While watching the financial world basically go to all hell, I feel like a zebra running from a lion in the hopes that he'll snatch someone else in the herd. I've only been in the workforce for a couple years, and like me, most people my age probably dodged a few major bullets recently. I didn't buy property coming out of school, I didn't make risky investments, and most of my retirement is in my 401(k). While my 401(k) took a hit, I wasn't going to touch it until retirement anyway. Thankfully, my friends and I aren't affected as directly as the over-30 crowd, but we still face a shaky economy, credit isn't as readily available, discretionary income is diminished, and jobs are harder to find.

One of my friends started working for Freddie Mac about a year ago, and they gave him a $10,000 stake as a signing bonus. Needless to say, that bonus has all but disappeared while Freddie Mac's CEO walked away with millions. As a side note, my friend is in the process of recruiting for the company at college campuses; I can't imagine how tough that has to be right now.

Some of my friends work freelance and feel lucky to even get work at all now. One of my friends had to move back in with his parents, and nearly all my friends live with several roommates, myself included. Only one friend of mine owns her own place. The American Dream seems farther out of reach than ever.

As odd as this may sound to some, one safe bet I've made during these times is going against the word of Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Basically if he recommends something now, I'll rush to do the exact opposite. For example: a few months ago, he was telling people to sell their gold. Naturally upon hearing this, I bought a good amount of it as a hedge against inflation and-God forbid-a recession or depression. Literally the next week, the value of gold shot up in the double digits. My only regret is that I didn't buy more when I had the chance; now it's tougher to come by.

My husband has a great job in a stable industry, but he's 63. Two years ago, we thought by this year he'd be officially retired -- doing a little consulting, but taking the winter off so we could spend the cold months somewhere warm. I have a home-based business that has always offered flexibility. Together, we were looking forward to a more leisurely life.

The economic slowdown has made us rethink our plans. My husband continues to work at his old job -- usually 50 or 60 hours a week -- and I'm not slowing down either because we and those who depend on us need what we earn.

We're not alone in this. A survey conducted for AARP found that nearly 20 percent of the people in our age group have postponed retirement. In most ways we're lucky. Overall, 66 percent of people older than 55 are having trouble paying for essential items such as food, gas and medicine. Fortunately, we don't have those troubles.

But we do worry about our grown children who have found this tough economy a drag on independence. Our two oldest children are economically solid citizens. They got their careers off the ground before the economy soured. But our younger ones face bigger challenges.

The U.S. economy is in meltdown mode. Or maybe it's more like a lockdown, since the credit markets are essentially frozen. Job losses are on the rise. The real estate bubble has burst. Home foreclosures continue to mount. Gas prices remain high. People are feeling wary and uncertain. About the only thing I am sure of is more uncertainty.

Teetering at the tail end of the Baby Boom generation and thrown in with the GenXers, a group that has little, if any reasonant identity, I feel a bit strange. Born in 1964, I don't identify with either generation and never had any expectations that Social Security, pensions or 401ks would be there for me anyway. I lived through the long gas lines of the mid-1970s, the Reagan years, the recession of the 1990s and the tech bubble. When the market softened post-9/11, many of my friends were laid off from their jobs in publishing, finance, public relations and other fields. At the time, I felt incredibly lucky to have been spared. I still feel lucky.

Here's why: Somehow, I managed to buy my first home less than two years ago in New York City. I secured a mortgage fairly easily when loans were much easier to come by. I bought a tiny sliver of the American dream. I had a full-time job that enabled me to do this, I'd saved money for years and had a little pixie dust to help me out.

Things have changed a bit: I'm a freelancer, i.e., I am self-employed. That means I pay for my own health insurance, pay quarterly taxes to the federal government and to the state where I reside and finance my own retirement account. Most of my career, I was fortunate to have full-time staff jobs where benefits were offered, but the last job I had was at a startup that offered no health insurance. The one before that offered health insurance but the employer didn't contribute to it and there was no 401 k or pension plan. I still felt fortunate.

