i took a relocation package that i would have probably not taken otherwise.

i'm also working on developing my resume/portfolio and finding some smaller freelance type jobs on the side to help pad my emergency fund.

edit: i suppose i should include some 'good' things i've done --

i made some very smart investment choices and haven't lost much in the stock market.

6 months ago i downsized everything, moved back in with my parents on a temporary basis, and started saving up a lot more money to try and brace for impact.

consequently, i'm about to buy a very nice place in a very cool area for a very low price.

We developed a business specifically to take advantage of the fact that we're in a depression. It's not that hard to do when you think about it for a while, and re-adjust your 'thinking cap'. Unfortunately it seems that many people don't have this ability. Maybe they are so used to thinking about how to make money in a growing economy that it is totally foreign to them to think about how to do it in a depression. Our model may not last for more than a few years but it has the potential to generate so much income in those few short years that it's crazy not to do it.

Our concept uses the internet as a marketing tool but it is in no way an exclusive internet business model, nor it is yet another lame non-business hobby like most of the 'social networking' site a lot of naive and inexperienced kids are putting online these days.

I'm 52 years old and have decades of experience with a variety of different startups, internet and non-internet, and all of them my own concepts and ideas. My partners in this new venture are equally experienced in the 'real world' as well as in the virtual world. This kind of experience is invaluable, and it is also something that appears to be sorely lacking in the internet startup world today, at least in terms of the ridiculous new startups I hear about in this forum.

Our new business solves a real world problem, it's not out there trying to sponge off facebook or twitter or any of the other throw-away efforts of the "Web 2.0 generation" by re-factoring info others provide. I cannot imagine the whining we're going to hear from all the 'me too' kids out there who have no better ideas than to latch onto the shirttails of companies that have no revenue model and are therefore destined for oblivion in the next few years!

If you're thinking of a startup here's my advice: Instead of trying to find and solve problems in people's virtual lives, just pay attention to the problems they are having in the REAL WORLD -- in their actual day-to-day lives aside from the internet -- and you may come up with a genuine business model that will make you a millionaire or better.

And if you want to keep your current job or get a better one, start now by re-dedicating yourself to performing faster, smarter and better on the job you already have. Then maybe your current employer will have a reason to keep you around after he lays off everyone else. And your next employer will see something unique and valuable in you compared with all the clowns who make almost no effort to improve their on-the-job performance, and instead do as little as possible for the money their employers are willing to pay them.

Set yourself apart from everyone else, not only on the job but in your off-work time as well. Show yourself and the rest of the world that you're willing to try harder, improve more, and become truly valuable to this world. Don't be a leech or a sponge because they suck the lives out of others. Instead become energizing, overflowing and powerful.

Do everything the best you possibly can, or don't do it at all, that's the bottom line.