Oprah show, I didn't think they tried very hard to pay down debt

[my4littlebuffaloes]

The first couple made something like $150,000 a year, if I remember correctly. They also added a full time job for her and 2 part time jobs for him and they only paid down $50,000 in debt. The extra jobs alone I am guessing amounted to that. Did they cut any expenses or their lifestyle at all? Watching it, it just seemed like with the help they got and they income they have, they should have been able to pay down more debt.

the second couple made almost $100,000, increased their income by $19,000 and only paid down their debt by $26,000. So out of their regular income they paid down $7,000, that doesn't seem like much for such a high income.

Now these numbers would be huge for a person on an average income, but all couples involved had huge incomes.

and the third couple, I can't believe they blew it like that! How can you blow such an opportunity! How can you screw things up that badly? It was shocking to watch!

I am happy those couple were able to pay down some debt though.

As for the people they pulled from the audience. The financial woman had the 1 couple putting $2500 a MONTH towards savings, when they had a ton of debt to pay off. yes retirement is important, but think of how much money they are losing in interest with such huge amounts of debt? I didn't agree with her approach at all.

What did everyone else think?

[Backtoreality]

My DH and I watched it together. He said the same thing, "We could do better with an income like that" I had to remind him that we are in the mid-west. You people on either coast have to have incomes like that anymore(or so it seems).
And wow, the people who increased their debt were SAD. So they spent the money from the house plus!!

[Valerie in WA]

I didn't see the show, but I do live on the West Coast, near Seattle (think Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks & Amazon.com).

Our crappy little 60 year old, 2 bed, 1 bath, 866 square foot, no garage house is currently worth $300,000.

An average 3 bed, 1.5 bath house with 2 car garage, around 10-20 years old, costs about $450,000. And that's living in an out-lying area where your commute is 15 miles each way.

Because traffic is so bad (4th in the nation, I believe), you don't get highway mileage on that commute, you get city mileage. Gas two days ago was $2.80/gallon.

$100,000 doesn't go very far.

I'll be frank about our finances: We grossed a bit under $100,000 last year. $10,000 went to self-employment taxes. $18,000 went to legitimate business expenses (mostly insurance). Another $10,000 went to medical (gotta love self-employment). We donated about $2000 to charity.

Our monthly mortgage is $1800. Car insurance is $150/month. I feed us for about $450/month. Gasoline runs about $350/month. Utilities are $300 (power, water, internet, phone, etc).

I budget $90/ month to eat out twice as a family and another $40 per month for Family Fun (bowling or something). My pocket money is $40. Dh's is about $150, but there's not anything I can do about that.

As far as debt: we pay $425 on one car, $325 on the other, leaving $575 for the small remaining cc debt (later to be snowballed onto the car payments. So in a typical year, not including mortgage, I pay down about $8,000 in principle.

The rest of the money goes to homeschool curriculum, sports & music lessons for the kids, minor home repairs (which my contractor-dh does on his own), garden supplies, new socks & underwear (because other clothes come from the thrift store), and a bit for gifts.

I'm sorry to wander off topic, and I realize that I'm being a bit defensive, but it seemed like you thought noone with an income of $100,000 should have debt or financial problems. My purpose is just to give you another perspective of where the money goes.

[Ani]

I didn't see the show, but I do live on the West Coast, near Seattle (think Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks & Amazon.com).

Our crappy little 60 year old, 2 bed, 1 bath, 866 square foot, no garage house is currently worth $300,000.

An average 3 bed, 1.5 bath house with 2 car garage, around 10-20 years old, costs about $450,000. And that's living in an out-lying area where your commute is 15 miles each way.

Because traffic is so bad (4th in the nation, I believe), you don't get highway mileage on that commute, you get city mileage. Gas two days ago was $2.80/gallon.

$100,000 doesn't go very far.

I'll be frank about our finances: We grossed a bit under $100,000 last year. $10,000 went to self-employment taxes. $18,000 went to legitimate business expenses (mostly insurance). Another $10,000 went to medical (gotta love self-employment). We donated about $2000 to charity.

Our monthly mortgage is $1800. Car insurance is $150/month. I feed us for about $450/month. Gasoline runs about $350/month. Utilities are $300 (power, water, internet, phone, etc).

I budget $90/ month to eat out twice as a family and another $40 per month for Family Fun (bowling or something). My pocket money is $40. Dh's is about $150, but there's not anything I can do about that.

As far as debt: we pay $425 on one car, $325 on the other, leaving $575 for the small remaining cc debt (later to be snowballed onto the car payments. So in a typical year, not including mortgage, I pay down about $8,000 in principle.

The rest of the money goes to homeschool curriculum, sports & music lessons for the kids, minor home repairs (which my contractor-dh does on his own), garden supplies, new socks & underwear (because other clothes come from the thrift store), and a bit for gifts.

I'm sorry to wander off topic, and I realize that I'm being a bit defensive, but it seemed like you thought noone with an income of $100,000 should have debt or financial problems. My purpose is just to give you another perspective of where the money goes.

Exactly! You have to take cost of living and current living expenses into account. Those with high incomes can also have high bills and expenses. Plus, these families have not been smart in the past, so their minimum payments on things etc could eat up enough of their income that they don't have a ton for debt reduction. Some of them were not even keeping themselves afloat before.

