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Ditching Your Home
It sounds so tempting: Throwing in the towel and saying goodbye to those overwhelming monthly mortgage payments and your underwater home. Starting anew with a home that’s more modestly priced (and valued) and a mortgage you can actually afford. It can seem like a pipe dream.
It isn’t, and it’s not entirely unreasonable to walk away from your home and mortgage. Enough people have weighed in on why it may make sense for you, and even urging you to take this option.
You Walk Away is one of them. The company’s daily blog is a lively and supportive read aimed at helping you become more comfortable with the idea. As long ago as December 2007, when the recession officially kicked off, You Walk Away was beating the drum for people to ditch their homes and default on their mortgages. The cheerful blog walks you through why it’s okay to walk away from your mortgage: “The lender did not loan you the money without intent to profit. The lender DID risk their money in order to make a profit. They created the terms. They should live with the terms they created.” YWA warns about the possible consequences of walking away: damaged credit for years; the anguish of having your home foreclosed upon; the judgment of others; wage garnishment…
The Grand Prize? Free Rent
What’s one way to grab the attention of consumers in an overly-crowded market of coupons, deals, and special discounts? Offer up a free place to live.
Shopping sprees and around-the-world trips have apparently become passé when it comes to company-sponsored contests, since an increasing number of businesses are dangling free rent as the grand prize in seemingly-unrelated marketing efforts meant to attract new customers and draw attention to their products.
From discount clothing chains to beverage companies, there doesn’t need to be any connection to the housing market for free—or discounted—rent to be offered as a prize. Need proof, or just a place to stay? We’ve gathered up a handful of contests to prove our point…
Love in the Time of Layoff: The Changing Hearts & Minds of Men
This morning my husband Marco got up early to buy me eggs before my morning sickness kicked in. Before he got laid off, such an errand would have caused him strife. When he had to show up somewhere on time, anything that deviated from the norm of morning routine could throw him off. But this morning was different. This morning, Marco had a reverie buying me eggs.
“I got to the store on the corner before it opened,” he came back and explained, his voice all quiet and calm. “So I walked around for a while in the hazy rain. And when I came back and picked up the eggs, I thought of where they came from. I thought of the farm.”
“The farm?” I asked, plucking two eggs from their carton in a rush to cook them and get them in me quickly before I threw up. We live in busy Manhattan. Even the closest farmer’s market is a few subway stops away.
“Yeah, the farm. I felt part of that cycle of farm life where you get up before dawn because you have to get some things done before everyone else wakes up. I felt part of some kind of more natural work life cycle. I felt part of that somehow just looking at these eggs.”…
From Dual Income to No Income
When couples get hitched they agree, often in front of large audiences, to support each other through the thick and thin. It’s well understood that there will be times when one of the partners in the union will need a bit of propping up. But what happens when both partners need a boost? As the nation continues to wade through waves of unemployment, many households are going from two regular paychecks to no paychecks at all, reports Joann Lublin in The Wall Street Journal.
Talk about putting a strain on a marriage. In April, the national unemployment rate continued its climb to 8.9 percent as the number of jobless Americans went from 563,000 to 13.7 million according to the National Bureau of Labor Statistics. …
Domestic Violence and Money
This isn’t the happiest of news, nor all that new, but we thought it important to participate in the coverage of a report by cosmetics maker Mary Kay that shows an uptick in domestic violence related to financial woes.
From the study, in which 600 shelters were polled:
- Seventy-three percent of shelter representatives attribute the rise in abuse to “financial issues.”
- “Stress” and “job loss” (61 percent and 49 percent, respectively) also proved to be leading contributing factors in the reported increase in domestic violence cases involving women…
Recession Briefing 4.23
What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.
New jobless claims rose last week to 640,000. The number of people staying on jobless benefit rose by 93,000 to 6.14 million, the 12th straight week the figure has set a record. (Bloomberg)
Americans are riding out the recession by staying put. The Census bureau says the number of people who changed residences declined to 35.2 million from March 2007 to March 2008, the lowest number since 1962. (New York Times)
General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt said the global economic crisis has “fundamentally reset” the way companies do business and capitalism itself. (Associated Press)
Some homeowners are taking in roommates to take in some extra monthly cash as the recession deepens. (Chicago Tribune)
If you come across a good article or blog post about the recession pass it on.
Love in the Time of Layoff: Coming Home Again
On Tuesday, my husband found out that his freelance work with the firm that picked him up three days after the Layoff is now drying up. Yesterday was his first day “back” at home.
“So, does this make you, like, laid off times two?” I asked in a lame appeal to mask my panic with humor.
“Nah, it’s much better,” he said. I asked him to explain.
Turns out, there are Layoffs and there are layoffs. Technically, of course, this latest downsizing of my beloved doesn’t count as a layoff at all, since Marco hadn’t been on staff at that firm. When his supervisor told him there was no more work for him right now, there was no sense of betrayal, no dark questioning (why me? why not him or her?), nothing personal. Other freelancers had been slowly disappearing. He knew things had been winding down.
Best Twitter Feeds for the Recession
Still getting used to the verb “tweet?” It seems like practically everyone is Twittering.
If you haven’t set up a Twitter account yet, here’s a good reason to do so: people are putting great information out there that can help you get through the recession. Everything from finding a job to shopping deals and the latest recession news. We combed the Twittersphere to find useful, unique and consistent feeds…
Love in the Time of Layoff: Her Expendable Career
Those who read this column know that I’ve been writing very personally about how the downturn has affected my relationship. In all honesty, I’m starting to fear that by focusing on what’s happening inside relationships, we may be losing sight of larger contexts—what could and should be happening in the structures that govern our lives.
Whoever invented the notion that a wife who earns less than her husband has a career that is, by definition, “expendable”? The ubiquity of this sentence—“she has an expendable career”—was brought home to me once again when I read Diane Clehane’s “Recession Marriage Wars” in yesterday’s Daily Beast…
Love in the Time of Layoff: Of Uncertain Times
Last week marked the two-month anniversary since my dear husband got the axe. A lot can happen in two months’ time. We canceled a family pilgrimage to Puerto Rico and put the apartment up for sale. Marco quit the gym. Our cat died. We both have gained some weight, but other than that, we’re actually doing okay. Fat but happy, I like to say, with a roof over our heads (for now). We’ve got our love to keep us warm.
The other day, Marco came home from a day of freelancing feeling blue. I tried the usual—kissing it away—but no go. “You don’t like it when I’m moody,” he said. “I’m going to be moody sometimes.”
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