Anyway, I wasn’t 140K in debt (I was a student and was slowly gathering 30K in student loan debt, tho), and I wasn’t eating out at all, and I wasn’t married, etc etc, so I know my situation and hers were very different. But reading the post reminded me how easy it is to judge others’ actions negatively. I do it myself all the time. Every time I hear a story like hers, I have to spoon myself up a good dose of humility and remind myself that I am not in her shoes.

… And thank goodness

Everybody, in the western world, is living like a King compared to someone just 100 years ago.

Life is as easy as it’s ever been. Maybe that’s the problem.

I question the suggestion of moving to Seattle. Yes, the tech sector is strong up here and he could probably find an excellent job. However, our housing market is not “booming” as she says; its collapsing.

Of course, in Seattle she could get a job in Starbucks’ corporate office.

I was absolutely flabbergasted reading their stories. More than anything else, I can’t help but wonder why the banks would let them continue to spend after a certain amount, say $50K on the card. You would think after the first $50K, the banks would say “D’ya think you could pay us some of that back first before we lend you any more money?”

I still have that tendency but I have cut advertising from my view and now I don’t “need” new things very often. I even resisted the allure of the iphone which was pretty good for me I think. No TV = best decision ever. Even without commercials the level of marketing and promotion of “the lifestyle that you should be living” really ruins perspective on reality.

Cheaper isn’t always better and often the cost are stripped down on something important, and the ecological costs can be a lot higher because of this.

I know it’s important to stay out of debt, try to live frugally and everything, but please, keep in mind that here in the western world, we have an opportunity to think about something else than money, too, every once in a while.

I’d like to give this advice to everyone: Buy organic!

Even though I’m cheap by nature and not a keeping-up-with-the-Jones’ type, I’m amazed at how easily money flows out of my account.* It costs a lot of money to maintain what Americans think of as a middle class (or even lower middle class) lifestyle.

*I have managed to stem the flow a bit by direct-depositing money to a high interest savings account.

JD — Just wanted to agree with you 100% about skipping advertising to reduce unnecessary expenses. I think our DVR expenses have been repaid 5-10x because we don’t watch commercials anymore. Best of all, our kids don’t end up asking us endlessly for stuff they saw in the commercials.

Suze has some tough love for Felice. “I personally don’t believe you’re selfish. I think you’re selfless. I think because you don’t have a self, because you don’t know who you are…that is why you’re doing these things that you are doing. You are just simply trying to find yourself,” she says. “You are trying to define yourself by the things that you buy rather than you define the things around you. And you keep buying new and new things because you can’t find the definition of yourself.”

Wow. I’ll admit I identify with that statement, although I’m not amassing insane credit card debt. I now pay my credit card bill in full each month. But I understand trying to figure out who you are and thinking that projecting a certain image will get you there. I did this quite a bit during college because I wasn’t really happy, and the habits continued up until about a year ago. It was then, three years into a solid relationship, that I realized I was content. I had everything I needed in life already. Family, friends, a good job, a wonderful fiance…it’s like I didn’t realize I was already happy and fulfilled until that moment, and my need for *things* suddenly subsided.

I still have to talk myself out of purchases, and I’m not always successful, but I am so much more level-headed about it now. I have other goals that are more important.

Then they choose to spend $4,430 more on housing than the 1970′s couple, leaving only $1,070 of ‘extra’ income.

My math must be way off. I can’t imagine anyone would work and put their children in day care all year long just to earn an extra thousand bucks. Maybe it’s not that life is harder now than in 1970, perhaps it’s doing the math that’s really harder.

I don’t think she’s typical, though. Most of the people I know who are in massive debt got that way by over-purchasing housing, not by losing control at the mall. So, my personal observations correlate with Warren’s and Tyagi’s conclusions. That said, I live in flyover country where most people aren’t flush with HELOC money. Prices here rose just fast enough to be out of whack with local salaries, not enough to fuel a drunken spending spree the way they did on the coasts.

The Two-Income Trap strongly influenced my family’s decision to move from the west coast to the interior of the country. Relocating gave us a way to reduce our housing costs and increase our standard of living, while continuing to save for retirement and college expenses for our children.

Anyway, I just wanted to provide a counter-point. Thanks for a thought-provoking post…and blog!

Anyway, Suze also told a guy on the show that he should burn all his DVDs and sell the originals. Isn’t that illegal in the US? I was flabbergasted.