Months after thousands of people were made redundant from highly-paid resource sector jobs, many are living with ongoing financial stress that has pushed them into the ranks of the working poor.

It is a brutal adjustment from the "champagne lifestyle" afforded by six-figure salaries to little, or no, income.

The high debts many people accrued during the heady days of the mining boom are forcing people to sell cars and homes, and to decide which bills they can afford to pay week-by-week.

Compounding the problem is that while rents have eased slightly, the overall cost of living in WA remains stubbornly high.

Among those barely keeping their heads above water is Tammy Bond, who was born and, until recently, lived in the Pilbara town of Dampier.

Key points: High debt accrued during mining boom forcing people to sell houses, cars

High debt accrued during mining boom forcing people to sell houses, cars WA rents have dropped, but overall cost of living remains high

WA rents have dropped, but overall cost of living remains high House prices either flatlining or dropping

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Until eight months ago, she was enjoying her dream job, driving 2.5 kilometre-long iron ore trains across the region.

"I loved my job," Ms Bond said.

"It's hard to explain, you know, the brute force of the trains that you're actually driving and what they're pulling behind you. You can feel everything."

Her high salary allowed her to splash out on luxuries like a new 4WD, a camper trailer and an expensive holiday. But she also had costly medical bills.

Ms Bond's purchases were fully financed, so when she was suddenly made redundant in March she immediately realised the implications.

"I broke down because straight away I knew what I'd lost, before I even realised how much worse it was going to get," she said.

"I lived to the means that I had at that point, not expecting any of this to happen. I had a company house, I had everything, and then it was all gone."

Ms Bond moved to Perth and found temporary work that just covered her rent but not the bulk of her debts.

"I'm in a position now where I'm about to lose everything through bankruptcy," she said.

Big end of town facing similar fate

She is not the only one who overstretched and hit a financial wall.

It is an all-too-common story among Western Australia's mining unemployed, where many people thought the good times would never end.

And the big end of town is not exempt.

Jack Gregson, from Gregsons Auctioneers, said directors of mining services companies had been coming to their premises in luxury cars and leaving in a taxi.

"We have seen circumstances in Cottesloe when we go to repossess where the luxury car's on the market, the house is on the market, and there's a for-sale sign pointing to the house sitting on top of the luxury car out the front of the property," Mr Gregson said.

"We've seen examples where the family home and industrial properties, where they run the business, are 100 per cent financed to the bank.

"There was no equity placed on the assets."

The resources downturn is hitting the wider economy too.

House prices have been either flatlining or dropping all year.

Car sales are the worst in the country, down 10 per cent in October on the same time last year, according to the Motor Trade Association of WA.

And jobs are scarce. The state recently bucked a downward trend in national unemployment to record its highest jobless rate in 13 years, up from 6.1 per cent to 6.4 per cent this month.

At the time, Premier Colin Barnett said it was not as bad as expected given the drop in iron ore prices.

Businesses helping people deal with financial shock

Dani Tamati runs The Resources Hub, helping resource workers who have been made redundant deal with the emotional and financial shock, and find a new job.

"It's amazingly competitive. We've got clients that have applied for 600 roles in the last year and still can't get back into the industry," Ms Tamati said.

Nicole Ashby formed FIFO Families to help people deal with the pressures of long-distance work.

"You couldn't beat the resources sector, we were paid extremely well," Christine Ross says. ( ABC News: Nicolas Perpitch )

But her role is changing. She is now also being asked to help find financial councillors and recruitment agencies for nervous FIFO workers scared of losing their jobs and people recently laid off.

"We are very passionate about saying to people this may not be a long-term thing, make the most of it, make sure you speak to a financial advisor, talk to your partner, set goals, and be realistic about it," Ms Ashby said.

Some, like Christine Ross, who was made redundant from a mining job as an Indigenous relations manager earlier this year, is making the difficult adjustment to that new reality.

"The champagne lifestyle. You couldn't beat the resources sector, we were paid extremely well," Ms Ross said.

She has set up her own consultancy business to try and stay afloat, and also organises a conference for Indigenous people in the resources sector.

"This year, given that a lot of our people had lost their jobs, the whole focus of the conference was how do you survive redundancy, what do you need to do," she said.

"How do you update your resume, where do you need to post it, how do you promote yourself?

"And then it's all about being able to get back on the horse and go for interviews again."

Rents ease, but living costs remain high

However, the challenge is made harder by the difficult economic conditions and WA's high cost of living.

Director social policy at the WA Council of Social Service Chris Twomey said the welfare group's just-released annual Cost of Living report showed rental pressures had eased in Perth but most other costs had continued to rise.

"The cost of living has continued to go up in Western Australia," he said.

"Also around the global financial crisis we were able to get extra resources in for financial councillors to help people, whereas now we've actually had cuts to financial counselling.

"We've seen people fall very far quite quickly, simply because they haven't known how to respond, they haven't got advice in time, and so they can go from living quite a good lifestyle to being homeless."

Tammy Bond, though, has not given up.

Every day, she searches for jobs to try to get back into the mining industry.

"It's not the job that I regret," she said.

"It's the decisions that I made. You know, for financing and things like that. If I could have done it again with the wages that I was on, I would have just saved and bought.

"I would never, ever get myself in this position again. Never do it."