The r-word has been dominating headlines, flooding social media, and messing with our peace of mind. As if we didn’t already have enough to worry about. And yet, plenty of people still aren’t sure what a recession actually looks like when it hits.

That’s likely why one Redditor turned to Elder Millennials, the generation who lived through the 2008 crash, and asked them to share their memories. What were the warning signs? How did it affect their daily lives? And what did it take to keep going when everything around them seemed to be falling apart?

Here’s what they had to say.

#1

Was just graduating college. The worst part was leaving college knowing the job market was completely f****d and my degree wasn't going to help me at all. I spent years overeducated and underemployed while my student loan interest racked up. I literally could only find jobs working retail and eventually a laboratory technician job that barely paid more than the retail jobs. I didn't get a good paying job until around 2016. By the time I was able to get ahead of my student loans, I owed about 20% more than I originally took out. It was a mess and I'm still digging myself out of it.

Image credits: Optimoprimo

#2

Imagine this: people were vying for minimum wage jobs at Walmart. Not just the typical crowd, but professionals needing to supplement their income after it had been cut, too. It was the easiest place to get in, and still turned away 75% of applications.

Image credits: MirthfulManiac

#3

I was working for about four years professionally at the time and still lived at home with retired parents who owned their own so we made it away most unscathed.

However. My brain is permanent set to it doesn’t matter how stable a job is or how anything “positive” might feel around you: I refuse to spend money unless I absolutely have to. My family has a nice nest egg but it’s hard to look further ahead than six months without going “time to plan for absolute worst: what happened if me both and my wife lose our jobs?”.

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#4

Bad. Graduated in 08' and it took me 6 months to get a part time job in the field I graduated in. Had to wait tables in a s****y hotel. Ended up going back to school because opportunities looked bleak.

Do not recommend.

Image credits: Fiddle-farter

#5

It was unbelievably scary. I lost my job in 2008 and didn’t work again until 2011. I had hundreds of interviews. Literally hundreds. I am a product manager. I was recommended for a position as a product manager, but the hiring manager said that I didn’t have experience with stationary, and that was the product, so they wouldn’t hire me. The job went unfilled for a year.

Image credits: Late_Economist_6686

#6

We lost our house that we had lived in for years. Had to move into a s****y duplex with black mold in the walls where we were sick all the time. Also I had trouble getting a job that didn't just pay min wage (7.25 at the time). .

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#7

I remember going in for the first good job opportunity, and the waiting room had 20-30 people and many of them looked mid-career. It's not a good sign when the recent grads and the grey hairs are applying for the same job. To me, today is nothing like that.

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#8

It f*****g sucked. Graduated 09. All of the sudden I was competing for entry level jobs with people in their 30s who had experience and families. I couldn’t compete.

I was one of those who got lost and did lose about 10yrs if finances because of it.

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#9

I couldn't find a job, but people kept harping on me about it. I was broke and everyone was telling me get a job or go to college. Like they were both just easy to do at the time. "Take out a loan to go to college then!" yeah, that worked out really well for my generation.

I remember younger people were competing with older people for jobs at fast food places, and you were lucky to have found a job like that back then. I think there was a story about a guy who delivered pizza with a master's degree or a PhD.

Image credits: Single_Extension1810

#10

I graduated college in December 2007 and it took a while to find a job in 2008. Plus, the pay was terrible and affected how much I was paid for many years. Even though I eventually did get hired we'd have weeks where they would cut down our hours. I ended up moving in with my grandparents and living with them for a few years because even with a job that was the only way I could afford to live especially since I was then paying back my student loans too.

Right now I'm just seeing where the price of goods is continuing to go up so that is putting a strain on folks, but as of right now it doesn't feel the same to me.

Image credits: pursepickles

#11

My husband and I applied for a mortgage in 2008. The bank laughed at us. Actually laughed. We lost most of our retirement fund, which wasn’t a lot, but it was to us at the time. We felt so buried that he joined the military so we could have some sort of future.

Image credits: Vwelyn

#12

I was 21 with an infant. Honestly since we were already poor, we did alright lol. It was very hard to find a job, my husband at the time got laid off a few times. But we didn't have much so there wasn't much to lose. We grocery shopped at the $1 store often.

It's definitely influenced how I handle my finances now. I'm in a much better financial spot but we live below our means just in case it happens again. I'm sure there were signs but I was too wrapped up in my own world to pay attention to it.

