It’s too bad they crammed so much into one hour. And I didn’t see it, so I don’t know if this was mentioned, but the Economides have made quite a bit of money from being debt-free: http://www.homeeconomiser.com/index.html

If you’re looking for a real review of the 20/20 show (read the 4 parts of it here, here, here, aaaand here) then maybe you should read Boston Gal’s, or No Limit Ladies, or Blogging Away Debt, or Frugal Law……

The spender family were such a shame. Their unwillingness to live within their means and stupid financial decisions cost them their house. What in the world were they thinking buying not one, but two timeshares, as investments for gods sake. Even 10 minutes of research on the internet would have shown how foolish that was. Timeshares almost always go down in value and usually are very difficult to get out of. How could they be so stupid to part with over $100K without doing a few minutes of research? Hopefully they will wise up in the future.

I salute the saver family! I would have to be on hard times in order to live that disciplined a life style. It just goes to show the power of information and planning.

I felt 20/20 did a really piss poor job of covering the debt collectors. Certainly they showed the outrage, but it would have been great if they spent just a couple of minutes covering what legal debt collectors must do, cannot due, and how you should deal with it.

I strongly urge anyone who may be dealing with collectors to read the Fair Credit Collection Practices Act. It’s actually a very short piece of legislation that’s written in simple english that takes maybe 10 minutes to read. It covers exactly what debt collectors are allowed to do, what they are not allowed to do, and what they are required by law to do. An informed debtor could quickly shut down those abusive collectors by quoting the law to them, and telling them exactly what action will be taken against the collector if they continue.

As far as TV goes, I AM looking forward to Dave Ramsey’s upcoming series. That one, unlike most primetime offerings, will have my attention.

I ask this question very hypothetically, Why would people get mad or angry at us, when: 1) They bought the products 2) They took delivery of the products and consumed them in the process of doing business ? But yet, it happens everyday.

I say this because people complain about prices going up, businesses have to raise prices because when people purchase items on credit and then do not pay, it costs everyone a lot of more money. What people do when they do this, is the equivalent of going to the grocery store, filling up the cart with groceries and leaving without paying, then getting mad when someone calls expecting payment.

I agree that there are some unscrupulous debt collectors out there, they give those of us who are honest collectors a bad rap, but no one ever seems to address the fact that some businesses and consumers are at fault, etc.