The paper shows the results of the RESCuE project, an in-depth qualitative investigation of 250 vulnerable households, their living conditions and socioeconomic practices across nine European countries on the background of the European crisis since 2008. Two major findings are in the focus: First, the concept of resilience actually proves to be useful and transferable into poverty and social policy research under certain prerequisites. Second, a wide scope of interrelated, substitutable and polyvalent practices allows the rather few resilient households to gain their livelihood from mixed sources. Among a relevant number of them, direct income transfers incomes play only a minor role, while access to various kinds of common goods is playing a substantial role for resilience in low income households. The typological analysis of resilient households shows how the observed socioeconomic practices are associated to certain cultural patterns and values, as well as to personal networks.