| Saturday, October 10, 2009 |
| Hodding talks to Marketplace about his no-spend month |
The Marketplace.org story: A month of getting by on nothing interviews Hodding Carter who had been documenting his family's extreme frugal journey in Gourmet Magazine until the magazine folded earlier this week. While the interviewer Tess get's caught up on Hodding's no-spend month, she also gets him to talk a bit about his next steps now that his job is gone. Carter: No, I think it would sort of get a little more even after a while. But it made Lisa and me both realize that we didn't have to keep doing everything the way we've done it our whole lives and the way everyone else was. And that there was a way to make this work. I think we're going to actually keep doing this at least for the next couple of years, just to see if it does help us get rid of the rest of the debt. When Hodding started blogging about his family for Gourmet in February 2009 he admitted to years of overspending and the result - $75,000 in credit card debt (he also has a mortgage debt of $245,000). At the time he and his wife combined made about $40,000 a year.
Since reading that I have been curious how much, if any, of his debt they had managed to chip away while learning to live within their means. It appears that they have been bringing those debt levels down which is good news.
Hodding and his family are certainly not the first to figure out that they are way over their heads in debt and have to make radical changes to their lifestyle and relationship with money to correct and rectify the situation. Unfortunately, in the grand tradition of writers seeking a frugal way out of the debt trap, he will mostly be saved not by the backyard garden, hypermiling in the family car, or denying himself the daily coffee shop visit, but by the book deal. Not that the book deal is a bad thing. You can see it as increasing income to battle debt. My beef with this is that the writers don't talk about it. Instead, they leave you with the impression that you too might be able to dig your family out of a huge pile of credit card debt by putting in a backyard chicken coop (for example).
But I am trying not to be too critical of Hodding and his family. Unlike the No Impact Man (Colin Beavan and his family) almost stunt-like year long experiment of frugal living, Hodding's family had no choice but to embrace the radically frugal life. While No Impact Man can choose to go back to a more wasteful life now that his year is over, Hodding really does not have that choice. The book deal may help wipe out a major portion of his credit card debt, but will it also pay off the mortgage? Pay college tuition for four children? Replace the ever shrinking income opportunities from freelance writing assignments? Fund his retirement accounts?
- HoddingCarter.com |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 8:52 AM *
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| 5 Comments: |
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When I see such disparate debt vs. income amounts, it makes me wonder how some folks don't notice that they're living beyond their means until it's too late. $75K in CC debt is insane -- I panicked at $5K and wiped that slate clean a few years ago (we're working off hubby's debt now and should be done by Jan/Feb).
Book deals always sound good in theory, but it will be the advance/sales/residuals that will determine how far out of debt he and his family get. He'll likely have to find other income opportunities to fund things like college tuition and, I can only assume, retirement accounts for him and his wife.
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Hi RainyDaySaver,
In a post Hodding explains how he got into so much debt:
Our average combined income—drum roll, please—for the past decade had been … $41,000. Thanks to those heady days of refinancing, deft shuffling of credit-card debt, deceased grandparents, and a lucrative house sale, however, we had lived, year after year, as if we were making $120,000. Like 70 percent of our fellow Americans, we were living off our VISA cards with no means of paying them off any time soon. As a result, we had $75,000 in credit-card debt and owed $245,000 on a $289,000 house. What had I been thinking?
Kind of sad that he managed to blow through the inheritance and the money he made with a well timed house sale in the bubble years...
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My sympathy to Mr. Carter and his
family, but the article got me to
thinking. Mr. Carter MUST have a
bevy of influential and 'connected'
friends, can't he get a job through
networking?
(and btw, it's a chicken coop, not
coup, unless you're reading "Animal
Farm", LoL)
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Hi Harm,
Chickens are deceptive - they could rule the world if we let them :)
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BG - I think you're being too hard on Colin.. I've been reading his blog for months and he seems like a pretty extraordinary, genuine kind of fella.. there isn't a whiff of indication that he lived out the year in order to write a book to benefit his own family.. his purpose seems quite a bit higher than that..
Anyway, love your blog.. and love Colin's! :)
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When I see such disparate debt vs. income amounts, it makes me wonder how some folks don't notice that they're living beyond their means until it's too late. $75K in CC debt is insane -- I panicked at $5K and wiped that slate clean a few years ago (we're working off hubby's debt now and should be done by Jan/Feb).
Book deals always sound good in theory, but it will be the advance/sales/residuals that will determine how far out of debt he and his family get. He'll likely have to find other income opportunities to fund things like college tuition and, I can only assume, retirement accounts for him and his wife.