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"As chief financial officer of a top New York advertising agency, Jeff Boose boasted annual pay exceeding $400,000, a spacious office and a lifestyle to match.
But since he was laid off in late summer 2008, they've made a head-spinning pivot. It's no surprise the country club membership, the vacations and a Volvo sport-utility are history. More tellingly, the Booses question every dollar they spend, sometimes eating pancakes for dinner and borrowing from their parents to pay the bills.
Boose, 43, is equally dumbfounded by his inability to land a position despite a résumé brimming with accomplishment and a steady, 20-year rise to the upper echelons of Corporate America. .....
As Boose has found, severance and retirement savings can eventually run dry, making for a more dramatic adjustment.
Gone are the couple's $200,000 in retirement savings and Jeff's six-month severance. "People say you should have three months in reserves," Karen says. "We had that, and it didn't do any good. No one says (have) 15 months." .....
Some try to break the executive-suite logjam by targeting growing industries such as health care.
Doug Ryan, 43, who lost his job in May as finance director for a top energy and mining concern, barraged health care firms with his résumé. Little good it did in a market flooded with out-of-work executives of every stripe.
"They're dead set on hiring people with health care experience," says Ryan, of New Orleans.
Others seek jobs at lower corporate rungs.
Since losing his marketing director position at a publishing company last year, Fred Cecala, 44, of Mount Prospect, Ill., has applied for slots that pay at least a third less than his former $150,000 compensation.
"Every hiring manager tells me, 'You're way overqualified for this ... and we know when the market turns around, you're going to leave.' You can't win for losing."
To combat the bias, executives sometimes downgrade titles or achievements on their résumé. Chris Campbell, head of the Executive Network Group of Greater Chicago, advises against that, noting employers can easily do background checks. "Inevitably, they question your integrity."
$200K in retirement savings and three months bills in the bank after a 20 year career and $400K salary? That right there folks is everything that's wrong with this country.
They should have noticed certain trends like globalism and the trend to cheap labor. Chances are they supported it -- as long as it was the blue collar workers getting sacked.
I think the last lines of the article were actually most telling:
Yet, even after Boose lands a position, he and his wife say they won't return to their old lifestyle.
"My Coach bag, my $150 woven baskets, my designer pocketbooks that sit in my closet," Karen says. "They just seem so silly now when they were so important before."
Adds Jeff: "We've seen the other side of it."
If only it seemed it at the start.....anyway, great article, thanks for sharing.
$200K in retirement savings and three months bills in the bank after a 20 year career and $400K salary? That right there folks is everything that's wrong with this country.
You said it all. And to think I have been beating myself up over not having enough saved after working 25 years as the sole bread winner. I had a six-month reserve, more in retirement savings, and earned less than a 6-figure salary when I was "downsized". Perhaps my new job could be teaching others to live within or below their means!
Kinda harsh folks. I mean seriously the CFO guys has been "runner up" for quite a few jobs, and as he said a firm only needs ONE CFO, so it is pretty tricky to thread the needle. When the guys was working it is not like he could say "well I am a C-level executive but I am going to pretend not to be so that if something happens I'll never work again". You work hard and you save some money and enjoy some of what you work for...
With an salary of $400K it likely his monthly paycheck was in excess of $30k -- would not take much of those to shape your spending habits in a very strongly consumptive way. Think about this -- half of one month's pay and you have "filled" your 401K for all year. Leaves lots of taxable investing to do the rest of the year. If you are getting paid to oversee your firm's finances it would be pretty hard to leave the allocation of personal investing to some 'paid adviser'...
Through in an expensive home, club memberships and other things that are sorta expected of C-level execs and suddenly the little extras do seem very little indeed.
Heck who here REALLY feels their skills are so clearly demonstrable that you'd never be out of work? Lots of grief profiled in the article, but not much prevention, more like this would have been appreciated by those folks: Recession-Proof Your Career | EmploymentDigest.net
I'm not being harsh that they are out of work, I'm just shocked at the obvious excess consumption and lack of savings. Even without an employer match, he should have had at least $300K in a 401K based on the term of the career and the payscale. Had that been properly structured, market losses would have been mitigated. And keep in mind that is not taking into consideration market earnings. In all honesty, based on a 20 year history, that 401K--properly managed--should have been worth well over $500K--even with a 40% market hit in 2007-8.
In addition each spouse can contribute to an IRA--even without any market gain, a CD based IRA should have had $60K or so in it--times two, one for each spouse.
Then savings. Three months? Talk about someone living WAY beyond their means. The three month rule has been history for several years. With that type of income, they should have had minimum six months liquid, and probably another six months in less liquid investment avenues.
The only thing I can say to people like that is...
and they STILL managed to blow through the 200k plus the 3 months worth of 'reserve' in 15 months - so just when DID they suddenly realise they had to CONSERVE resources?
Interesting article -- thanks for posting it Renault. I always like to read the comments after articles like this. There are over 800 at the moment--including a lengthy one from Mrs. Boose herself.
