Like tens of thousands of Vermonters, Christine Campbell, 44, of Winooski, works more than one job. She works as a full-time manager at a retail sports store in Essex, but out of economic necessity she has carved out another 30 to 40 hours each month to dedicate to her second job: decorating window displays for local merchants.

On a recent Friday, Christine was removing baseball pennants that declared Boston as the 2013 World Series Champions from a window display in the Burlington Town Center mall and replacing them with football memorabilia.  Her freelance “visual display” business creates an essential second stream of revenue. Without the money from her second job, she said, things would be tight.

“I would be able to pay my bills – and that would be it. I would not be able to enjoy my life,” she said.

The Vermont Department of Labor, citing 2012 data, estimates that, in these rough economic times, about 30,000 Vermonters work more than one job to cover their expenses.

Christine keeps current with her credit card debt and has no school loans.  She notes, however, that she has many friends who have been struggling since the recession hit in 2008. “They do a lot of pasta nights. They don’t have a lot of money,” she said. “Going on vacation is nice, but nobody goes on vacation anymore.”

Christine’s second job, which she has had for the last six years, creates some extra money for the occasional movie and dinner with a friend. Her earnings also help, slowly,  replenish her retirement savings that she had to deplete when her husband lost his job.

Raiding Retirement Funds

When her husband was out of work, Christine was forced to raid her retirement fund to make sure the bills were paid. “The money had to come from some place,” she said.

Christine is not alone. In the years that followed the most severe recession to hit the United States in generations, many people in Vermont and throughout the U.S. had little choice but to deplete the savings that they had worked hard to put aside for their retirement.

“Three-quarters of Americans said they're finding it difficult to both save for retirement and handle their day-to-day expenses,” according to a CBS News report.  The reasons: low earnings, high living costs and unplanned expenses.

According to the report: on average, each American has saved about $58,000 for retirement.  For those with less than $250,000 in assets, the average retirement account amounts to only $29,358

With her savings sapped, she is worried about how she is going to pay for her own expenses in the years ahead.  She knows she will receive Social Security, but isn’t sure how far that will go to cover expenses.

“It’s unfortunate, I will probably be working until I can’t work anymore,” she said.