This time is much different because there are so many other ways which we are going to be f****d.

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#13

I saw grown men cry. One man said he was always over qualified or under qualified and fast food wouldn’t give him a shot.

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#14

08 hit incredibly hard. My parents lost EVERYTHING. I was out of college and joined the military. I could not get through to my parents while in basic bc creditors were calling non stop and filling their voicemail.

Image credits: anon

#15

I was a freshman in high school. My parents had to file bankruptcy and we moved into a rental with only my dad's paid-off Jeep Wrangler to transport our family of 6. Needless to say, we didn't go anywhere all together for a while. My dad had this huge jar of spare change he'd collected over the years that we had to count and roll in order to buy groceries. My mom got a job cleaning homes for the elderly. It took years to recover from that time, but my parents busted their a**es and gained back everything they lost and more. Unfortunately, shortly after they got back to a good place, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and passed a year later.

Life has been one kick in the c****h after another and I sincerely pray we don't end up in that position again.

Image credits: BreakfastInfinite116

#16

The 2008 recession had a ton of impact on my life. First, my parents bought a new house and van right before the recession, so when it hit and my dad lost his job, there was a lot of panic in the household. I was in high school and it was very obvious how stressful finances were. I tried getting a PT minimum wage job myself to help but applied to hundreds of McDonalds, Walmarts, sit down restaurants etc and would never even hear back. I remember none of my friends could find work either when we were supposed to be getting our first jobs for spending money.

It ended up making me into an entrepreneur- my mom started her own business selling jewelry, and I would help set up at various festivals/ hospitals/ schools/ malls to sell it. I ended up doing that for free essentially because we needed money- after a couple years when I graduated and when people started spending money again, I took over the business entirely and I haven’t been employed by a regular business since. Now I own my own brick and mortar store (in a different industry though, as COVID killed jewelry sales) with 16 staff and just oversee the larger picture things. Interesting to think how the dominoes all had to fall a certain way to get me here, but I’m happy where I am now.

Image credits: ChanseyChelsea

#17

The 2008 recession was bad, me and my family worked in building houses at the time, the housing market tanked which was brutal, scary, and created a lot of doubt, anger and uncertainty. It was awful, people lost their jobs, houses, but it was for the most part purely economic.

What we are seeing now is WAY worse. I think comparing it to 2008 really undersells what is happening. Right now we do face economic difficulties but we are seeing a hostile takeover of government and the people in charge have no regard for the law.

I actually compare the current events to 9/11 in the sense that the world is a VERY different place than it was even a month ago.

Image credits: RaindropsInMyMind

#18

It was horrible. I was somewhat protected in 2008 because I was a grad student, but my program wasn’t working out for me and I left prematurely in early 2010 with my terminal masters. Even though things were slowly getting “better”, I still couldn’t find a job. I still remember sending hundreds of resumes a week applying to anything…and when I would get an interview (which was rare), I was competing with 20-30 people at the same time. The jobs I was applying for weren’t even high paying or higher positions.

I still remember I went to a GROUP INTERVIEW for a freaking receptionist job at a small dental office. All the applicants were confused as to why we were filling out an application for the job at the same time; we weren’t told it would be a group interview. There was at least 20 of us sitting in that dental office. It was so dehumanizing. I literally walked out of there and cried in my car.

While I’m grateful that my parents let me move back in, my mom was completely unsupportive at the time and thought I wasn’t trying hard enough. My sister who was also living there and is a year younger than me (and had a job, btw! She didn’t have to live in my parents’ house but she chose to) was simply annoyed with my existence even though I had no where to go and had no money. The entire experience has made me not close with my sister (even though we used to be) and weakened my already poor relationship with my mom. Thankfully I was able to find a data entry job after 9 months and moved the F out of my parents’ house once I saved enough money to pay for a security deposit and live with 3 other girls who were my age.

To this day I still have some lingering anxiety about saving money and job security, even though I have had stable employment since 2011.

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#19

I graduated high shool in 2007. We had lived an upper-middle class life (beyond our means and with no savings, it turned out) and my parents could no longer afford to send me to college. I remember us going to the college and my mom begging them to let me start school and they would have the money in a few weeks. The whole time i was there I could only afford a meal a day, lost TONS of weight. I would walk everywhere in the city in my old Chanel flats, from when we used to be "rich", because i couldn't afford the subway. I shoplifted food and clothes and was arrested.

I ended up having to leave college a month in because we couldn't pay- which was mortifying in front of my new friends.