Here is one I wish I had written myself, from WorkerJoe90210:
I have not one shred of sympathy for this man, his family or other such unemployed executive level persons in his situation. It is people like him that has screwed over the average working men and women in this country. While giving themselves huge salaries, bonuses, stock options, better medical and disability benefits, retirement benefits, etc.
Here is a list of ideas, that this person and his ilk, have implemented in nearly every company:
To save money, cancel and drop pensions.
Start hiring part-time, temp, contract workers to replace full-time workers.
Use Outsourcing and Offshoring jobs to cheaper countries.
Abuse the HB-1 and F-1 Visas to bring cheap workers into the USA.
Aiding and abetting illegal immigrants by contracting firms that mainly use illegal immigrants. They know fully well that the employees of these firms use illegal immigrants, but they don't care. All they care about is "saving money" for the company.
Preaching about how the American worker needs to be educated to get the higher paying jobs. What higher paying jobs? Most of those jobs have been outsourced and off-shored. Look at all the college graduates who can't find a job. Before the economic meltdown, look at those college graduates ending with jobs paying 20K to 30K a year, with student loans of $50K+
And the people who are re-trained and went to college, and got saddled with student loans, now have a degree and training, but still can't find a job.
Preaching about jobs in education and healthcare. They are laying off teachers, there has been a glut of teachers. As for nurses, no one wants to hire expensive old fashion RN's anymore. They want to hire cheaper nurses assistants. Schools and hospitals are now making bogus claims about a shortage of nurses and teachers. Or the lack of qualified nurses and teachers. And then they are petioning the federal government to bring in foreign teachers and nurses. What a bunch of liars. What they are really saying isn't that there is a shortage of workers; what they really mean is that there is a shortage of workers of what we want to pay them for the amount of work we want to give them.
X-rays, MRI's and CT Scans are now read and diagnosed by medical technicians in India. Tax accounting and corporate accounting is now also sent to India. Call Center jobs and Support Call jobs are in India. Customer Service jobs are in India. Whenever you use internet chat with a support person, that person is in India. Jobs that could never be out-sourced/off-shored are now being sent overseas.
This person and his ilk save his company money, give the money to themselves, and then layoff the ordinary worker.
If our economy is 60% to 70% consumer based, how in hell are we ordinary workers suppose to consume enough to support this economy, if we don't have decent paying jobs. These executives have their heads up there behinds. Where are these wonderful, plentiful, well-paying jobs at? There aren't any.....these so-called executives sent them overseas and pushed down the wages of what little jobs are left in America.
I was not going to look at any comments on this article. Then a friend called and told us that our son was replying to some of them. For those of you who read his posts, yes, that was our 14 year old "gifted, knowledgeable" public school educated, sorry to disappoint but no private schools here, son. He wanted to defend his dad against what he read as personal attacks. I was still not going to get involved. Then, my 11 year old daughter began to cry and asked if daddy being in the paper was a bad thing. It turns out, when she went on-line to read the article, she started to read the comments too. I respect everyone's right to give his or her opinions as I hope you respect mine. By the way, I’m Karen.
- We are not looking for nor do we need sympathy from anyone regarding our situation. We debated participating in this article and decided doing so might help other people in a similar situation know they are not alone. That is the ONLY reason we agreed.
- Anyone who thinks we are "shallow", that we "look down" on people or would regard anyone, as "commoners" do not know us. I was raised in a lower-middle class home. We counted every penny, lived in the smallest of houses, bought every generic grocery product there was, when they were packaged in the tell tale white and black containers with GENERIC stamped across the front. My mom made most of my clothes and anything else was purchased at discount stores. Oh yes, did I mention we lived in one of the richest towns in Florida? I was definitely from the "other side of the tracks." And, we were happy. We loved each other, were grateful for what we had and we had a ton of fun. So, please do not tell me that I don't know what it's like to live on much, much less money.
- The pancakes for dinner thing...I guess pancakes are an inexpensive dinner but we just happen to like "Breakfast for Dinner" we have it all the time. When Paul was leaving the house after our interview I asked if he wanted to stay for dinner and told him we were having pancakes. I guess he just misunderstood the reason why.
- $400,000 was Jeff’s best year ever and was only the last year he worked. For the 15 years of our marriage it started considerably less and slowly grew. I know it's hard to imagine in other parts of the country but to live in New Jersey, which we had to do for Jeff's job, is extremely expensive. Between federal, state, local and New York (yup we pay twice since he works in the city), SS and unemployment our take-home was always about half his gross.
- A gardener? I wish! Then maybe I would have the same weeds in my front planters that have been there for 2 years. Yes, we do have someone mow the lawn. Jeff left the house at 6am and got home at 8pm everyday. He had a 1 1/2 hour commute each way. It was not feasible for him to do all the yard work and have any time with our kids.
- A maid? Again, I REALLY wish. 3 years ago we had someone come in every two weeks to clean the house. I had 4 young children and YES, we were fortunate enough to be able to afford someone to help out in between my daily cleaning. And, we stopped having someone come in 2 years ago, before Jeff was out of work. If you want to think I don't clean my own house, come on over, I'll give you one of my toilet brushes and I'll show you how it's done.
