Tips for Dealing with Three Major Financial Crises

Tips for Dealing with Three Major Financial Crises

Overwhelmingly one quarter of the Nations homeowners are upside-down on their homes and according to the United States Department of Labor bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm 9/8/2010 report, 14.8 million people are unemployed. According to top economist Arthur Laffer the US economy is heading for a big fall early in 2011, which could create a further decline in millions of Americans retirement accounts. Kate Ashford meets with three families who faced tough financial times and discussed how they managed to come out on the other side. She shares their stories with you, please read to find if what they did can help you or help you manage your tough times a litter easier

“I was unemployed for months—without much in savings.”
Marcia Delgadillo, 48, had been the sole wage earner when she was laid off from her marketing job in January 2009. Her husband, Holvis, was in grad school full-time; if he’d dropped out to look for a job, it would have sent him back to square one. “In his program, he couldn’t just pick up where he left off,” says Marcia. With two kids, ages 12 and 14, times were lean. So the Delgadillos, who live in Richmond, California, cut expenses and tapped an existing home equity line of credit (HELOC) to bridge the gap. “We maxed it out,” says Marcia. After five months of scraping by, she was offered a job—at 30 percent less than she’d made before. Marcia accepted the pay cut. “I got this job just in time,” she says. “Things are back on track now.

About 45 percent of unemployed Americans have been out of work for 27 weeks or more—what the U.S. Department of Labor considers “long-term unemployed.” If you’re one of them, follow this advice. (more)