I’m guessing it was a rear projection TV, maybe a DLP

You must have me confused with someone else?

Nowhere in this thread did I suggest people find cheaper housing by leaving cities.

How do I plan for job instability? By interviewing at many places continuously. By keeping my job skills and interviewing skills sharp, while interviewing continuously. By keeping my eye on the market and my value, by interviewing continuously, and evaluating the incoming offers.

It’s not easy, but it’s pretty straightforward. I picked a job sector with lots of opportunities and upward mobility, but also tons of instability. I picked a place to live which gives me physical proximity to those opportunities. I work smart and stay agile. All of that without a college degree.

Stuff is expensive and we don’t always have everything we want, but we’re secure enough to have everything we need, with a healthy risk management plan.

I do live in a major city in the US, so I have more local opportunities than someone in a small town. But I’d argue that my decision to live near where there are job opportunities was part of my planning process.

I mean, yeah, I plan for that. If you’re a wage earner like me, you should know you’re employed at the will of some company, and they don’t give a shit about you.

I plan for this by interviewing for other jobs at least once a month. I turn down offers every few months. I keep my skills sharp and my eyes open, and change employment when it makes sense.

The longest I’ve been at one company is 7 years, but it’s not unusual for me to change companies after 18-24 months.

I don’t plan to get laid off, but it happens a lot in my industry, and I roll with it. It is planned out, risk management, or whatever you want to call it.

So the economy made it so people who were planning ahead suddenly woke up one day with an unplanned 2 year old?

Sure, money and housing are tougher than they used to be, but don’t pretend like an embarrassing number of people just don’t care to plan ahead, and when they get into deep shit they look to blame everyone else.

Huh, it’s like planning ahead isn’t even a thing.

Once the kid situation hits then yeah, it’s harder to make planning decisions, people’s options are limited at that point. I agree we should help people in those circumstances, but I also think we should help people make plans which avoid painting themselves into a corner.