From Middle Class to $5 in the Bank

"I was devastated. I changed my attitude. My demeanor," he said. "How do you go from working all the time to not working at all? I had to go on unemployment. What is that? I didn't even know where the office was."

"For him to be out of work," Alenia interjected, "I didn't even know my husband. The quality of our life diminished considerably. It made life miserable. You get depressed. The relationship becomes strained. You're snapping at each other, arguing about the kids, and it's really about none of those things. It's really about money."

To make ends meet, they started a catering company, cooking huge platters of soul food and Caribbean fare. Lorenzo would sometimes stare longingly into the refrigerator. "We'd have to tell him not to touch anything," Alenia said.

Last month, Kirby found a job as a security guard. When his first paycheck arrived -- Alenia called it "release day" -- almost all of it went toward getting his car note up to date and paying the towing and storage fees to get his car off a lot in Fredericksburg, where it was about to be auctioned. Kirby works nights so they can save on child-care expenses. He drives Alenia to and from work to save on gas. And he's lucky to catch a few hours of sleep if 7-month-old Kadence naps.

Slowly, they are working their way out of debt and back to zero. "I went to the bank today, and I was able to finally put a little money aside," she said. "There's $82 in there. Woo-hoo. But that's better than last week, when there was $5."

* * *

Mark Goldman was a success story. He learned to work with computers back in the days when they ran on punch cards. He lived in Montgomery County and earned good money as a contractor and IT program manager. But he always ran businesses on the side: a sound and DJ company, a home improvement business, computer camps for kids, speed-reading classes. You name it, he did it, and he did well.

He and his wife had always planned to move to Florida and live the good life. So a few years ago they sold the Rockville home they had bought for $132,000 for $600,000. With the windfall, they bought a new 4,500-square-foot house with a pool in Orlando. They chose all the upgrades available: quartz kitchen counter tops, rounded walls, even larger toilets. He went to work as a sound technician for Disney, but only because he wanted to play with all their toys." When he became bored with that, he decided to get another IT job. Everything was going so well that Goldman bought new cars, one for his wife, one for his daughter and one, finally, for himself.

"That was stupid. I shouldn't have done that," he said. "But I didn't know that at the time."

His IT contract ended in January. The housing slump and foreclosure crisis hit his Florida neighborhood hard -- 18 of his neighbors walked away from their homes -- and now his house is worth $75,000 less than he owes on it. And as the economy has soured over the year, Goldman said, he has been unable to find another job, even after he moved back to the Washington area in August. "Most of my contacts have either moved on or been laid off themselves," he said. "And my age doesn't help. I go in to talk to people and they're in their 20s and 30s. They look at older guys as old-timers."

Although his wife has a good job an executive assistant, it comes nowhere near paying their $8,500 monthly expenses and the debt they have racked up. He had to put $10,000 of his daughter's college tuition on a credit card after he lost his job, followed by almost $5,000 to pay for lung cancer treatment for their dog.

He gets occasional jobs as a sound technician -- his hobby. He has rented his Florida house to keep up with the interest-only mortgage payment. (He had meant to refinance after two years to get into a conventional mortgage but now can't because his credit is shot.) And a friend in Derwood is letting him stay rent-free in his townhouse in exchange for home improvement work. Goldman has tried to unload the cars, but he has been offered less than he owes on them. "Fortunately, because I can do so many different things, I can't keep up with all my bills, but I can pay my rent and eat," he said. "We eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch, and we might buy a $4.50 chicken from Costco for dinner."

Perhaps, Goldman thinks, his luck will change if he has a project management professional certificate. He fingered an "ExamCram 2" book recently while he waited for a $600 check from a sound tech job, almost enough to bring him up to two months behind instead of three on the $750-a-month note on his convertible Toyota Solara. But the test costs $700. He'll need to pull off a few more sound tech jobs, he said, before he can afford to take it.

At home, he pores over an elaborate spreadsheet of bills and decides which ones he can pay and how much. It's at those times that he considers bankruptcy. But he thinks bankruptcy might prevent him from getting a security clearance and any chance at a lucrative IT contract with the federal government.

Goldman walked to the payroll office. "Goldstein?" the clerk asked. "Goldman," he said, enunciating clearly. Someone had forgotten to sign his paperwork. There'd be no check today.

Down in the garage, he found his gunmetal gray Solara. "This is ready for repossession," he said, resigned. He sighed as he backed up. "I may just have to start over."