- "Sprawling" makes our house seem McMansionish which it isn't. In our area, it is slightly above average size at 3,000 not 4,000 square feet. Our girls share a room and all 4 share a bathroom. Could we do with smaller? Of course. It has not always been like this for us. We started in a one bedroom, very, very small apartment. We saved, moved into a townhouse, saved some more, and bought our house. We were working hard and achieving the American dream. From where I started, I NEVER thought we could live in a house like this and every time I pull into my driveway, I'm stunned that it's mine.
- Should we sell the house and downsize, or live in our car, as many of the sweet readers have suggested? Have any of you read the paper lately? It's a little difficult to sell a house and even make what you owe. We are current on all of our bills, our mortgage and our taxes. So, until we are not, until we become a burden on society, we feel it's our decision to make. But, thanks again for the suggestions.
-My Coach bags, expensive baskets etc....yes I had them. I enjoyed being able to purchase them. Having been raised on so little, I felt a thrill being able to own such extravagant items and yes, maybe they did make me feel kind of nice when I used them. Sorry if that upsets you but hey, you can benefit from our situation and pick them up cheap. They are all posted on E-Bay.
-For the nice gentleman who felt we sold our Volvo yet had a Mercedes and BMW in the garage. So sorry to disappoint. We drive two American made Chryslers, a mini-van and a used sedan.
- Oh yes, the designer clothes we having hanging in our closets. Well, that is true. Target and Wal-Mart do have some wonderful designers. Think what you will but I LOVE a bargain. If I can get it on sale...yeah me! You want to check our closets...come on over.
- For the person who asked...yes, I do have a college degree and gasp, yes, even a Masters degree, in early childhood education. Both of which we were paying off well into our marriage. However, they are not much good to someone who has not worked, out of the house, for 14 years. We decided before we had children I would stay home. We designed our life around that and made a budget to match. My children are kind, intelligent and responsible and I like to feel that has been my full time job. I know how fortunate I have been and I am thankful every day. I know I need to get a job but not many people find changing diapers and driving carpools skills they need in their organization.
- The "lavish" vacations? Yes, we were very, very fortunate to be able to travel. Some of the trips were for business and I got to "tag along" and some were purchased at a charitable auction for a school we very much wanted to support. It was not 7 or 8 a year. It was 3 or 4 a year, yes, still very lucky. Sorry to disappoint here too but our kids have never been out of the country and have never seen the inside of a Four Seasons.
- Our friends have been nothing but supportive through this whole thing. No, we don't go out to dinner with them as much anymore but that is our doing. We can't justify that expense. However we do see our friends quite often, just in other situations. $200 is quite a high quote too, maybe for a birthday or anniversary but never just for a night out.
- For all who feel Jeff could not be an affective CFO and find himself in this position, you are out and out wrong. He has always been extremely good at his job and he has the references to prove it. Did he make a very good salary? Yes, he definitely did. He worked his way up. He started as a junior, junior guy out of college, worked to get his masters and slowly proved his worth and climbed the ladder. He is know for being able to cut cost and save companies money, and no, not by cutting heads, but by cutting wasteful spending, increasing profits and managing effectively.
- So, to all of you who think it is amazing that a financial professional would end up in such an unfathomable position. How many of you, honestly here, have 16 months of savings? How many of you, as many have suggested we should have done, save 50% of your salaries? How many of you have not increased your spending and fixed expenses as your salary increased? Well, answer “not me” to one of those and you could quickly be in our place.
- Many of you felt that being a CFO he should have known some major doom was coming and planned for it. Well let's see, the President didn't know, Wall Street big wigs didn't know, or didn't admit they knew, none of the major papers or new outlets seemed to know, foreign governments didn't know, but, Jeff from New Jersey was supposed to see it coming? Hmmmmm, if that were true, trust me, he'd be making a lot more than he was picking lottery numbers. Come on everyone; think logically instead of emotionally for just a minute about this. Do you also think the 10% of our population who is unemployed right now, facing foreclosure, turning to family for help, worrying about how to pay the bills, are they to blame for poor planning or is that just us? What is the salary cut off for people who deserve a second chance? Is $200,000 too much, $100,000, $50,000? Who makes the call on this? I'd like to chat with them.
Did Jeff make a very good salary? Yes. Did he work very hard to get there? Yes. Are we extremely fortunate? Yes we are. We remember that every day. We are thankful for what we have every day and we make our children very aware of that fact. Are we most thankful for our material possessions and our lifestyle? They are not even in the top 5. Having healthy, happy children, good friends, being able to give back to those who are not as fortunate, having family who love us, that is what matters to us, what is important. If you knew us, more than you could by reading a story in the USA Today, you would know that. But, you don't know us, so until you walk a mile in our shoes, please be careful of the judgments you make and the conclusions you jump to. It doesn't matter to us what you think, it really doesn't. We will wake up tomorrow knowing that we are the same people we were when we woke up this morning and we like who we are so that's good enough for us. And, if you ever find yourself in a similar position, we wish you all the best and a quick recovery.
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