You would have to be a very superficial person to value the contribution of a person, especially a mother, only by the financial compensation that accrues to it.
God bless this couple. They must have loved one another and their children very much. They were foolish to accrue all that debt, they were wise and prudent to crawl out.
I had a similar situation. I made (and make) more than enough to live on, but I left our finances up to may wife because she was a bookkeeper before we were married. After ten years our finances were so screwed up, and we had so much debt, that I had to take over. It only took a few months to get to the point were we could we pay our bills and live reasonably, and after about four years, we were actually “flush” enough to add an attached garage and buy new cars. We would never have done that if I had left my wife in charge of our finances.
Read what I wrote again. I didn’t say that what a woman does at home is not important, I just pointed out that it was oddly worded since “workforce” is commonly understood to be the “outside” employment for which one is compensated. Perhaps you don’t grasp that piece of semantics.
And I don’t kindly to your insult, either.
I’m with you. Why posters here have to trash and diminish this couple’s achievement is beyond me.
How did they incur that much debt? One charge at a time. I’m not being flippant. She answers the question in the article. Like so many families, they lived beyond their means and covered daily life with plastic. They had a skewed view of what necessities are. It’s amazing what happens when we experience a real paradigm shift in our thinking. The interviewer mentions “reasonable” temptations. She responds “Needs and wants are very subjective”. A lot of power in that simple response.
As someone who has gone through something similar, I can guarantee they will never go back into debt. We had a small business go belly up, owed the KGB..er..IRS, and state taxes. Had a couple of car loans, medical, etc. No credit cards, thank goodness. That totaled north of 100K. We had one income of less than 50K. We paid it off in about 4 years (thanks Dave!) and will NEVER go back. Our income more than doubled as we worked through the debt. I truly believe that God sees someone being good stewards and provides more resources to manage.