I was catching up on some blog reading this evening, and came across an article on Frugal Zeitgeist’s site that kept me reading until the very end. She included a link to a story about an economics reporter (of all people!) who, despite his impressive background in covering all sorts of financial ups and downs, got himself into a predicament when he stretched way too far to buy a house that cost nearly half a million dollars. At the time, his take home pay was $2777/month. And his mortgage payment came to $2500/month. He followed it up with one bad decision after another, and the article reads like a cautionary tale about what not to do – EVER.
FZ pointed out that she has a hard time drumming up much sympathy for this fellow, considering the decisions he made over the last few years. I agree, although I do think that it took a lot of courage for him to write such a personal article and put it out there for the world to see. Hopefully it will have the effect of reinforcing the idea that we all need to be living within our means, and will keep another family from ending up in the same boat.
Jane says
Thanks for being a role model for all of us “out there” who want to follow in your example. Right now we too are debt free. However, we haven’t yet bought a house. There used to be a lot of keeping up with the Jones in my life. With blogs like yours, I am now working to keep in step with the Frugals!
frugal zeitgeist says
Thanks for the link! I just wrote an update. Turns out that he left some pretty major information out of his story and it might change how you perceive it. . .
jennydecki says
That’s just….wow.
We got our house six years ago (stated income mortgage) and we had to jump through so many hoops and were basically approved by the skin of our teeth.
Come to find out we then paid our mortgage by the skin of our teeth for five years before getting to a place where the mortgage wasn’t our worst nightmare every month.
They do that for a reason. And really, who NEEDS a $500,000 house? Seriously? I mean other than that family with 18 kids. But hey, I shop at Aldi for my organic produce (it’s all organic, and cheap lol) so maybe they know something about livin’ the good life I don’t.
But it sure doesn’t seem that way.