Down & Out In Silicon Valley - Like striking it rich, being 'almost homeless' can happen to anyone

sfgate.com/San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Sunday, October 13, 2002 | Stephanie Salter, Insight Staff Writer

[American Preservative]

Many middle-class people joke about being "one paycheck away from the street." This is the story of a couple who've slammed hard into that reality.

Over the past 18 months, they've gone from his six-figure salary and life in a tony townhouse apartment complex in Silicon Valley to collecting aluminum cans and sleeping in a 28-foot-long recreational vehicle in a parking lot behind the husband's old office building. Once distracted by VCRs and mega- cable, they now watch local television on an old black-and-white set, stand in line at a public food bank for groceries and do their laundry with a garden hose.

[clamper1797]

Ever been to JJ's or Froggys in Soquel ???

[scripter]

I don't remember that Gulf station as I grew up in Santa Cruz (1959-1995), but do remember a Gulf on Soquel Drive across from Harbor High.

[clamper1797]

I don't know if you have seen my profile ... but I was the head (Grand Poobah) of the Santa Cruz Clampers in 2000

[scripter]

Ever been to JJ's or Froggys in Soquel ???

Uh oh. You might know me. :-) Been there but it wasn't my hang out. My brother is a bartender at Froggys. Don't forget scripter is the only name I want to be know as here!

[scripter]

taxes

I read your post but that's what stuck out the most. :-)

[clamper1797]

Greg's a good guy ... owner of Froggys. Do you know Jamie or Rita ???

[scripter]

I don't know the address...

[clamper1797]

I don't either ... you know Zantini ??? Oh and if you know any of the Clampers in Santa Cruz ... you probably know me

[scripter]

Greg is a good guy. My dad and brother (of course) know him well. Greg took us for a ride in his boat this summer at Tulloch.
Really gotta go. Later.

[clamper1797]

Greg's a clamper too by the way and good friends of Zantini

[CIB-173RDABN]

I read many arrogant posters on this thread who think those hitech workers that have lost everything deserve their fate.

This is the story of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant works all summer, putting away for the winter. The grasshopper lives for the day, not planning for the future. It is your view the grasshopper is a nobel character, and the ant is arrogant for pointing out why the grasshopper finds itself in its current condition?

Let me suggest to them that what goes around comes around.

Always a possibility, but not likely.

Perhaps your day will come.

See above.

Think about this: your company goes bankrupt, this means no pay, no COBRA, no reference. Your industry imports foreign workers and ships work overseas. You search for jobs with no response, your six figure household income becomes $1900 of unemployment and the wife's $1000 dollar a month income while your expenses remain at nearly $6,000 a month.

Company goes bankrupt - been there, done that, have the T-shirt.

No COMBRA - been there...

No reference - been there...

Foreign workers - I had the job of training a foreign worker who may have gotten my job -

Search for Job - Short search since I was willing to do almost anything

Your six figure household income - I wish.

$1900 unemployment check - this is higher then my current take home - (I say take home because I have a bunch going to 401, stock and savings, so yes if I was unemployed I could easily survive on $1900 a month.

$6000 monthly expensives - I have made it a point so my montly expensives are as low as possible.

Soon the house is foreclosed, the $45,000 car is reposessed and unemployment benefits are exhausted. The family self esteem is gone and the tension is horrible.

Soon the house is foreclosed...if your financial house is in order, your residents will be secure.

$45,000 car...there are many models of much more economical cars on the market.

I agree, once you are in trouble, family self esteem does suffer.

---

None of this is arrogant or unsympathic. We are discussing a newspaper article, we are not directing our comment to an individual. We are talking about the decisions made that got them into this condition. These are all legitmate topics.

Yes, I am sorry people lose their jobs.

Yes, I am sorry the country is experiencing an economic down turn.

But, that does not relieve individuals from their responsibiliy to provide for themself.

[potlatch]

Taxes--Always get us - don't they!? LOL

[glory]

I'm sorry, but a very good friend is just a larky pretty much in finance and she predicted this coming and warned me(no, I didn't listen either). She was not pessimistic or a tinfoiler, she put her nose to the grindstone and researched. Nobody, including brokers, living high on the hog too, wanted to admit it was coming. It was nothing but pure greed coupled with a deliberate ignorance of what is going on around you that would lead people to this point. At some point, you throw the chips in.
BTW, you are not being honest about burger king. I was a broker for a long time, I noted that on my applications when I applied for a part time position(just play money for me) at retail stores. I was hired by 3 different retailers, all of which I applied for on my first shop. You are not overqualified for positions like this, they could care less what you did before, however if you come in with an attitude like some of the work(and your coworkers) is beneath you, they probably won't be interested in the maintenence of your ego, but you flatter yourself that it's because your older and overqualified(oh, gotcha on the older thing, my mother is 52 and has been successful in finding retail positions as well).

[clamper1797]

Last post too ... The Clampers are plaquing Froggy's next year. I ran into Greg and Zantini at the yacht club here in Disco about a month ago.

[irv]

Hate to break it to you, but in most big cities during the boom, $2300 would barely get you a one bedroom in a decent neighborhood

Hate to break it to you, but all that means is that living in the big city is extravagent. And for the unemployed it's just stupid.

[clamper1797]

oh, gotcha on the older thing, my mother is 52

Then I would say you pretty much don't know what your talking about

[glory]

I'm sorry, but I am still not getting this. My husband had been laid off to(in another industry) and we packed up(while we had the money) and moved. He got a job here that is a lot harder, we face the prospect of a decreasing salary because of the nature of the business, yet that move allowed us to very slowly go through our savings, much slower than staying in our previous area without a job would have done to us. Not to mention we sold our home while the housing market was still moving.
I'm sorry but people make very poor decisions because of an attachment to an area. Frankly, I'd rather live in a place I'm not so fond of in a home, able to put food on the table, in a nice middle class lifestyle, than living out of a trailer in an affluent area. With all due respect, by doing the same things over and over again and not really making any positive changes, you all seem to be banging your head on a wall over and over again. Moving is a big change, but you do what you have to do in lean times. You can always move back when the jobs get hot again. As someone else stated, so many is SV could have taken off when they were laid off or not long before and moved to fly over country, taking a fairly menial job for insurance and lived comfortably in another area on interest from their savings(more ways to earn money on that than a bank's 2%--again that shows a lack of financial sense--we've made about 10% on our portfolio this year with some good financial stategies in this type of market--it beats the bank and has been helpful to get us over the hump) or at least spent the savings at a much slower pace, maybe even long enough to get over the hump and still have some savings. I don't understand why folks let the water fill in the tub until they are drowning. And I'm not saying I'm perfect, we still have a good amount of debt to take care of, but we are surviving and still have a substantial savings in comparison to what a lot folks save over a lifetime of working) I think, God willing, we will make it over the hump, but it took a LOT of change to do it.

[glory]

AGREED! Good post from a family who did just that(sold the home and moved cross country!)

[HiTech RedNeck]

'Let me suggest to them that what goes around comes around.'

Always a possibility, but not likely.

Let me remind you: pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

[Indrid Cold]

Yeah, no kidding--here in SW Minnesota, one can buy a 3-bedroom house for $10,000. If their business is all conducted over the phone anyway, who cares where they live?