SURE, IT’S BAD: Nearly 10 percent of Washington was out of work as of earlier this summer, and more than 55,000 Seattleites lost their jobs between May 2008 and May 2009. But the stream of headlines that pounded out a steady drumbeat of cautiously optimistic “less worse” news—Jobs will keep disappearing, but at least the economy has bottomed out!—has given us reason to hope.

So why does it still feel like the dark days are here to stay? Maybe because we came so close to the precipice that we got a glimpse of the grim soup-kitchen–and–boxcar-hopping-hobos reality down below. Hearing economists say that Seattle didn’t get hit as hard as places like Detroit or Las Vegas is cold comfort when we’re still obsessing over the possibility of losing our jobs and our homes.

That, of course, is what your therapist would call “dwelling on things you can’t control,” so why not concentrate on the things you can control? Stop cowering in the dark and waiting for the worst to happen. Buck up, get proactive, and start living your life again.

Just don’t overdo it, huh?

1. Save Money—and Your Sanity—By Spiffing Up Your Space
Face it: You can’t control much of what’s causing your big-picture economic anguish—the pink slip you might get, the bailout you won’t—but you can calm your home-front fears and save cash by decluttering your domicile. “How many people waste money buying things that they know they have but can’t put their hands on?” asks professional organizer Debbie Rosemont. Her tips for getting started:

SKIP THE BOXES. Those colorful containers are good for organizational inspiration, but unless you’ve already sorted your junk and know exactly what you need, you’ll actually be adding more clutter.

START WITH ONE SPACE. Tackling your whole house at once is the best way to overwhelm yourself and light lots of little fires, so choose one room and sort what you’ll keep and what you’ll pitch.

NOW BUY THE BOXES Size up your “keep” piles—and your storage spaces—and stock up on the containers that fit.

2. Dress for Success for Less
Whether you want to maintain a sense of style on an ever-diminishing budget or look sharp for a job interview, take solace in the knowledge that previous generations managed to present themselves with elegance and poise—with a lot less in their closet. There’s a lot to learn from that make-do, buy-what-lasts mentality.

THINK ALTERATIONS, NOT ACQUISITIONS. The tailor at your neighborhood dry cleaner can shorten the skinny jeans you already own, and 10 bucks later, you’ve got a new pair of cropped pants to wear with summer’s gladiator flats and fall’s boxy, tunic-length tops.

RESIST MASS-PRODUCED “BARGAINS.” That poorly made cotton cardigan will pill and fade almost instantly, but an investment piece cut from quality virgin wool or cashmere will last for years. When you calculate the cost-per-wear of more expensive but well-made pieces and compare it to the price of replacing here-today, haggard-tomorrow “fast fashion,” the real savings become clear.

SHOP YOUR CLOSET, BUT SHOP YOUR GREAT UNCLE’S, TOO." Our older relatives grew up in a time when one fine camel-hair suit jacket and one pair of cordovan Italian-made oxfords was enough. A lot of those pieces are still very relevant today, and many are still in excellent condition inside cedar chests in attics and spare bedrooms.

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3. Barter. Very Carefully.
The surest sign that the financial uncertainty turned the clock back: Bartering, the purchasing power of choice since the dawn of human shopping, is making a comeback. (Seriously, it’s 2009—weren’t we supposed to be buying our hydroponic soy lattes by pressing a thumb to biometric pay pads by now?) Trading goods and services straight-up may seem like a straightforward solution in these cash-strapped times, but the old “caveat emptor” maxim still applies, says Dominic Canterbury, the founder of Dibspace, a local online bartering service. His site is designed to simplify the transactions, but if you go it alone, keep the following in mind:

BE ALERT. “There’s something about not receiving cash that makes some people not take the transaction as seriously,” Canterbury says. It’s virtually impossible to make sure you get what you pay for, so deal with people or businesses you trust.

BE DISCRIMINATING. Your time—and goods—are valuable, so don’t go on a spending spree for things you don’t need just because you’re not technically paying for them.

