wake-up call

I read something interesting a few minutes ago about the economy.
That sounds dreadfully boring, but in fact it's pretty interesting.
It was a woman who was particularly devastated by the recession and how she and her family learned to take things as they came, and not for granted, as they had before.
She was living a very good life with a great job and a great house when the recession happened and she saw people losing their jobs left and right.
Something else she realized was that houses were not permanent and they weren't a given; many of her neighbors lost their houses. This was when she realized that her house was a privilege, and that she too could lose her house. She then started to watch her personal spending and she started to work various odd jobs. Basically, anything it took to stay at that point or get better.
She learned not to frown upon the people who looked for food in trash cans, or for people who used a ridiculous amount of coupons. And everyday when we wake up in a bed in a house that's probably ours we don't think about what it would be like without these things.
Just something to think about (as our Canadian middle school principal would say), because I thought she was pretty inspiring, and a metaphor for the wake-up call most Americans got during the recession.