@Ford Smith I hear you on this one! I am/have been in a similar situation. I skipped 2 years of college and graduated with an MBA in the middle of the recession + was diagnosed not long after with a very expensive and serious autoimmune disease.
Job-wise I prioritized connections and responsibilities over the amount I was making because I didn't feel like I had much of a choice at first. I remember the career counselor at my college laughing at me when I asked him about potential openings during the recession. He basically told me that he had candidates with much more experience and MBAs that weren't getting jobs, so I shouldn't anticipate anything different. It wasn't easy going by a long shot, but I managed to find something and then after a few months I found a position that paid next to nothing but it was something where I was able to undertake a lot of responsibility. From there, I paid off my credit card debt from hospital bills first and deferred my student loan bills for quite awhile.
I also found a really great book Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters and used what I learned from that to really position myself as a great candidate. The job market is getting much easier now and recently I put in an ask for a job at 100K. Even if it doesn't go through, I feel like I've faced every "worst case scenario" out there, so I know that even if this doesn't work out something will come along.
In the meantime, my fiance and I have started working on building a real estate portfolio. We haven't worked through all of our financial issues from the recession yet, but we're well on our way. Part of that strategy is prioritizing investing over debt. Although it's not ideal, I feel like real estate is an area where you can make quite a bit of headway through being smart, networking, hustling, and creative financing. There are tons of great examples on BP. I especially like the Glenn and Amber Schworm podcast. All of this is to say that you can figure it out. It may not be easy, but it is definitely doable.
