What does this bailout do to me??
I'd say you have 4 major risks, but they have little to do with the bailout. Here they are, in rough order of severity.
1. Your employer goes under because the company depended on poorly managed investments, and you can't find another job before the rent is due.
2. You get injured, medical insurance runs out or you are fired, and you run out of money and now are both injured and unemployed.
3. Your landlord runs into financial problems because of the economy, and either grossly increases your rent or has to sell the property, and the new owner kicks everyone out so he can demolish the place and build something else.
4. Your car dies because it's old.
As far as reducing the risks, I'd only suggest trying to save money (use it up, repair it, wear it out, or go without) and keep an eye out for foreclosure sales on houses. You might get lucky and find the smallest house in a decent neighborhood is up for sale and owned by the bank, and maybe they'll help out with financing in order to sell the place.
When I grew up, my Mom made our shirts from cheap patterns and fabric from closeout sales. We ate meals based on ground beef for half the month and chicken the other half, because ground beef went on sale every other week and chicken was on sale during the alternate weeks. We had a second freezer so when food was on sale, we could buy enough to last until the next big sale. Spaghetti can be stretched by adding cheap tomato sauce or other condensed soups to one smallish jar of spaghetti sauce (we used a can of cheap spag sauce plus 2 cans of tomato sauce and 1 can cream of mushroom soup), and there are plenty of other recipes that give you plenty of food for a family of 4 at half the cost of doing things the convenient way. As a result of all these cost-saving things (we also had 2 old cars), we were able to buy that smallest house in a nice neighborhood and slowly improve our situation over time.
