>> When we first met Greg Altieri [assumed spelling],  
a sales exec at Far East Gem, a jewelry manufacturer  
in New York, he was attending the industry's biggest trade  
show in Las Vegas, at the worst possible time.  
>> This is as bad as the industry can possibly be.  
>> But just being there made Greg better off  
than many of his competitors.  
Attendance was down 40%.  
>> That's everything for Brooklyn.  
>> Jerry Natkin was among the missing.  
>> Why didn't you go to Vegas?  
>> Didn't have an appetite to look at things I can't buy.  
>> Jerry owns William Barthman, in lower Manhattan,  
a watch store which caters to the Wall Street crowd.  
>> Suggested retail on this is $450.  
>> But even they're not buying like the good old days.  
So Jerry's brought in a new inventory line,  
stocking $450 watches for customers who used  
to spend ten times that.  
Easy.  
>> Rather than lose this customer,  
we brought this product line in.  
>> Even with the new line, store revenue was  
down about a million dollars.  
Natkin cut salaries across the board by 10%  
and cut his workforce, going from 24 employees to 18.  
Which meant accountant Ed Middleton, was out of a job.  
So life's changed.  
>> Life's changed a lot.  
>> Working freelance, Ed's now making half  
of what Jerry paid him.  
Gone, the $60 a month spent at Starbucks,  
the $85 a month gym membership, and $100 a month  
on his favorite hobby: cooking.  
>> Well six months ago, a luxury item would have been an aged  
steak and a really good bottle of wine.  
Now, luxury items are pizza, waffles and ice cream.  
>> Ed thought his hobby might make a good next career.  
But then he priced a single class at the Institute  
of Culinary Education in Manhattan.  
$215.  
>> But with my cut in budget,  
there was no way I could take it.  
>> Diana Ortiz decided she couldn't afford not  
to take classes there.  
She wanted to follow her passion after she lost her job  
in home equity loans for Wells Fargo.  
You weren't passionate about home equities?  
[Laughter]  
>> It was paying the bills.  
>> Trouble was, Diana didn't know exactly what her  
passion was.  
Turns out, it was right in front of her.  
In her kitchen.  
What is it about cooking?  
What does it for you?  
>> Taste. Flavor.  
The textures.  
The aroma.  
>> To pay for her program,  
this single mom cancelled her vacation plans for this year,  
saving $2,500, depleted her $15,000 in savings.  
Call it a new recipe.  
>> Budgeting, budgeting, budgeting and planning.  
>> Outside Des Moines, Iowa,  
Diana's friend Roxanna White is following the same recipe,  
after losing her job at Wells Fargo too.  
>> There are times that there definitely is anxiety.  
>> So 15 months ago, Roxanna started a gift basket company.  
She used her severance and cashed in her 401K  
to raise $15,000 in start up costs.  
She also went from a $35,000 salary, to nothing.  
>> I went from a great salary to putting everything that we have  
into the basket boutique.  
...however you like.  
>> Roxanna says the goal now is to turn a profit by January.  
But in this recession...  
>> I feel that there's only room to grow now.  
I really feel that way.  
>> The best that even this optimist can do is set her  
chances, she says, at 50/50.