A friend of mine (makes 90k a yr) cannot even afford the 200 dollar plane ticket to fly back for christmas. She is 60 k in credit card debt and upside down in an interest only loan for a mortgage on an overpriced condo. IDIOT!

She needs to straighten out her priorities for sure! She should've had a mother like mine, who drilled into my head at a very young age, sayings like, "money doesn't grow on trees"!

__________________
"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~Immanual Kant~

Sounds like she needs to consider selling her Condo, even if at a loss, before
prices drop even further, as they are expected to do. Condos here hadn't
been selling until the $8000 Gov gift to either new buyers or repeat buyers
who haven't owned property for 3 yrs. Now, 8 have sold in 3 months. The
program has been extended until end of April 2010.
Then she needs to pay off as much of her credit card debt as possible, put
herself on a strict budget, continuing to pay down her credit card debt.
Until She takes some drastic steps no one can help her.

That is what got her in trouble in the first place. Available credit. I think her view was / is to live as high on the hog as possible and when the crash comes, try bankruptcy. What pisses me off is I told her 10 yrs ago when she started making great money: spend 50 bucks a month for a 100 dollar savings bond and throw 50 a month into a mutual fund, preferably a balanced fund. Had she listened to me, she would have seen how 10 yrs of 100 bucks a month would have grown. But NO! She went way beyond her means from day one and I am sure since she moved to FL in 06, there has not been one single month in which her debt load went down.