I applaud those that were able to make positive changes in their lives. The couple that did not -- what a waste they've made for themselves.

[my4littlebuffaloes]

Valerie, you are very right, I did not take into consideration a high cost of living. In fact I only remember where 1 of the families lived and that was in Indiana, so I don't think cost of living factored in for them, but possibly for the other families. And as you pointed out, $100,000 doesn't go very far if you have a high mortgage (sometimes unavoidable), and other cost of living factors.

I did not mean to offend anyone, I honestly didn't even think about that factor at all.

[3-boys-4-me]

myfourlittlebuffaloes;
Is that your daughter in the photo? Good Golly Ms. Molly! She is SO cute! Everytime I see your avatar I just smile. She's priceless.

[my4littlebuffaloes]

Thanks Lisa, yes that is my 2 year old. That was the only time she has let me put her hair in pigtails and she just had this devilish look on her face. She is a pistol.

[McD]

I know this is off topic, but can someone help me make an avatar with a picture of my son?

[staceyy]

I think the first two couples did very well. Remember a lot of their income goes to taxes and because they are paying down significant debt, they don't have a lot left to work with.

[chisgran]

I would have been really surprised if the 3rd couple had reduced any debt & it didn't surprise me that they had went up in debt. The mom is the key in that family. To me, it seems like she thinks she is hot stuff. She doesn't care much about her family's future, just about what she can do, have & be today. For someone that's broke, she seemed really smug to me. Really sad because we'll be the ones having to pay for her lack of financial smarts in the future when we're taxed into oblivion. I would have rather seen them use another family that really needed and wanted the help of a financial advisor. So many other people could have been helped.

I thought that some of them could have done better but then I would have liked to see the cost of living included in the discussion. That would have helped me to put some things into perspective as to what they were dealing with.

[kaykwilts]

I didn't see the show, but I do live on the West Coast, near Seattle (think Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks & Amazon.com).

Our crappy little 60 year old, 2 bed, 1 bath, 866 square foot, no garage house is currently worth $300,000.

An average 3 bed, 1.5 bath house with 2 car garage, around 10-20 years old, costs about $450,000. And that's living in an out-lying area where your commute is 15 miles each way.

Because traffic is so bad (4th in the nation, I believe), you don't get highway mileage on that commute, you get city mileage. Gas two days ago was $2.80/gallon.

$100,000 doesn't go very far.

I'll be frank about our finances: We grossed a bit under $100,000 last year. $10,000 went to self-employment taxes. $18,000 went to legitimate business expenses (mostly insurance). Another $10,000 went to medical (gotta love self-employment). We donated about $2000 to charity.

Our monthly mortgage is $1800. Car insurance is $150/month. I feed us for about $450/month. Gasoline runs about $350/month. Utilities are $300 (power, water, internet, phone, etc).

I budget $90/ month to eat out twice as a family and another $40 per month for Family Fun (bowling or something). My pocket money is $40. Dh's is about $150, but there's not anything I can do about that.

As far as debt: we pay $425 on one car, $325 on the other, leaving $575 for the small remaining cc debt (later to be snowballed onto the car payments. So in a typical year, not including mortgage, I pay down about $8,000 in principle.

The rest of the money goes to homeschool curriculum, sports & music lessons for the kids, minor home repairs (which my contractor-dh does on his own), garden supplies, new socks & underwear (because other clothes come from the thrift store), and a bit for gifts.

I'm sorry to wander off topic, and I realize that I'm being a bit defensive, but it seemed like you thought noone with an income of $100,000 should have debt or financial problems. My purpose is just to give you another perspective of where the money goes.

Wow! Seems like the COL where you live is extremely high. Have ya'll ever thought about moving somewhere where the COL is not so high. With a salary like that you would be considered doing very well where I live in north Louisiana. People with salaries like that live in 3,000 square foot homes.

[kaykwilts]

I also thought Mrs. Widlands had that smug look on her face. I loved it that Oprah confronted her and told her that it was a case that she didn't want to do it. I hope that they do more updates in the future. I am curious to see if this marriage survives.

[Valerie in WA]

Jennifer, you didn't offend me - I just got my feathers ruffled a bit.

Kay, but we wouldn't make that much money in Lousiana. Our plan is that when dh retires, we will sell our (paid for, by that time) house and buy something in a less expensive community.

Here is a document showing RN wages by state: http://www.ga.unc.edu/NCCN/research/...nt%20table.pdf Particularly look at the far right column, were WA is 2nd in the nation.

My dh is a contractor doing commercial tenant improvements. He's got a really sweet deal going, as a sub-contractor. He wouldn't leave that - and I wouldn't want him to.

[chisgran]

Kay,

I like that Oprah called her on it, too. It will also be interesting to see how her kids turn out. If those girls go to college (the way they spend), those parents will really be broke. That show was interesting, tho.

[lanford66]

I agree with what everyone else was saying. It completely shocked me when they were that much more in debt than before. You could tell when they started this that she wasn't going to make it. She just had that "attitude" and it seemed that whatever her girls wanted, they got. To me that just creates an even worse problem for those girls. What happens when they get on their own? Imagine what kind of debt they are going to create!!!! I would love to have a follow-up in about 3-5 years to see if the marriage makes it and what happens with the girls.