We all moved into a studio apartment, my mom my dad and me. My mom is disabled and my dad lost his job in 2007 and couldn't find one again until maybe three years later. We got food stamps and ate a lot of canned food.

I tried and tried to get an entry level job of any kind but couldn't.

It was traumatizing. Honestly, i'm still traumatized by it.

Image credits: Conscious_Let_7516

#20

I think a lot of the reasons elder millennials stay in a*****e workplace situations is because of our collective experiences with the recession. I graduated college a few years before, had a good job, got married, bought our first house, had no debt (other than the mortgage), and pretty much had done everything by-the-book of what you are supposed to do as a young adult.

2008 hit, my company laid off 60% of the workforce. No one was hiring so everyone I knew was on unemployment. I kept my job, but was suddenly doing the work of the 4 people who were previously on my team for no increase in pay. The office was a ghost town, but all the work the company did apparently still needed to get done. The office downsized constantly and there were new rounds of layoffs every few months. I didn't get a pay raise for 3 years, but there were literally no job openings, so anyone who had a job, held onto it for dear life and tolerated horrible working situations just because we had bills to pay and no one would risk quitting.

We were able to pay our mortgage, but our home was underwater, meaning there was no way we could sell it or refinance. We were stuck in our "starter home" for 10 years before the value of it came back to around the ballpark of our purchase price, and with ongoing maintenance costs, HOA, etc. it was overall a huge loss and forever stunted our financial growth since we couldn't afford to buy bigger homes. The rental market was stagnant since people moved into their parent's homes because they couldn't afford rent. I knew several people who went bankrupt, several people who lost their homes to foreclosure, and the only other people I know who bought homes at the same time as us and did not walk away or foreclose are all still living in their "starter homes" now with no hope of getting enough momentum to jump into a bigger space with the housing market as crazy as it has been. I had friends who didn't buy homes before 2007 and waited until 2013 who were able to get what we would have dreamed as our "forever home" for less than what we paid on our "starter home" it was really hard to watch that. I learned about the 18 year property cycle around then and have been expecting 2026 to be the next time the economy collapses.

We still lived. We spent time with friends, we travelled within our means, we started a family, life went on... but it was stressful and frustrating and we realized all the "adults" who were telling us how we needed to do things to check all the boxes and live the American Dream were very out of touch with reality.

Image credits: dinamet7

#21

I worked as a graphic designer for a national Canadian newspaper chain. I'd been there for a couple of years when the recession hit. Cue the "Oh, sorry, the newspaper industry is in decline, so no raises this year." And wouldn't you know it, I worked there for another 6 years and didn't get a raise once.

Looking back, I can't believe I made it that long. During that time I had two kids and had bought a house, so to say things were tight was an understatement.

I honestly don't recall paying attention to how things were going because I'd literally just moved out on my own two years prior. I hadn't had a real taste of being an adult in the world, so really, the disappointing reality of no raises and being treated like s**t was my norm.

Edited to answer your last question: Things are much, much worse now. Houses and apartments in 2008 were still affordable and it wasn't even a question whether you'd move out of your parent's home. You can't even get a goddamned job as a receptionist without a college diploma and as for a minimum wage gig in a fast food or retail environment? Lol good luck. You're competing with international students and temporary foreign workers because all of the greedy business owners have opted to hire them to get huge subsidies.

This ship is going down, fast.

#22

I turned 18 and alot of people lost their jobs, and alot of people lost pensions so many older people who had only recently been retired flooded the workforce. I worked with this older woman at KFC and her and her husband had both been retired after working at one of the big 3 their entire lives. Then the recession happened and we live in Michigan, the big 3 folded and had to be bailed out, Metro Detroit was heavily built around the car industry. So she had to come out of retirement and get a minimum wage job at f*****g KFC because her retirement just disappeared. We were at work when a tow truck showed up and repossessed her ford escape. The big 3 took their bailouts and then sent most of those manufacturing jobs out of state. Detroit is *still* recovering from the 08 recession. I also don't buy ford, gm or chrysler, they can get f****d.

But most of my daily life remained the same, I didn't really notice any inflation and we were lower middle class so nothing really changed for us.

Although I will say the culture in Michigan changed permanently. When I was a kid there was legitimate brand loyalty to car companies, and it was generational. I know tons of people with Ford, Chevy and Dodge tattooed on their bodies, but after 08 much of that and the cultural relevance they had to the state disappeared. They are still revered but it's more in a historical way, then as a cultural thing.