IT’S TAXABLE. What, you didn’t think it would be? The Feds treat bartered goods like any other income, so you’ll have to report your “earnings” at the end of the year.

4. Bling Out Your Brown Bag
Hey there, sad sack. PB&J got you down? Just because you’re saving bucks by packing lunch doesn’t mean you need to eat like a fourth grader. “I love cold pasta salads with cherry tomatoes, feta or fresh mozzarella, cucumbers, and fresh herbs,” says Ericka Burke, chef and owner of Volunteer Park Café. “I use Israeli couscous or gemelli. You can add chopped chicken, ham, or salami. Also farro salads are a favorite—I add spinach or braising greens with beans and veggies.” Or, suggests Burke, go down to your farmers market, pick up a crunchy vegetable, and shave it onto your tuna sandwich. And in the spirit of getting the most out of your produce purchase, she says, “The next day you can use it in a salad.”

5. Reduce, Refuse, Rejuvenate
Imminent economic Armageddon isn’t all bad: What better time than now to reprioritize your values and reassess your work-life balance? “At some basic level, people realize they’re not just here to be productive and earn a paycheck,” says career and personal coach Betsy Gutting. “They’re here to feel alive and vital and to enjoy life.” Amen, sister. Here’s how to get started:

MAKE A LIST. What parts of your job fuel your emotional energy? What parts sap it? Everyone wins if you’re focused on the things you do best, so delegate duties that drag you down.

JUST SAY NO. Shoring up your job security is important, but don’t seek out new responsibilities you’ll hate just to increase your workplace value. “That’s counterproductive to your long-term well being,” Gutting says.

FREE YOUR MIND. Even if you don’t plan to leave your job, stop acting like it’s the only gig you could get; you’ll be surprised how much freedom you feel to assess your current situation more critically.

6. Buy That Boat—With Cash
Seattle retailers, desperate to move kayaks and barbecues, flat-screens and sailboats, have been slashing prices on all kinds of big-ticket toys. But with Washington’s unemployment approaching 10 percent, shouldn’t we all be socking away our earnings? Bellevue-based certified financial planner Steve Juetten, whose practical (but never pedantic) advice has kept Eastsiders in the black since 2001, says, before you take advantage of sales, get frank with yourself about finances. 

“I don’t believe in credit unless there is a potential for appreciation,” says Juetten. “A house appreciates. A Coach handbag doesn’t. If you can’t pay in cash, don’t buy it.” Also, before you go a-splurgin’, always ask yourself three questions:

1. Do you have three to six months of living expenses stowed in a savings account in case of emergency?

2. Have you paid off all credit card debt?

3. Are you contributing amply to retirement? (Ten percent if you start in your 20s, fifteen in your 30s, twenty in your 40s.)

If you can answer yes to all of the above, says Juetten, then by all means, spend away.

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8. Brand Yourself—and Embrace That Brand
It sounds overly image-conscious, but now that finding a job—not to mention keeping one—has devolved into an office-park blood sport, personal branding is a necessary evil of recession-era survival. “It’s not like 30 years ago, when you’d work for a company your whole life and they’d practically manage your career for you,” says personal branding strategist Maren Finzer. “Everybody has to manage their own career.”

Start by identifying the characteristics that separate you from your competition; if you get stuck ask friends or former coworkers. Maybe you constantly research new trends in your field or you’ve literally never missed a deadline; no matter how trivial they may seem, those traits may be the edge you need to get noticed.

Now be that brand. Plug a concise mission statement into your résumé, walk the talk around the office, and if you have online profiles at LinkedIn or ZoomInfo, update them so they’re consistent with the message you want to communicate. But whatever you do, don’t get sucked into upselling yourself. “A lot of people think it’s just about creating a false image,” Finzer says. “But personal branding is truly being yourself.”

