The short story is some rich-bitch making 6 figures was an idiot and overspent for years racking up $100K in debt. She finally wises up and OMG! the debt goes away! Tell us, tell us, how ever did you do it!
She even admits:
“I know now that people get into debt for two primary reasons. Some kind of misfortune happens to them – downsized, going through a divorce, becoming disabled, death of the main breadwinner of the family.
The other group of consumers who can get into trouble are overspenders or poor money managers. I was in that category. I certainly hadn’t learned how to manage money at all. Compounding that problem was that I was an overspender. I had a nice six-figure salary, but I was living as if I was earning seven figures.”
So now through her experiences she is a money coach? For who? Morons like herself who overspent themselves into debt? By doing what?
“At the time my, two older kids, who were 3 and 5, were in a private school that cost $20,000 a year. I took them out of that expensive private school and put them in a less expensive private school that was a third of the cost.”
Ohh, the sacrifices the rich must make! How ever do they do it?
You want to be inspiring? Find a way to get someone out of debt who is scenario #1: “Some kind of misfortune happens to them – downsized, going through a divorce, becoming disabled, death of the main breadwinner of the family.”
Find a way to get rid of $100K in medical bills with an income of $40K while still trying to afford somewhere to live. If you could help these people out then you might be an inspiration.
Getting out of debt by “selling my land in Newark”? Not so inspiring.
Leaving aside the fact that I think most if no all of these ‘self help’ books or course are complete horseshit, I just want to point out that if you have only $100k of debt, you are hardly ‘rich’. RICH folks…as in, the real kind of people with lots of money…wouldn’t even bat an eye at $100k. If you are in debt a mere $100k and it’s a problem that you have to take steps to deal with, then you ain’t ‘rich’.
What are you so vitriolic about, OP? The fact that she was stupid with her money, or the fact that she earns a higher salary than you? At least she learned from her mistakes.
I think it’s annoyance at her out-of-touchness, that she thinks she’s done something earthshaking and ground-breaking by learning to live on her very large salary, by scaling her frivolous spending back. It’s good that she’d doing this, I agree, but it doesn’t really compare with most people’s financial reality.
I gotta say, I’m heartened by the notion that someone learned from her mistakes. Yeah, she did some stupid shit, and got herself in trouble. Lots of people do this. What makes her different is that she was able to get herself OUT of trouble, and she was capable of learning how not to do that again. Unfortunately, lots of people DON’T do this. I don’t know if they aren’t capable of learning, or if they just don’t want to put forth the effort. I lean towards the idea that it’s usually a combination.
I’m at the tail end of getting rid of $60000 in medical debt with an income that started at $18000. Sadly, the way I’ve done it was… to start making more money. Also not inspiring, since it’s really not a valid option for most people.
I’m more annoyed that there are A LOT of people out there in financial straits who got there 1) through circumstances beyond their control (injury, layoff, medical, death, etc.) and/or 2) Don’t have the income to keep their head above water much less pay down debt.
These are the people who need help, hope, and guidance. I’d like to hear an inspiring story about someone who dug themselves out under those type circumstances. Not about someone who overspent on excesses and had the monetary means to reverse it. Whoop-de-doo!
Hampshire, I read that same story this morning on Yahoo! and had the exact same reaction as you.
My favorite part was when she got divorced, she just left a bunch of the stuff she bought in cardboard boxes, including new clothes with the tags still on them. You know a good way to get out of debt? Return those unused clothes to the store. Or sell them on consignment, or eBay. She sounded like an utter twat to me.
And I’ll nomite Yahoo! “News” for pitting as well - they’re so desperate to fill up space on their website that they’ll run almost any stupid, unhelpful story. You’ll see tons of stories from so-called experts - rarely have these stories given me any actual insight!
Dave Ramsey has made a career out of his recovery from debt, and his story is not all that different from the woman in the Yahoo link. I don’t personally listen to him, never having had a debt problem myself, but he’s got thousands of devoted followers.
So lots of people think this kind of thing IS inspiring.
But she still had 33,000 per year just to pay towards her debt plus whatever to handle her regular bills and expenses. Plenty of people have fraction of that as a total income.
I am reminded of a Suze Orman story where she profiled how a twenty-something was able to invest responsibly for retirement on income of only $7000 a month.