Have a strong social network. If you lost your house / were evicted from your apartment tomorrow, where would you go? Who would you take into your home for mo

Have a strong social network. If you lost your house / were evicted from your apartment tomorrow, where would you go? Who would you take into your home for months, years if they needed help? Surviving being poor requires a lot more hustle than being rich. One of the things I like about being a comfortably well paid programmer is that I can go to work, get paid, and not care too hard about the details. The money will work out, I don't have to be constantly looking out for ways to make a few bucks or cheap deals on essentials. When the economy is good, trying to become comfortably well paid is a reasonable plan. You can look for a job. If things go to shit, you need to always be on the lookout for jobs -- someone needs a few hours of help per week here, a couple of days on a one-off job there, a man with a van to haul a load cross-town. You've got to piece together an income from a dozen opportunities you don't even notice casually walking down the street on your way to your 9-to-5. You're not going to find any one job that will give you much income for very long, so you've got to be looking always for new opportunities.