A defining moment for younger generation

"Do I find a job, or do I head to Central and South America on the motorcycle?" he wrote on Day Four, the Los Angeles Times said. By Day Seven, he had become more realistic: "So far in the last week I've made US$1,245 [Bt39,780] off of eBay sales. Mostly stuff I wasn't using, or don't need much. Nice way to clean the house up!"

After selling some stock and applying for unemployment, Liebrecht figures he can pay his $2,300-a-month mortgage and other bills for just two months. When his company health insurance runs out in a few weeks, he'll go uncovered because he can't afford the premiums.

"You have to just hope you land on your feet," Liebrecht said in an interview.

People everywhere are coping with rising credit-card balances, falling home values and lay-offs. But this is jarring particularly for a younger slice of the workforce that has known little but financial prosperity and optimism.

After all, a large share of today's twenty- and thirty-somethings - a nearly 80-million strong cohort - were in college or high school (and some in grade school) the last time the country experienced a severe financial jolt. Some barely can remember the mild recession of 2001, which was followed by a boom that coincided with their entry into the workforce.

Raised amid a long stretch of financial bounty and weaned on video games, cellphones, iPods and weekends at the mall, many Generation X and Y members barely have glimpsed a time when they couldn't spend freely on the latest styles and gadgets.

Now, with home values slumping and credit-card balances rising, they're watching their spending and borrowing from family members for the first time. Some are moving in with friends and - the horror - even mum and dad.

And after years of being able to boast about promotions and climbing income, a growing number find themselves having to admit that they are out of a job. In the last year, the unemployment rate for 25-to-34-year-olds rose from 4.3 per cent to 5.4 per cent - nearly twice the increase for older age groups.

"This generation as a whole has not experienced any substantial kind of financial difficulty," said Leslie Winefield, director of the Portland, Maine-based Institute for Financial Literacy. "It could be a defining moment for them."