texting, which is what the girl who was training me tonight was doing! I really lucked out and wish everyone else in that same boat could too.

Have you looked into anything in the healthcare field? A friend of mine who got laid off 2 months ago is going to go for ultrasound/EKG technician. He's been in computers for 25+ years and has had enough, especially with all the outsourcing in that field. You could also see if your local hospitals or nursing homes are hiring unit secretaries. No medical training is necessary and you'd be booking patients for tests, keeping track of the schedules, ordering supplies, answering the phones, etc. I think healthcare is the one field in which "maturity" works to our advantage!

Best of luck to you in whatever you decide to pursue!

I was old enough for early retirement and Social Security, but she still has 6 years to go. She just found a job. I think the health care field advice is good.

I was a newspaper reporter most of my working life. Five of the six papers I worked for have gone under. In 2000 I became a tech marketing writer for a small pr firm. They haven't had work for me in over 19 months. I can't even find decent freelance work any more because there are so many recently unemployed journalists competing for a diminishing amount of work.

Fortunately my husband has a job, so we can keep a roof over our heads and eat. But his employers (who know they can get away with anything because there are so many people desperate for jobs) force him and his co-workers to put in extraordinary amounts of unpaid overtime and jump through hoops just to keep their jobs. I'm worried that the stress is going to kill him. He's worked 5 of the last 7 weekends, and works late most nights.

There's no money for me to train for anything else. Our younger daughter is going to community college and we can barely manage her tuition - mainly by running up the credit card. My husband earns too much for her - or me - to get financial aid. We are also paying over $500 a month for the other daughter's student loans. She's working as a nanny and barely gets by.

Both our daughters are worried that they will never find decent jobs and never afford houses. Our younger one is working on her associates degree in elementary math education, but doesn't know if it's worth going on for her bachelor's because of the huge number of teacher layoffs expected around the country.

If the Obama administration and Congress don't get working on a serious and substantial jobs and job training program for Americans, I don't know what's going to happen to unemployed and underemployed Americans.

My dream is to find a part time filing clerk job before I reach retirement age.

(On edit this may be one of those scam (pay for our certificate) training things but I'm not sure)


Job ID 4be1d08931ed2
Company Name Court Career
Job Category Clerical/Administrative; Legal
Location Pharr, TX • Rockville, MD
Position Type Full-Time, Employee
Experience 0-1 Years Experience
Date Posted May 9, 2010


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http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/job-JRJK3NJMKFL;_ylt=AscP0uIB5FhRXPGipkvoGw36Q6IX?source=SRP&core=%7B%22offset%22%3A%22120%22%2C%22detailed%22%3Afalse%2C%22sort%22%3A%7B%22type%22%3A%22relevancy%22%2C%22reverse%22%3Afalse%7D%7D

Unfortunately I am not an experienced mail clerk, which is what they are looking for.


I just joined the I Need A Freaking Job group on Facebook.

Here's a news story on them: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/13/earlyshow/main6479377.shtml

Its 3.7% in South Korea.

Since our citizens began purchasing imported cars thats where most of the good paying jobs are at now.

Sad but true.

Don

China, Japan and Mexico (although Mexico is technically not overseas).

Made enough money that I came home and bought a house and car for cash.

I know a guy in insurance that was making 400,000 US$ a year. Not only that, but income from overseas up to something like 100 K is NOT TAXED by the US gov't.

:-)

I've been self-employed virtually my entire life. One day, while looking for freelance design work on Craigslist, I found a gig at a political advertising agency -- Democrats only. I worked freelance for a couple months, then got hired full time. I'm currently the oldest employee at a company full of 20/30-somethings. Don't act old, don't be an old fart. Keep up with current technology, current pop culture (even if you detest it and want everyone to listen to your old Nazareth albums). And be prepared to take a cut in pay if you have to, because kids out of college these days are willing to take a lot less just to get a job. You need to be, too. Be the "elder statesman," although this sounds like a contradiction of the other advice I offered...make your years of experience a plus to your potential employer, but don't act as if you're looking down on them because you know more. Most of all...don't give up. Never give up. Good luck, my friend!