9. Go on the Interview Offensive
So you landed an interview for one of the few jobs available—good on you. Now, don’t get passive. “Almost no one goes into an interview and asks serious questions about the job,” says career counselor Matt Youngquist. “They just sit back and never show much curiosity or enthusiasm about the work.” In other words, you don’t have to do much to stand out from the candidate crowd: Bring work samples, bring incisive questions that show you’ve researched your prospective employer’s company, bring a PowerPoint that explains how you’d raise their bottom line in the first 90 days—just bring something beyond a defensive posture. 

10. Newtork the Smart Way
The problem: Jobs are scarce, and quality positions rarely ever show up on Monster.com. The solution: good old-fashioned networking. Make some calls, and make the rounds, but whatever you do, avoid these all-too-common mistakes.

DON’T ASK POINTLESS QUESTIONS. You’ve got nothing to gain by asking contacts if they know of anyone who’s hiring. “You have to be more specific,” says career counselor Robin Ryan. “‘I’m a human resources generalist—do you know anyone who’s looking for someone in HR?’”

DON’T HIDE BEHIND YOUR COMPUTER. Creating a profile on Linked-In is a good way to get started, but you have to cultivate those relationships in the real world. “You can do a lot online,” says Dan McComb, one of the founders of the local online networking service Biz-nik. “But the real power is in face-to-face connections.”

DON’T RELY ON YOUR FRIENDS. Unless you want to get stuck in a closed loop of dead-end job leads, diversify your circle of contacts. You’re more likely to find new opportunities, and you’re less likely to get typecast. “People who are close to you tend to put you in a box,” McComb says. If you want to branch out and try something different, they won’t be able to imagine you doing it, so they’re less likely to help.

11. Channel Business by Channeling Your Inner Human
“In a recession,” says Dan McComb, a founder of Seattle-based social networking site Biznik, “people have more time than money. They’re looking to convert that time into something valuable.” While they can’t replace personal interactions (see number 5, “Bartering”), social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are an easy, free way to market your services or brand. But, warns McComb, you have to think more like a person and less like a corporate drone. For starters, FORGET THE BOTTOM LINE. Just because you can’t measure business generated from a Facebook fan page doesn’t mean you can afford not to have one. “Can you measure return on making your office building attractive?” McComb asks. “If you don’t mow your lawn, there’s a direct impact. It’s the same thing.” While you’re at it, CAN THE SALES PITCH. When you overpromote on a social-networking site—even if you’re there to represent your company—you become “that guy,” the one at the cocktail party who can’t stop talking about his marathon training, his kid’s lacrosse prowess, how he could totally win Jeopardy if he wanted to. Instead, says McComb, EMBRACE KARMA. Compliment content on your “friends’” Facebook profiles, tweet about an article you love or a great local garden service, and eventually people will start directing business your way, too. “You’re doing something without immediately getting something back, but knowing that it will come back to you, just not through that same person.”

12. Think Your Job Is Safe? Update Your Résumé Anyway
A killer track record and chummy rapport with management can’t protect you from occupational redundancy, so keep that résumé handy; you never know when you’ll be asked to reapply for your job. “Your boss may say, ‘We have six project managers, and we’re only going to keep three. We need your résumé by tomorrow,’ ” says career counselor Robin Ryan. “You won’t be able to write a résumé under those stressful conditions.”

13. Throw a Discount Dinner Party
Seattle, this is your intervention. It’s been a rough year, we get it. But now is not the time to hole up in your house and shut out the world. First, uncurl yourself from the fetal position and change out of your pajamas. Ooh, and you might want to open a window, it’s a little stuffy in here. Now—call up some friends, because you’re hosting a dinner party. Don’t start shaking. Food impresario Kathy Casey is here with tips to help you toss together a sweet little soiree without spending wildly. The only question is, will you accept the help she’s offering?

SIMPLIFY Forget the three-tiered hors d’oeuvre extravaganza. Casey says one special signature cocktail paired with a wee amuse bouche–style app* offers a fun, focused way to start off the evening.

FORAGE Casey digs a DIY approach to table decor: Fill little juice glasses with bouquets of wild herbs from the garden or clip some pretty branches from a tree and spread them on the table. “Just don’t pick other people’s flowers,” she says.

