Salon: How I Lost my Working Class Life

[haele]

11. This was from 2010. She had four adopted children and a good paying job in Colorado in 2008.

I guess adopting children could be her first possible bad choice since she was single. Don't have kids if you can't afford them, after all - that's the classic conservative mantra.
But frankly, if we were all to follow that mantra religiously, no one but those making $250K or more a year would be able to justifiably "have children"... and even then, it would be sketchy because a bad divorce, health problems, or natural disaster or market crash can really screw you up unless you have over a couple million in accessible, liquid cash.
If you're making good money (environmental permitting is skilled professional work - easily gets one close to or over six figures) 5 bedrooms isn't a stretch to think about purchasing on a down-payment if you have four adopted kids - especially if you have one with health problems. You can even double up a few of the kids and make one of the five a spare guest bedroom or a home office. In 2005/2006 few people thought there would be a crash as bad as there was.

Second possible bad choice - leaving that established good paying Colorado job in 2008 for new job in California and moving your family there before you can sell your Colorado house because one of the kids has a heart problem that the higher altitudes in Colorado is making worse.

Third - and most critical - possible bad choice - "renting" that nice Colorado house out to a flaky friend rather than get a reputable management company that will ensure you get enough rent to continue to pay your mortgage on - or even eventually help find a buyer that would purchase it as an income property for the remainder of your mortgage even if it did "need fixing". (From experience - NEVER rent or sublet your property to a friend or someone you know who has fallen on "bad times" if you need the money.)

Fourth possible bad choice - Taking that California job without a lot of research into how stable that company might be, or widening out her options. Took her three months to get her severance pay, and by then, she was rock bottom.

I only hope she was able to get that good-paying job she was interviewing for in the article, that her kids are okay, and that she's been able to rebuild some semblance of normalcy. But employment for California in 2010 (even in the environmental sector) was pretty tough in a lot of places - and companies never like hiring those who were unemployed for more than a year or have been taking "make do" work if they were originally professional.

Haele