I was unemployed with 2 masters and a doctorate. I had just moved. I was not eligible for any social services, and my student loan payments required that I drain my savings every month. Only took a couple months for savings to be gone. To make ends meet I went around the neighborhood and swallowing my pride, introduced myself and asked people if they had any work that nobody wanted to do. I watched people's pets while they were away, spent a few weeks on my knees weeding someone's yard, carried and stacked wood, moved rocks, dug trenches, scrubbed and stained a few decks, etc etc.

I was pretty damned depressed at the time. I don't think my experience was unique either.