Some ideas for how to soften the recession storm.
It goes without saying that you must cut costs (or expenses). That is the #1 first step.

1) Cut out everything you do not absolutely need. Cable service. Subscriptions. Memberships.

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Cut everything that is recurring then get to the list of one-timers. Often, when you cut something they will fight to keep you which leads to ...

2) Re-negotiate everything. If you are paying $50 for your Internet service, contact your provider and negotiate it down.

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If they do not budge and would rather lose you then to move you into a period-based discounted plan, then ask them if there is a downgraded offering available. Cut half the things you pay for ... and re-negotiate the other half.

3) Preserve cash. Only cash matters.

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Your personal/family finances should mirror what companies do in times of financial crisis. Cash preservation is critical and there are two things you must do. First, draw down on lines of credit. This means do not fear dipping into credit lines before using cash.

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In normal times, using debt is not good. In desperate times, things change temporarily as access to credit lines may be gone tomorrow. Draw it down when you can. Second, if others owe you money go after it right now. Offer steep discounts to incent them to pay now.

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Someone owes you $10k? Tell them they can pay you back $5k if they pay today. Or, they can pay you back $1k per month for the next 6-7 months. You get the picture. Otherwise, you may never get even $1k back as long as this recession lasts a long time.

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4) For renters, talk to your landlord if he/she is the owner with authority to engage in negotiations. Ask them if you can have your monthly payment lowered by (even) $200 per month. You can structure it in a few ways.

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Incorporate the $2.4k savings into your next lease as a rent increase. Or, add a term for the money to be deducted from your deposit if/when you move out. Your ability to get their help depends on how long you have been a tenant, past reliability in paying on time, etc.

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Find creative ways to preserve cash in the short term even as you accrue some debt in the long(er) term. Many of you will think, "this will never work for me." You'd be surprised at how willing most people are to help out in times of crisis.

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4) Be vigilant in how you spend time. It will be tempting to escape into a cave and go into fear-driven denial mode. "Things will get better." Do not go into this passive mode. Recall that with a deep recession, people give up. Consider this reality ....

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When people are laid off, they spend roughly 3-4 months aggressively looking for equivalent jobs. They get rejected time and time again and it wears them out. They give up and settle for something "beneath" them or just quit altogether.

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Things always rebound but the reward goes to those first in line. Thus, you must keep "showing up" and never ever quit. Mentally, it is very hard to keep the job search activity high over the course of many months. This is why you must make job searching a routine.

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Make your job search a routine. Do not make it a goal. If you make it a goal, you are essentially keeping score on the wrong metric and it will eat you up. Assume a 1-2% success rate. You will need 100 actual job interviews to land a new job. Sobering but not unrealistic.

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To land 100 interviews probably means you need to apply to 1,000+ openings. You can see why it is harmful to treat job search during a recession as a goal. Your energy has to go into "activity" KPIs and not "results" KPIs. And, this leads to the next item ....

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5) There are very few new job openings. All companies have already gone into hiring freezes. Do not just apply to posted jobs. Those postings are almost always phantom openings. They either kept the posting up to collect/farm resumes or maybe even forgot to take them down.

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Build contact databases and regularly reach out to hiring managers (even startup CEOs and execs). Let them know that once they re-open hiring, you are excited to get a chance to be considered. Which leads to the next thing to do ....

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6) Companies may freeze hiring but they still have shit to get done. In your outreach, always offer to be available to do any work that their thinned out staff have no time to tackle. And, tell them you are willing and able to do it at a fraction of normal fees.

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Focus your efforts on low level, tactical projects that will not threaten their current full-time staff. For ex., offer to help keep their CRM up-to-date. For $20/hour, you will clean up their database contacts 2 times each week for 8 hours the next 3-months.

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It's only $160 per week but it is $2k for a very lightweight amount of work for a short period of time. Further, the real value is not in the money. You make new business relationships. You keep yourself busy. And, these become strong leads for other opportunities.

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7) Since we must narrow down things to the essential routines, we are at risk of creating dullness to our everyday lives. And dullness will make it harder to "show up" with the level of vigor necessary to plow through. So, don't forget to add some adventurous pursuits.

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