I'm turning 53 on the 12th, you have any advice for me?

It didn't take long on unemployment to develop a fatalistic attitude, especially with a long-term chronic health problem. High tech sucks right now, but there are still the rare openings.

as a bit unique that will work. If you have done your Malcomb Gladwell 10,000 hours to develop an expertise in an area it will not be that difficult to differentiate yourself. When I went to show mine I used the temporary and contract hiring agencies in San Francisco to develop relationships and eventually people gave me numerous chances there. If you can do contracting it is not as critical what your age is, and 45 is not that old. People don't get creeky these days until well after 50 if their diet and health are good.

Give yourself credit even though it has been difficult through this time. I lost my best friend at 27 at the very bottom of the recession over a year ago. (He had a rare genetic disease and needed care but was canceled by his insurance company as having a "pre-existing" condition that they were not legally obligated to treat.) Even though it seems late, you have made it through the very worst part of the recession. We all know that it has been severe and many jobs were lost that need to be made up now. It's been shown that companies are more willing to hire now that times are improving. One of the first sectors that shows improvement is temporary work which has the possibility of turning into permanent hires. If you follow these ideas it may help you. Good luck. We know you can do it.

that HR departments think are cool already. At this point I almost have to figure that even when I land on my feet that the carpet will be pulled pretty quick. I've been through sooo damn many shutdowns, layoffs, and pay cuts now that HR's probably see my resume and figure that I'm cursed.

I figure its probably back to school for nursing or something similar which sucks because its not been long at all since I busted my guts to pay off the 1st loan and will spend much of the remainder of my working life paying off another loan.

The constant restarting of occupations and jobs is a horrible grind. Constantly losing what you build is exhausting and burning up the little savings to live or pay COBRA is truly disgusting.

3 hots and a cot.

Repeat your elevator speech - let us know in (a virtual) 30 seconds what you do and who you are. Pretend I (or anyone else here on DU) is a potential employer who you have captive in an elevator for 30 seconds time.

L-

don't want too much personal information about me out there ... never know who's monitoring...

That would be a tremendous help to me. I've tried qualifying before, but the people said I had too many assets.

The salary may be low, but most districts will pay health insurance premiums for single employees.

accurately shows what those of us approaching middle age face...

hopelessness

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/business/economy/13obsolete.html?src=mv

Before I retired, I worked several jobs through agencies. If they think you can do the work, companies are more willing to take a chance on hiring you if they don't have to hire you as a "permanent" employee. If they don't have to pay you benefits, that works even better on behalf of your getting hired.

Another benefit of working temp is that the hiring company doesn't expect you to be a "perfect" fit for the job description. This gives you an opportunity to learn new skills as you "come up to speed" in whatever tasks that you are assigned.

You want to pick the agencies that you sign up with carefully. Some agencies have a bad reputation with employers. The agency acts essentially as your sales agent, which is helpful to you if they are honest with you and their employer clients. One approach is to call potential employers and ask them which agencies they prefer to use.

The first thing to do is to create a functional resume based on your previous work experience. It should include projects that you worked on and issues that you addressed (business speak for problems that you solved) to convey your skill set. Look at some books on writing a functional resume in the library. Look at a few books to get examples. Some resume books are good, some are not. Then approach agencies that you researched, and sign up with a few, preferably ones that don't deal with the exact same companies. (Ask them who they deal with.)

If an agency places you in a job that becomes onerous, don't hesitate to request that they find you another position or, if they refuse that request, then sign up with a different agency. Some agencies will try to keep you in a position that is hard to fill (because it is undesirable), but don't let that keep you from looking elsewhere. These are not permanent positions. Moreover, many agencies will ask you to sign an employment contract, usually containing a clause in which you agree not to work for the company that they place you in for a year after they place you. This is to prevent the hiring company from "stealing" you away. This is not unreasonable, but read this contract carefully, and only sign such a contract AFTER you have been placed, and make sure it applies ONLY to that specific company that hires you.

Good luck!