I’m trying to do some housecleaning gigs with a female friend, but that’s really hard to get these days.

Neither of us has a car, which pretty much rules out the local housecleaning services. (They all require you to have a car so you can quickly get to wherever you’re needed, esp multiple jobs the same day.)

We’ve tried posting on Craigslist (services –> household) but it’s pretty much impossible to get noticed these days because thousands of locals who can’t find jobs are posting similar ads there – with 300-500 new ads daily, you have a window of maybe a few hours for people to actually read your ad.

I spend a LOT of time on Craigslist looking for ways to earn money. I think not having a car/license is my biggest obstacle right now.

In terms of multiple jobs — home improvement/contracting is one area where your age wouldn’t matter that much. If you could learn plumbing or become an electrician – there must be some courses out there – you could make quite a lot of money. Painting is an easier job that doesn’t require a license. Some years ago there was a teacher here supplementing his income by washing people’s windows on weekends.

If you were a woman – house cleaning or child care. The salaries are higher in more expensive areas, though, as is demand. Around here, even an illegal immigrant cleaning lady wouldn’t work for less that $19 an hour. I heard there is a Russian girl who is OK with $16 an hour, but she lives in Brooklyn, so whoever hires her for a job in the suburbs has to pay for transportation. American cleaning ladies ask for $25 an hour or more.

Many recent legal immigrants that I know – of different ages, mostly over 45, one woman over 50 – took home health care courses to take care of the elderly. The courses aren’t expensive, some are free if you agree to work for the government agencies for a few years or something like this. The salary isn’t that hot, but you get medical insurance. My second cousin did it for a while until she went to a community college and became a radiology technician. She was in late 40s when she started. Another woman I know – also over 50, first generation immigrant – became a dental assistant.

You can also try amazon’s mechanical turk, but the pay is low. At least it doesn’t require physical strength.

But do check out programs in community colleges. There are some 2-year programs that aren’t that expensive, and you could learn some job that will pay better than what you do now. In some jobs e.g. in healthcare the demand is such that you can get hired even if you are over 50.

I don’t know where you think I said someone shouldn’t buy a house – ever.

Buy all the houses you want IF you can afford to do it w/o needing public assistance. But if you can’t afford to buy the house w/o some kind of public credit or allowance or tax break or other government program chances are very good IMO you’re over reaching.

To put it another way, if you can’t afford a house now but an annual (or even just one-time) tax credit or grant or allowance etc of X-dollars makes the difference between buying and not buying then you’re walking too close to the financial edge.

As a childless adult, I have found a greaty paucity of social programs available to low income earners without children.

I get $25/mo food stamps, that’s it. I’m eligible for subsidized housing and on waiting lists a mile long. Can’t even get on the Section 8 waiting list, every umpteen years a lottery is held to add names to the waiting list. I lost the last lottery in 2007 and the next lottery is nowhere in sight.

I’m an unskilled worker over 50. In the unskilled labor market, that is over the hill.

Why would you want me to get rid of cell phones? I got rid of my landline and use a prepaid $5/mo cell phone. How else would people (esp potential employers) reach me?

Work multiple jobs. Rent a room rather than an apartment or take on roommates to reduce your housing expenses. Get rid of cell phones, cable TV, fast food meals, etc. Take advantage of the social programs available to low income earners. Become proficient at skills and trades that pay at rates higher than minimum wage.

Right, me too. I could just kick myself for not having enough cash on hand back last September when you could get Johnson and Johnson bonds for 70 cents on a dollar…. I did buy some bonds last October with yield-to-maturity of over 8% in companies like Goldman Sachs as well as some tax free AA and AAA munis with 5.5% YTM, but I could’ve bought so much more. Plus having more cash in March would’ve helped. OK, in March I had a little bit of cash, but maybe not enough courage.

So, here is my other lessons:
Have courage to jump in when everyone is panicking. Be it buying good quality bonds where nobody is lending money or stocks when everyone is selling.

Have courage to sell when everyone is super-optimistic and/or when some stock you have went too far up for no apparent reason and have stop loss to protect yourself. Don’t use “oh I’ll have to pay so much capital gains” as an excuse — better pay taxes on capital gains than take off losses.

Pay attention to what is happening with the economy. Buy and hold isn’t the same as buy and forget. I saw the housing bubble forming, I even warned a friend not to buy real estate in 2006 but wait. I just haven’t connected it to the economy because I didn’t know much about what was happening with mortgages and had no idea about CDOs or CDS or the importance of credit for the economy. I should’ve learned about it. Stocks are risky. If we invest in stocks we should at least make a minimum effort to learn a bit about economy.

I also plan to learn more about options especially about how they can be used as insurance to limit losses. I don’t plan to use them for speculation, only for hedging.

“people aren’t going to accumulate wealth or retirement funds on 2% bank CDs”
My parents saved for retirement only on bank CDs. OK, maybe it wouldn’t be enough for many of us, but it’s enough for my parents to live the same modest lifestyle they always have. And they haven’t even had that much time to save: my father was 48 when we came to the US from the Soviet Union and my mother 43. Their salaries in the US weren’t that high either. The thing about CDs – they pay more interest when interest rates are higher…. Now, I don’t keep all of my money in CDs, but I consider CDs just as good a part of asset allocation as stocks or bonds.