GRILL In summer, Casey likes to serve freshly grilled strips of steak. (She raves about the affordable cuts at Costco.) No need to offer big portions of protein; just pair with ample portions of skewered seasonal veggies and you’re good to go.

PLAY To cut cost on wine, ask each guest to bring an inexpensive red, then wrap a paper bag around the bottles and tie with a pretty ribbon. Place a little notepad next to each place setting so guests can jot down notes as they blind taste the value vinos. It’s a fun icebreaker, and everyone walks away with new affordable wine faves (not to mention a depression-defying wine buzz…but that’s a whole other Intervention).

• Casey suggests her own Tuscan rosemary lemon drop with roasted pear and gorgonzola crostini from her cookbook Sips and Apps. Click here for the recipes.

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14. Bathe a Dog
Emotionally speaking, there’s only so much time you can spend hunched over your keyboard as you frantically scroll through page after page of subpar job postings. It’s soul crushing, it’s antisocial, it’s claustrophobic, it’s…a lot like spending your every waking moment in a dog kennel, which is why donating some of your post–pink slip idle time at an animal shelter is a good way to relieve your tension and Spot’s at the same time. Amber Yoo, a spokesperson for the Seattle Humane Society in Bellevue, says volunteer enrollment has increased by a third since last winter, thanks in large part to the steady influx of unemployed professionals: “We hope that they find a job, but in the meantime it’s nice to have them help us, because we’re going through the recession as well.”

HOW TO GET STARTED: At the Humane Society, once you’ve attended an orientation class (information is at seattlehumane.org), you can clean, feed, and socialize the animals; creative types can take pictures and write online profiles for the pets that are ready to be adopted. And if you stick with it long enough, you can help train and walk the dogs. Better than staring at a computer all day, isn’t it?

15. That Business You’ve Always Wanted to Start? Start It.
After residential designer John Morefield lost a job for the second time last year, he made one for himself. With Architecture 5¢, he reels in future clients by doling out home-remodeling advice for a nickel from a booth at the Ballard Farmers Market. Here’s how he did it.

“I’ve had the idea of taking architecture to a farmers market since I graduated college, and I pitched it to every business I worked for. They just said, ‘I don’t see the logistics. I don’t see the profit margin.’ I didn’t see the logistics or the profit margin either, but I just rolled it out to see if it would work. On day one, I talked to eight people and made 40 cents. I didn’t have a job out of it, but I came home and said, ‘That’s eight leads that I didn’t have yesterday. This could work.’ Any professional—be it a doctor, lawyer, architect, builder, tattoo artist—has been asked at a party, ‘I’ve got this question…’ Well, I’m doing the same thing, but I’m just collecting nickels—and donating them to charity. I thought about Lucy’s booth [from Peanuts ] and how it was psychiatric advice for five cents. She took something complex and over people’s heads and broke it down to a nickel and a conversation.”

17. Tame Your Populist Rage
You have so many—so many!—people to blame for your daily economic-collapse-fueled panic attacks, but you have to resist the urge to dwell on your anger, grasshopper. So how do you tame the beast? Ask yourself what’s beneath the anger, says Redmond—based mental health counselor Tana Anderson. “Are you having doubts about your self-worth, your lovability, your likability?” she asks. “Anger’s really a secondary emotion.” Don’t stop after your first stab at self-reflection, though. Keep asking follow-ups—Am I actually sad about something? Are past demons rearing their heads?—until you can release the anger.

Once you’ve stopped wasting your time spewing vitriol about the bankers and predatory lenders who put us in this mess, you can start wrestling your anxiety to the ground—and yes, it will require more self-reflection. Write down the specific issues that are making you -anxious—your financial situation, your postlayoff plan—and draw up a roadmap for addressing each one. “It’s like preparing for any other crisis,” Anderson says. “You don’t exactly know what’s going to happen or when or if, but at least if you have a plan, you can cope with the anxiety of the unknown.”

