Currently, this is The Girl Who is regaling us with her financial battle. She seems to be doing well, and enjoying it ("I am so turned on by the thought of paying off debt and saving some serious cash. Like, rub my nipples while talking dirty to my dwindling credit card balance, turned on"), though I question her paying her father first. He won't sue, he won't even utilize the services of a collection agency (which can have a profound effect on your credit rating).
Her struggle did remind me (though it is in no way similar) of an unintentionally funny piece by a New York Times economics reporter who decided he'd write his own, "This economy is so bad that even me, a New York Times economics reporter, got overextended and gulled by the subprime mortgage fiasco" piece.
Except, on reading the article, it turns out that the economy had less to do with his economic troubles than the fact that he appears to be really stupid. The evidence:
My $120,000 base salary and my assets were easy to document. But given my actual income after alimony and child support, I couldn’t possibly have qualified for a standard mortgage . . .
In the euphoria of moving in together, we both succumbed to magical thinking about ourselves, as well as about money. My fantasy was that Patty [his new wife] would become an ambitious go-getter. “This can really be an exciting new chapter of your life,” I kept telling her. Patty had a very different dream. “I feel as if I am finally at home,” she exclaimed as soon as we moved into the house. She could settle down and do the things she had always been best at: making a new home, nurturing her children and loving me. One way or another, she figured, we would earn enough money to make good on our glorious gamble.
We had very different ideas about money. Patty spent little on herself, but she refused to scrimp on top-quality produce, Starbucks coffee, bottled juices, fresh cheeses and clothing for the children and for me. She regularly bought me new shirts and ties to replace the frayed and drab ones in my closet . . .
Our debt spiraled up faster than I had ever dreamed possible. Chase Bank had cold-called me to offer a “platinum” card with no interest charges for the first six months. I took them up on it and shifted $3,000 in debt from my old card onto the new Chase card. But instead of paying down the balance before the interest charges began, I let it balloon to $6,000 . . .
Between humongous loan balances and high rates, we had hung ourselves with the rope they gave us. In the previous December alone, we charged $2,845 on the Chase card for Christmas gifts, food, gasoline, clothing and other expenses. The charges included almost $350 for groceries, $700 in clothes from J. Crew, $179 at GapKids and $700 for airplane tickets for two of Patty’s children to visit their father in Los Angeles. Our balance climbed from $14,118 to $17,135, and in January 2006 we maxed out at our $19,000 credit limit. And there were other expenses on other cards: $1,200 in dental work for Patty’s son Ben; $1,600 to rent a beach house the previous year for us and all the children. Granted, the beach house was an embarrassing mistake . . ."
Hmmm. Not exactly scrimping ala'
And as New York Magazine reported, the economics reporter left a few things out, including the fact that his "gogetter" wife had previously declared bankruptcy - twice.
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