Financial golden rule: “A 40-hour-a-week job is essential for long-term security.”
Status: Busted!
When the 2007 recession hit I was newly divorced and back in college. It had been five years since I’d held a regular full-time job. My previous profession (print journalism) was dying and I figured that a college degree would help me get into some other field. Which field, I couldn’t have said; I just wanted a full-time job, which I’d always been told was the ultimate security.
Yet as the recession ground on I met and read about a lot of qualified, intelligent folks who’d been laid off. Unemployment stretched past 99 weeks and people sold belongings on Craigslist, walked away from their mortgages, trained for new careers with no assurance they’d find employment in those fields either.