18. Grow Greens, Save Green
You know how when you dine out, you pay $20 for a bottle that cost the restaurant less than $10? Well, says Amy Pennington, “Salad greens are the wine of farmers markets.” Pennington, who owns Go Go Green Garden, a Seattle-based garden service that also teaches home-growing hopefuls to plant plots, points out that while markets price most produce pretty reasonably, gourmet lettuces—which cost pennies to plant—go for anywhere between $3.99 and $6.99 a pound. To start saving on salad, grab a couple of long planter boxes (Pennington says you can grow four to six heads in a 2-foot-long, 4-inch-wide, and 6-inch-deep box) or set aside a small plot of land (a 4-foot-by-4-foot raised bed will hold 20 to 25 heads) and grow your own. For the full flavor range, choose seeds from each of these -varieties: a red salad leaf (Pennington likes merlot lettuce, a bitter green like arugula or watercress) and something buttery (the -garden guru prefers pronounce-it-if-you-can heirloom lettuce Forellenschluss). Plant and water often—soil should always be moist—and you’ll save big on salad well into the fall.

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19. Don’t Be Afraid to Help
Being employed during The Worst Economic Downturn in Years is a tricky thing: You feel fortunate to be drawing a paycheck, but you can be so busy freaking out about losing your own job that you forget about your out-of-work friends. Or even worse, you pretend they aren’t hurting. “Some people think, ‘If I address the elephant in the room, it’s going to sit on me,’ ” says Deborah King, manners maven and founder of Seattle-based Final Touch Finishing School. “But unemployment isn’t a disease that gets passed around.” So what can you do? You’ve got a couple options, depending on how proud your laid-off friend is:

THE DIRECT ROUTE: If you feel comfortable addressing the situation head-on, King points out that even small gestures can mean a lot. “I like to take friends out to lunch or dinner,” she says. “And if the individual is involved with LinkedIn or other social sites, I will offer to write them a recommendation.”

THE INDIRECT ROUTE: Free meals are nice, but you can’t make a mortgage payment with crab cakes and Caesar salads. Yet even when giving money is the most helpful option, it can be a dicey transaction. “If you’re giving to someone in need who you know, it can often create a sense of obligation in the relationship,” says Bellingham resident Lionel Thompson. With that in mind, two years ago he founded the nonprofit GivingAnon.org to facilitate anonymous monetary gifts among friends. Since last September the site has distributed more than $140,000.

20. Treat Yourself
When deprivation becomes a fact of life, you learn that happiness is about the little things. In Seattle every neighborhood, every farmers market, every corner coffee shop offers up some little luxury that will gobble up your gloom faster than you can say, “I’ll take another to go, please.” Here, four low-cost, high-return edible experiences to help keep your head up during these hard times.

1. Fran’s salted caramels ($1.50) They’re sweet, they’re savory, they’re so damn good. No wonder President Obama can’t get enough of the world’s greatest candy. And while the POTUS has to get them shipped special, we can simply stop into one of Fran Bigelow’s three Seattle-area sweet shops. 1325 First Ave, Downtown, 206-682-0168. 2626 University Village St, University Village, 206-528-9969. 10036 Main St, -Bellevue, 425-453-1698; franschocolates.com

2. The red velvet cupcake from Trophy ($3) Quite simply, the perfect cupcake. 1815 N 45th St, Wallingford, 206-632-7020. 2612 NE Village Ln, University Village, 206-484-2017; trophycupcakes.com

3. Broiled oysters and a pint at Emmett Watson’s Oyster Bar ($15.25) Menus are printed on paper bags, tables are gingham-topped, seafood is no-nonsense. 1916 Pike Pl, Ste 16, Pike Place Market, 206-448-7721

4. Paseo’s Midnight Cuban Press ($7.75) Toasted egg bread, succulent slices of smoked ham and roast pork, decadent aioli: This is a sandwich for which you won’t mind waiting in line (and you will wait in line). 4225 Fremont Ave N, Fremont, 206-545-7440. 6226 Seaview Ave NW, Ballard, 206-789-3100