
To pool resources, Melissa and John Kreuzer, seated, live with her folks in San Jose, Calif.
Jennifer Bliss was no fledgling lawyer when she moved back in with her parents. At 39, she had burned through her retirement funds after losing her law-firm job in July 2007. She gave the bank the keys to the home she was unable to sell in Grand Rapids, Mich., and last November, she packed up her two Great Danes and moved about 60 miles, to Lansing, to live with her mother and stepfather. "This has been awful," says Bliss, who has sent out some 600 résumés nationwide looking for legal work or a managerial position in another field. "I went to...