The city itself which had been doing ok prior was basicly abandoned economically. When I was a kid I remember a bustling city and post 08 the city was f****d, people in the suburbs just didn't go. Crime was really bad and the infrastructure was falling apart. I wanna say around 2012 it seemed to be recovering and now it seems to be doing generally ok.

#23

There are some similar aspects, and some different ones.

Before the gfc: 
The biggest similarity is that housing was super inflated. Another big thing is that geopolitics were a real mess. Gas prices were also extremely high. Also, we were facing a series of tax cuts and laissez-faire policy.

But as for differences, unemployment was not as low as it was now. 

After the gfc:

It’s nothing like this currently. After the gfc, jobs were just hemhorraging and didn’t come back for years. You were lucky to get an unpaid internship. House prices were 2/3 to 1/2 for years on end. The stock market was at multi-year lows, not highs. .

#24

Everyone always uses 2008 as the marker, but it really started in 2007, at least in my experience.

I graduated college in 2007 and spent the whole summer and fall looking for jobs including out of state. Any interviews I got, i ended up getting passed over for a more experienced person. It was like the hunger games for finding work.

I got discouraged and made the decision to just work part-time while getting a teaching certification. Ended up not liking teaching enough to pursue when finished and even then, in 2010, it was very difficult to find teaching jobs here in the northeast unless you were STEM and willing to work in the inner city. I could have gone out of state then, but I was engaged and getting married, and my ex didn't want to move at that point. I spent another 6 months looking for work until I finally found something full-time in a call center at the start of 2011. Ended up getting laid off in 2017, but finding work was much easier at that point.

Anyways, thank you for coming to my TED talk. In summary, it was frustrating being told the world was your oyster with a college degree, and then suddenly it wasn't.

#25

F**k this thread just brought up some s**t in my head I hadn't thought about in a long time. f**k.

edit: I was 20 years old in 2008, having just graduated college with a bachelors in science, and I couldn't even get hired at trader joes. my 20's were defined by this time period, never having much money at all until i was nearly 30 when I finally got lucky.

#26

Things in the economy haven't been right since 9/11. You could tell something was going to pop then. Let me just say it feels way worse now, and the feeling is getting worse, day by day almost. Something not good is coming and I don't know if it's a depression, a coup, a national war, another plague, or a combination or something worse. You can feel it in the bones of the society. A breaking point is coming.

#27

I’m a little older than what you’re asking, but yeah. There were a lot of signs.

People working mediocre-at-best jobs were buying McMansions with a boat and trailer parked in the yard.

People who had never held a steady job were getting approved for houses that were on the market at dramatically inflated prices.

People were buying s****y houses, throwing a fresh coat of paint on them, and selling them for double what they had just paid a few months prior.

I worked with guys who pulled all their money out of the market and let it sit in cash for a year or two. They had all been through the ‘90s bubbles and said it felt just like that.

So yeah. Some people knew.

#28

I turned 18 in early 2009. I distinctly remember applying to be a dishwasher at Denny's, spending about 30 minutes doing a stupid test and other assessments to determine if I was a good match. 30 seconds after I submitted my application I got a rejection email. That was the highlight, most employers didn't even respond with a denial. This was very typical in my area for someone just trying to find a job. There were people with masters degrees competing for positions at McDonald's. At this point almost every entry level position, including dishwasher, became a 5+ year minimum experience job.

To compound the problem, the longer you went without a job, the less likely you'd be hired.

#29

I was in the Air Force at the time, so I was largely shielded from it.

I'm very worried about an upcoming one, as it will financially ruin my wife and I.

#30

I was lucky enough to not feel any impacts. It was an insane time, though.

Most people I worked with (kitchen) were fired. A shift that would normally have 8 of us working had me and one other person, or sometimes just me and a manager. I had been cross-trained on every station in the restaurant so my job was safe- it was much cheaper to pay me overtime for 60hr steady work weeks than it was to employ other people. This went on for about 1.5-2 years before we started hiring again. There were many times when I was taking the orders and then going to make the orders and many times I worked 15-25days straight before a single day off.

