I’m sure the heart-wrenching stories are all around you, too. My brother, a small business owner, is worried he won’t be able to make his next mortgage payment — or the one after that. His established landscape-design business began to slow down last June. He let go seven employees over the summer (more than half of his staff) and has two trucks he’d like to sell because he doesn’t think he’ll need them in the spring — but there’s no one buying them.
My friend and her husband each lost their jobs. They are able to earn rental income from an apartment they own, but their expenses are high and their oldest child will enter college this fall.