I want you to remember this, you can master your own destiny. When you are down to nothing, some people might tell you to do whatever it takes to survive. While I agree to the survival part, I disagree on the whatever it takes part. If the whole notion of surviving is to see better days, the doing whatever it takes approve might bring on liabilities even imminent ones that could contradict the intended aim. On the contrary, I think the best way to survive is to actually minimize all liabilities through complete risk reduction or via risk mitigation. The bottomline is, match your current social-economic status with your risk and societal contribution profile. Which roughly translate to you don’t owe anyone anything and would be better served as an economic aid recipient than a net economic contributor. Society’s expectations of you is near zero at this point anyway and the US and many Western valued nations have strong safety nets for those in this exact situation. Granted the incentives for those who come from an incentivized background have strong inclinations to get out of this situation is also particularly strong hence those who are in this situation typically does so out of necessity. Obviously your favorite TPC can’t say much more beyond this point regarding demographic groups due to social contract reasons, but I think you get my point.
How do you cut down on the liabilities? While, for one, since you are starting from zero financial wise, you probably have a lot of time on your hands or is not pressured on time. Hence the car, the lifestyle and other things that you use to needed probably is no longer needed. Sell anything that belongs to your previous life as fast as you need to even if that meant to undersell your assets. Use this money to get a safe but economical place to stay immediately that matched with what you can afford for at least two months. Getting food and water legally for free when you are down to nothing usually are the easier parts to all of this because most people and organizations see allowing someone hungry to get fed as good karma in almost all Western societies. Shelter is different from a psychological and safety standpoint to most potential donors. Next, make sure you can get a prepaid smart phone and mobile plan that you can use legally. These two things are critical from an upward mobility standpoint. If you want a job, you will likely need to leave contact information for them to reach out to you if they are interested. With a smart phone with mobile services, you can potentially do everything you need from a job finding prospective.
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How to survive and thrive when you are down to almost nothing.
Yes, bank accounts, credit cards and mailboxes all seem to be important, but remember, you are matching cash flows at this point meaning you need to focus on things that will eventually yield positive cash flow. After that, you have stabilized your life some what and is progressively moving upwardly, you need to start think about why you are down to almost nothing. This is a critical step for you to resolve your inner demons whatever that maybe to be on the road to recovery. In Western societies, opportunities are almost everywhere and safety nets are there for those who know where to find them, the biggest priority is getting through the emergency and preventing that and similar issues from happening again. Whatever legally compliant job you ultimately secure, make sure it will allow you to save in the long-term such as being able to enroll into an employer sponsored 401K plan with potential contributions from employers and yielding tax advantages as well. Try to stay at the job for at least six months not so much because of stay less time could create a blemish on your resume, but rather, once you learn how to do a job well, you will have a much easier and less stressful life therefore can afford to achieve other things that can ultimately help you become more job market secure. Once your life becomes more stable in all aspects, use your experiences and fear of falling into that situation again for your own advantage. The biggest advantages gained from this ordeal are probably maturity, discipline, ambition and tenacity. These traits will probably increase the probability of future success. Whatever you believe in, make sure you have a way to channel optimism in life as there will be highs and lows throughout your lifetime. Make sure you have a way to conjure hope and desire to keep you going and make meaning out of life even though you likely know how it likely will end regardless.
Having the bodaciousness to march toward a perilous path prudently brings you powers that you probably never imagined you have. This era right now is the age of swift changes which means the bold and ready will either fail spectacularly or strive out of no where. This is precisely why you don’t want to be on any of these outlier extremes because they leave gaping holes of opportunities for the value scrappers. In this age, the value scrapers won’t be celebrated nor noticed because of high opportunity cost of missing out on the extremes. Hence you will likely have an easy life of letting others take all the glory and risks while you stay relatively low keys while accumulating wealth in a relatively risk free manner. Chances all, the average person who is reading into this types of subject matters today from an average expected value standpoint will benefit significantly from the actual full-fledged commonplace implementation of AI, virtual reality, space exploration, time travel, conscious and cognitive reincarnation, immortality nor any of the other major fascinations throughout history humans have desired but now is closer to reality than ever before. If you understand this point, you will see technology for what it is, a way to get rich except as a common person you likely won’t directly benefit such as being able to get allocation for hyped imminent announced IPO stocks. What you can do in lieu of that is to simply get the good scraps that these people no longer desire therefore are cheap to buy. When these people start to like what they previously snubbed again, your assets probably will be worth much more. A lot of values in investments are based on future expectations anyway. Who is to say a well-educated and extensive experiences common person’s perception of reality is of lower quality than those who are likely similar but are wealthier? Most predictions are wrong, the ones that are right are usually the ones people talk about.