It is now five years since the Great Recession officially ended, but these CNNMoney readers still don't feel they've fully recovered from the downturn.
While the recovery has been pretty much non-existent for us, we have been more fortunate than most.
I was a mid-level manager of a small financial analytics team at the Washington Mutual headquarters in Seattle. I was one of several thousand who lost our jobs when our bank failed in 2008. I had worked there for 25 years in roles of increasing responsibility and compensation.
Once the bank was sold to JPMorgan Chase, I stayed on for nine months under contract during the transition period. After that, I was able to utilize my severance package and unemployment benefits to bridge across to retirement and Social Security.
The 18-month unemployment period was interesting as we'd moved to a small community in far northwestern Washington. I looked for work in jobs somewhat related to my background in banking, finance and technology. During that time I only had two to three interviews, including one in the Midwest and another as an assistant bank branch manager. I was competing against several very young applicants.
In the end we are now fully retired enjoying an even more conservative lifestyle in a small community in spite of having 75% less income. Our only worry is the impact of future financial market instability on our retirement income.
I was really one of the fortunate ones to be close enough to make it to a more-or-less comfortable retirement.