During that time, like another commenter mentioned, OVER-over-over-qualified people were *begging* to work (again, I just worked in a small restaurant kitchen). I would get calls from x-ray techs/veterans/company managers/company *owners* - basically people who had more experience working than I had years alive at this point (I was 24-25 during) just repeatedly calling day after day asking for any sort of work. We had to involve the cops on two who didn't believe that we weren't hiring, showed up, and threatened the managers. One guy cussed me out on the phone when I had to tell him for the 50something time that we just weren't hiring. Went on a full blown rant about how I should "be careful" because he had a "bad past" and was a Marine.

The only reason why I was fine was because I had just signed a two year rental agreement like 3 months before the bottom fell out. I didn't have to worry about rent increases and I was already living below my means and then having 20 hours of overtime per week offset any price increases.

I don't remember many specifics about warning signs (really just remember working a lot haha), but ever since then I've always made sure to have my house as prepped/stocked as possible just in case luck doesn't work out the next time around.

#31

I had just gone out on my own as a hairdresser and I quit because it was so slow and stressful trying to make ends meet when not many people were spending money getting their hair done. I got a normal job where I got paid an hourly rate. I ended up staying in that field and going into management (horrible).

What’s going on now feels nothing like the 2008 recession. This is full blown fascism and insanity. At least in 2008 we didn’t have a raving lunatic and his billionaire master in the White House.

#32

I was in college. My dad lost his job at the end of 08, but because they paid him a lump sum severance, his salary for the year looked really high—so to add insult to injury, I lost my need-based financial aid in 09.

It led me to take really heavy course loads that year so I could graduate a semester early and save a bit of money/loans. So similarly to that original commenter you referenced, I do feel like it stole my last semester of college from me. Starting a full time job while my peers were still in school, studying, partying, etc felt isolating and like I had been shoved into adulthood early.

#33

I went from a great grad school to working 4 jobs and not making 31k a year. The grad programs and funding dried up because of the crash, and I didn't want to take on crazy debt because the future was so uncertain then. Living in the same college town, midwest poor town, I eventually worked 4 jobs/70 hours a week for three years and didn't make enough to ever feel comfortable.

The repeal of the cfpb this week is a concern.

#34

I was unemployed for 4 years. I worked odd jobs like cleaning rich people's condos on the beach for cash under the table, tutoring college students, house/petsitting for neighbors... Nobody was hiring. I couldn't get a job at f*****g McDonald's. I even went to one of those temp agencies and told them I'd take anything, and I never got a single call from them to place me. It was so s****y.

I've clawed my way to where I am now, and then ... sigh.

#35

It was bad for me. I lost my job and no one was hiring. For every open position there were 100 applicants. It was really good for some of my friends. They had jobs that were recession proof so they were all able to buy houses dirt cheap and have all made a killing once house prices went through the roof.

#36

Toddler at home, baby on the way, wife's office got merged and cut all employees, she accepted a job on Wednesday, Friday that week I got "let go". With a sub prime mortgage that was about to go variable rate.

14 months of 1 income, unemployment, and destroying my credit, before I got offered a contract, no benefits, position with a temp agency. In the field, I have my "going to open so many doors" degree.

We scraped by, but it was rough. Thankfully the kids and wife qualified for W.I.C. & Medicaid.

#37

A bunch of my friends got laid off at my old company. I kept my job but was reassigned to a new manager.

I didn’t like that manager but I stuck it out for a couple years and eventually got a new job in 2011.

#38

Folks were losing their jobs, at time I was working for a factory that was laying off. I chose then, at nearly 19 years old, it was time to go to college. I was called crazy and insane by my employer when I gave a month’s notice. Moved a few states away and earned a degree. I was able to get simple jobs throughout college without issue but the cost of living was tough. Without having a college meal plan/housing there’s no way I could have pulled it off.

Now? In my mid-30s I feel like we’ve been on that edge for years now. Costs continuously rising, increasing layoffs (more so in industry/factory work. Similar to how it looked in 08’), homeownership increasingly unobtainable. We also have a different perspective now as older adults versus young ones back then. Like then, we will try to weather the storm yet again like many of our past elders had to.

#39

Was poor. Didn't feel it at all.

It was nothing like what's happening today. I can't imagine being poor right now.

#40

Yes- there were huge signs. The creation of the CFPB - yes the exact one Elon is trying to delete- came from the 2008 recession and the a*****e tactics loan officers were using to get loans to sub prime lenders. The dismantling of consumer protections is just the first step now so pay attention. I workin in banking. I bought a house in 2005- when I never should have qualified- and they used tactics that put the company out of business and my house got foreclosed on. The company was charter funding. The same executives work for other lenders now.

