Dealing with unemployment - anyone else?

[IvonaDestroi]

Good grief, you asked for advice. Sometimes advice might not be to your liking.

Many women here made a genuine effort and wrote you very well-thought out posts with lots of excellent advice. Many have been in similar situations and they shared their experiences, and the hard choices they had to make, with you.

Some of that advice had to do with considering relying on parents, if at possible, ever so briefly.

Also, you never made it clear in your OP that you had any intention of paying off those bills. That's the impression I took from your OP, anyhow.

You're right, most of us don't know you, so the advice here was somewhat generic, based on the information you had provided.

Whether you take any of the advice given to you here, or don't, is entirely up to you.

you're right, and i have gotten some good very advice out of it... however the viciousness is really not helpful to any of us! There's no need to be rude!

Thank you to those of you who spent so much time typing up good advice and inspiring stories (without batting me down like a mosquito), it's so very appreciated. I've actually thought about quite a few of those things a lot lately, and it really does help!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

you're right, and i have gotten some good very advice out of it... however the viciousness is really not helpful to any of us! There's no need to be rude!

No one has been vicious or rude as far as I can see.
We've been assertive and frank about clarifying in no uncertain terms exactly what we are and who we aren't and how we got here, in an attempt to show you how we dealt with similar hardships in our own lives. Exasperation, assertiveness, maybe, but I have not seen rudeness or viciousness. Everyone has remained civil when making their points, you included.

[VeloVT]

Hmmm... somebody mentioned Americorps... Americorps doesn't pay very well (from what I've seen, a stipend that is hardly livable, if livable at all -- however, they do provide an education grant at the end, that you could certainly apply to further education and maybe (I don't know, you'd have to check it out) apply to education loans. Anyway, something to think about. I'd love to do Americorps actually, I think it's a great program -- the pay seems a bit of an issue to me, but I think it varies from place to place, and in some areas it might be better. I think it would be incredibly rewarding and interesting.

[PamNY]

Bluetree, what a great story you have to tell. To my mind, that's exactly the kind of information that would be useful to a young person (or any person!).

Pam