When it comes to dealing with the personal impact of economic forces, I'm a little out of touch. For most of the last ten years, I lived in the comforting, semi-socialistic embrace of academia, which means that I was able to pretend that ups and downs in the market didn't really matter to me. As an instructor at a state-funded university, I enjoyed a great health care plan, free schooling, discounted books, free public transportation, and a pretty decent retirement fund. Of course, I wasn't paid all that much, but the birth of my daughter cost us less than $500, including all prenatal and postnatal care, so I couldn't really complain.

A little over a year ago, I moved to New York and, in January of this year, I began working as a freelance writer. While this has gone fairly well so far, I'm still in the "building my brand" stage of growth, which is a nice way of saying that I'm probably making only a little bit more than the average McDonald's employee. Luckily, my wife has found great jobs in the New York office employee milieu, and has more than picked up the slack from my decreased income. She is currently working for an engineering firm that designs environmentally-sustainable building systems. Her company is in great shape, and has a full slate of ambitious, lucrative projects on the table. If the New York real estate market continues to do even moderately well, then their next few years should witness record earnings and growth.

Unfortunately, the American building industry greatly relies on credit. While New York floor space is at a premium, new buildings are built on credit, renovations are made on credit, materials are purchased on credit, and contractors are paid on credit. If credit dries up, so will the building jobs and so will the salaries, including my wife's.

Last night, I put her on a plane to Dubai, where she is going to a building conference as a representative of her company. A year ago, many New York architectural and engineering firms were turning down Dubai contracts; today, they're courting them. I don't know if my wife's firm is going to open an office in Dubai, but I do know that she is a hell of a saleswoman and there are a lot of people in the UAE with money to spend on new buildings. At the moment, there's a pretty good chance that I'll be celebrating my next birthday on the shores of the Persian Gulf!

Read how the financial crisis is affecting other WalletPop bloggers.

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. He tans up really nicely and will probably look totally hot in a keffiyah.

This post is part of a series about real-life signs we're in a recession.

One of my friends is in charge of marketing at a nearby mall, and works closely with their kids program. The program provides fun activities for children, during which parents can either put on a tiara or spend time shopping without junior in tow. Each event has its own theme, the latest being a cowboy day and before that, a princess party.

In the fall, the princess party attracted a huge crowd of tiara-toting tots whose company my wife enjoyed with her niece. The cowboy day, which took place last month, yielded only four young cowpokes, almost a tenth of the last event. It's really sad to see so many empty cowboy hats and stores around the mall on a Saturday.

Even though the event is free, attendance has been down due to a lack of incentive to use the free daycare the events provide. With a recession already in force or on its way, parents have less money to spend at the mall. Malls have been feeling the effects of a recession for several months; this lack of participation in free daycare is only one indicator.

Malls have been fighting retrenchment and a lack of shoppers since Christmas. Stores in malls near us have been closing over the past few months and whenever we go shopping, the walkways are devoid of shoppers with bags, filled instead with teens with no shopping agenda other than a soft pretzel. If free daycare and cowboy hats can't lure families into malls during a recession, what can?

This post is part of a series about real-life signs we're in a recession.

My idea of a perfect coffee house is one that offers great java, free WiFi, comfortable chairs, electrical outlets, and not too many customers. I like a place that has enough traffic to stay in business, but not so much that it is crowded during the morning.

My current fave, where I set up shop to blog each morning, has undergone a change for the worse in the past few months. More and more frequently, formerly vacant tables are occupied by middle-aged executive types with their brand-new laptops, cell phones and lattes poised for action that never comes. I know one of these fellows, and suspect the rest are in the same boat he is, recently cut free as part of a recession-driven downsizing.

One day last week every single table and chair was occupied, forcing me to take my coffee home to sulk. When will the madness end? I'm talking to you, Mr. Bernanke- get these people back to work! And out of my chair.