yay!

Liquefying our personal and national balance sheets is this generation's great war.

While I can applaud the commitment to reduce their debt, if you check out the annual debt graph this couple had reduced their debt by half back during the summer, and then it shot up again two months later to just under $30K.

That's a rollercoaster I never want to ride.

Still, they're down to $11K today. Which is still a criminal CC debt load, but a step in the right direction...

Of course they had to make 30K over essentials to do this. The problem (and I faced this a decade ago) is that people who fall that far behind rarely make enough to pay it down. I had $3500 in debt that somehow turned into nearly $10k in debt (miss a payment, they lower your limit, then hit you with overlimit fees when the late payment fee hits your account.). When you arent making much more then rent/food/expenses each month its hard to get out of that hole.

Newsworthy. Thanks. Only 301,139,945 more personal finance status reports in the US to go.

[www.google.com]

I guess those Google ads really can pay off!

So, they can't help any of their 6 kids with college, they've been wallowing in debt for years and they're struggling to get out of the debt they're in, but they feel they need to ask their pastor's permission to reduce or discontinue their tithe?

Priorities.

And let's not forget they had their teenage children work odd jobs to pay off their PARENTS debt. And they were still paying for cell phones and tithing.

I am so glad my parents didn't treat me as a source of income when I was in high school.

Good for them!

...

Holy shit I hope that's not me someday.

My spouse and I (25, 30 respectively), went from 32k debt last summer to 14k at the time of this post. So it's possible for people who don't splurge ...

shit that's still a lot of debt. unless that's their mortgage. anyway still, congrats all around!

@ADismalScience: augh

Thank you for mentioning us! :)