I'm doing contract work now. It's expected to last 6 months, could definitely be less as noone knows how long funding will last, not expect to be more, but sure it's a non-zero possibility of it being more. This after 10-11 months of unemployment, it really was the best I could get. Commute is about an hour each way from me, not even remotely near my bf but ....
The job market is SO tough out there (I mean maybe not at the *very* low end, a fast food place has a hiring sign etc., and that is maybe what they mean when they say "the job market is good", but I do have some professional skills here, and you can't live off those wages - nor can you live off contract work unless it's regular - true dat). I feel there are plenty of very well qualified candidates for nearly every job including sometimes for contract positions, but *especially* for full time work, they are picky! True, true, how I lost my last job didn't help me any. I was fired. I made a mistake. Many, many people don't get fired for making a mistake. I fricken know. But I wasn't at that company long and I was hated by a bully who bullied me the whole time, and they had the pull in the organization I didn't, to get me fired, without warnings, yes of course, that's what is meant by "at will employment". So I have to start again to move on from that, and this is a start.
But I can't live like this forever. I don't even know how to, although if contracts are regular I suppose it's possible. I don't think I even have it me to be the best and brightest you have to be to get a full time job at least in this line of work. I'm smart enough, I'm not entirely lazy and can sometimes work for things. But I think long and hard about what personal assets I could ever have to get me to a better place and I think "it's not enough .... it's simply not enough, the best I have just isn't going to be". But even the losers get lucky sometimes . And getting a job is part many other things and a decent part pure luck, and I've been lucky in the past, but maybe it's just so much harder now than it ever was then (including in 2011). It sure seems so. It's just so tough out there.
Money I don't know, first I need to pay off a credit card that I bought some new work clothes with, well I didn't buy clothes almost at all the whole time I was unemployed, and I've never had a closet you can shop in, and yes you gotta look the part (if my last horrible job taught me anything it's how much non-work relevant factors matter in keeping work, although my clothes were not the issue there). Then it's hard to say, it's hard to say whether to even bother saving for retirement for the time being or anything as it's so much easier to just save for the next catastrophe (unemployment). I guess I'll put aside something even if it's quite a small % for retirement, it's the triumph of hope over experience but hope is not to be dismissed. And save all the rest for catastrophe, well really if one lives on nothing for 10-11 months one does have some things they want to buy so I will spend some, but not on credit - other than those work clothes, the future is too unpredictable. It was pure doing without of course because what else if one is unemployed, but a day to day focus on survival, so even things that I needed replaced and stuff I didn't buy then, unless it was about survival. Though, I bought a car while unemployed Well yes, I'm broke, long time unemployed, working contract, but I have a shiny few years old car fully paid for Yea well, an accident (noone hurt) and I needed it. I'm certainly using it now with my long commute.
I got extremely depressed unemployed, not so much initially but by the end (every fricken study shows this that people tend to get more and more depressed the longer they are involuntarily unemployed). Better to work for now (I mean work is work, it's far from paradise, but compared to long term involuntary unemployment which is almost the worst thing you could ever wish on a person ... it got to the point where there were days I thought: I'd rather have cancer (than the disease of unemployment). And I started fantasizing about going to prison because even the life of a fricken inmate, sitting in a cell, waking up when they wake you, eating when and what they tell you, would probably be more meaningful than another day of sending out resumes ... it just becomes so meaningless.