Till Debt Do Us Part Marathon

I love TV show marathons--seems sometimes you get more out of shows when you see a bunch in a row. I was channel surfing today and ran across the Till Debt Do Us Part marathon on CNBC. I had never seen that show and decided to tune in. I didn't get to watch full episodes, as I was baking for Christmas dinner tonight, cleaning house, and adding finishing touches to the Christmas tree. But I got enough out of it. Each 30-minute episode featured one or two people who were heavily in debt, and continuing to add to their balances. The financial adviser had a Scottish accent--nice touch--and she laid out a plan for each couple. She would slash their budgets by tremendous amounts and introduced them to the jar system--similar to Dave Ramsey's envelope system--where money for each budget category would be put in a jar, and that is all the money they could use for that purpose that week. One interesting thing she did was to tell each couple if they didn't change their ways, how much more debt they would be in in five years. For many of them, it amounted to $300,000--$500,000. I thought that was a great technique that really brought their problem home to them.