The cost of living is outpacing income in Ohio. One local couple, who think they are doing everything right, learn how easily a family can fall into bankruptcy. Their journey may sound familiar By David Giffels
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, Mar 16, 2008
THIS COULD BE YOU.
This could be you sitting in the living room of a house that you'd never notice otherwise, a low brick suburban thing, the inside walls painted with care by the people who've made it their home, with a dog resting on the floor and a pair of cats trolling for attention.
This could be you telling your story, about a husband and wife who tumbled off their middle-class foundation, who thought they did everything right, who keep spreadsheets and budgets, who pay all their bills, who work hard and bring home a decent paycheck, whose debt is not out of the ordinary.
Not out of the ordinary. You don't read much of that in the newspaper. You read about victims and fools, people who lost everything or screwed up big time — people nothing like you.
But these two — there's nothing unusual about them at all. They get up in the morning, they go to work, they work hard, their effort is valued by their employers, they bring home their money and they pay it into their house and their cars and their taxes and their groceries and their medicine.
There's no American dream in that. It's the standard agreement. They went to college, they work in offices, they each bring home thirty-some thousand dollars a year. They bought a house for $150,000; in the two-car garage is a 12-year-old SUV and a 6-year-old economy sedan with eight payments left.
There's no fancy jewelry, no steroidal television set. They play by the rules.
This could be you agreeing to tell your story as long as the newspaper doesn't use your name, asking to be anonymous because you are anonymous — that's all you ever wanted — and you want to stay that way, because you are so ordinary that no one would ever suspect you'd gone bankrupt, a condition you describe as ''the dirty little secret of the middle class.''
You're ashamed. You're embarrassed. You, the one who does the household finances, you feel like you've let the other down. You look at your preschooler and you wonder whether you've cost him some future you never even got a chance to plan.
You look at each other, and even though you know with cold hard reason exactly how you got here, you still wonder:
How did we get here?
Disappearing act
More:
http://www.ohio.com/news/16723051.html
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