#41

I had my first son at 19 in 2007. I spent the recession being a single young mom and it was HARD. Took me a really long time to get established. But we made it!

#42

I remember my history teacher trying to explain why we probably wouldn’t be personally affected by Washington mutual failing. It was a topic of discussion for at least two weeks.

Towards the end of the recession, I can remember my mom losing her job as well. She was a single mother so I am sure she was insanely stressed out. I don’t remember much else, other than her being home a lot more, but she started a new job a couple weeks later (she’s a nurse. But was working for an insurance company before being laid off). Honestly I don’t think we were too heavily scathed by the whole experience.

We live near a lot of wealthy neighborhoods (unfortunately that blessing missed us lol) and I remember driving by during those years and seeing a toooonnnnn of for sale and foreclosure signs. It seemed like every week there was a new one.

#43

Graduated college in 09.....let's just say jobs were scarce and for those who originally had savings, it had dried up by then. The mood was strait up bleak. People mainly just wanted a descent job and stability so they could pay for essentials.

Applied to 400 jobs before I got one and honestly it was mostly due to a family connection.

My feeling is the US is hurtling towards this again pretty quickly with education, medicines, and consumer protection getting kicked to the curb.

#44

My folks left the keys to the house on the counter and walked out. All my childhood stuff except for a few boxes of photos and a yearbook—gone. I was a junior sailor in the navy so I had steady job, steady income, good health insurance, a place to stay (barracks) and no stress except self inflicted financial stupidity (running up a credit card). But yeah, the anxiety and feelings around the economy are the same. Worry that we can’t afford basic groceries etc. All those are definitely the same from 2008 and now.

#45

All I could get were two on-call retail jobs that only called me in for 1 or 2 three hour shifts per week and paid $7 an hour. It was brutal. This isn't even talking about older professionals who were laid off from their jobs and were fighting for the same shifts. By the time things started improving, me and my age group were years behind in experience.

My husband had graduated college and the only job he could get after hundreds of interviews was being a housekeeper at a nursing home an hour away from his apartment.

We are heading that way again. It is much harder to get interviews right now, and a lot of companies are doing hiring freezes.

#46

The job hunt after it traumatized me for life.

#47

I was 20 at the time. I had just started working as a medical assistant in a doctor's office. I remember the older ladies FREAKING OUT about their 401ks and stocks. One lady was hyperventilating, crying because she lost thousands. I was still so young and in my own world so I didn't really understand what was going on. I remember that gas prices went up a lot too.

#48

It was pretty awful. I graduated college in 2006 and got married later that year, and as I recall, things were already on the downslide, economically. By 2007 all my then-wife and I could find were temp jobs, and in 2008, even those dried up (didn’t help we were living in California). Gas prices were sky-high, housing was difficult to acquire, and it was all pretty awful, in general. My marriage did not survive, and considering the majority of our problems were financial— and we split in 2009— it’s tough not to think things might have been different, had US history unfolded differently.

#49

We bought our first house in 2007…

It lost 55% of its value in 2 years. Now, luckily this was back when a starter house was actually a starter house and we only paid like $145k. We had to hold onto it, renting it out for the final 4 years after we moved, until 2017 when we could sell it for the same price we paid originally. Wife was in grad school and I worked in a machine shop averaging 65 hours/yr and 4-5 months per year spent on the road.

We both own our own businesses now and bought our current house back in 2017.

#50

I’ll always remember the news story about the former high powered finance lady that ended up at a strip club because it was the only place that got her close to what her salary was.

#51

I was a department manager in a grocery store. The store got busier. Grocery stores are opposite of what the economy is. When the economy is good, people generally have money. They tend to go out more and cook less. When the economy is down, people generally have less money, so they tend to cook at home.

#52

I couldn’t find a job here after college when eventually K-Mart hired me. After my first day I knew that I couldn’t let this be my life. That night I applied for a job overseas in South Korea and spent about 5 years there making decent money. Honestly, it was an amazing experience.

Then I came back to the states and snagged a pretty okay job relatively quickly and kinda never looked back.

#53

This feels nothing like 2008. We have a growing economy now. 2008 was MASSIVE layoffs and no one was safe. Comparing the two is comical.

#54

Honestly I feel like we never left it, the economy sank and has sucks ever since.

#55

I mean this in absolute sincerity: when the f**k did it end? Because it's not clear to me if it ever actually did. Or maybe that's just me realizing my parents lied to me about the future I would be living in.