What's the rent and when are you vacating? Also--good thing youre getting this worked out while you are still single. It's even worse when the children are asking you if you could just buy that one little toy. Once I told my husband that we only had 127 smackers to last the summer (it was May!), and he said, "Let's go to Target." Fortunately, we didn't have any credit cards. Good luck!

That's it? Quit your whining. You couldn't manage to pay your minimum due on that? That's sad. And pathetic. And this article is completely useless. Try living with 30K in debt. I still manage to make my minimum payments. And I didn't have to see a credit counselor to do it. Nor am I 33. I can't believe Salon paid you to write this sham of an article. Oh, woe is me, I paid for too many lattes at Starbucks. Ridiculous.

I would try Debtors Anonymous. I have about 3.5 times your debt, and I've finally got it under control. The thing about DA is that it forces you to get to the underlying issues, just like with any other addiction. Yes, you have a payment plan, a "diet" but what about sustaining it? Many people just go back into debt, just like many people gain the weight back. But hey, good luck! I know how damn hard it is to be paying credit card debt.

I trawl around a lot of internet forums, and Salon.com has some of the nastiest commenters around. So I'm sure you'll be flamed eight ways to Saturday for this column. I can see all the smug posters now who have never had a credit card and blah blah blah.

But I just have to say, BTDT. I totally know what you mean about the pile of bills that you mean to get to, but you just never do. For months. And robbing Peter to pay Paul. And no longer being embarrased by your card not going through.

At my worst, I was $12k in the hole. No, it wasn't nearly enough to get me on Maury and no I wasn't buying fancy electronics or sports cars. It's just that it all adds up, and you don't even notice it adding up, and then it just spirals out of control when you don't want to deal with it.

I spent a year paying it off, and though my credit score is still not great, it's getting there. Good luck!

How strange that this should be printed today. This afternoon I negotiated a loan from my dad that will allow my husband and me to pay off the (eek!) $18,500 we owe on credit cards. Maybe now I can start opening the mail again and my stomach won't clench every time the phone rings. We, too, have simply been living above our means and somehow the interest and late fees and over-limit charges and overdraft fees piled up to a huge unfaceable mountain of debt. We're old enough to know better. We're educated enough to know better. The shame of it kept us from confronting the problem. Maybe the total humiliation of having to ask Dad to bail us out will be a reminder to us when it's tempting to order food instead of cooking or to buy just a few more books instead of heading to the library.

I was nodding my head with her until I got to the part where she broker her arm patting herself on the back for borrowing $2000 from daddy. I guess that's 2 months of no-shit effort... ? I applaud the honesty, but... for those of us who don't have a daddy with money, this article is of limited value except in the same faux-therapeutic "it isn't just me" sense that she writes about getting from others.

I remember receiving my first credit card in my 20s and caressing it. I had money, I thought. Hundreds of dollars that I wouldn't have to earn until later.

Credit isn't an asset. It isn't even a thing. Solid financial footing is based on balance sheet living - that means money in savings is an asset, not available credit.

Bankruptcy is a very good option for many people. Contrary to myth, Congress didn't take it away in 2005. It doesn't "torpedo" the credit of a person who is already living beyond her means -- sadly, lenders prefer a bankrupt consumer, who can't file again for a period of years. http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2007/august/081407bankruptcy.html

Two excellent organizations for the Maxed Out consumer to find help are the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (http://www.nacba.org) and, when there have been fraudulent lending practices or harassing and deceptive collection practices, the National Association of Consumer Attorneys (http://www.naca.net). Good luck.

And my credit card debt is $0.

It's funny, I always wonder how people do it, how people live these lavish lifestyles where they go out a lot and buy I-Pods. We have a very decent household income, but we always feel like we're just scraping by. Granted, we have some big expenses, but still... all those little things, we do without them.

Now I know how people do it. They do the Becky Sharp thing.

I kinda feel resentful in a way.

Otherwise, good article on a touchy subject. I also had to resort to parental assistance to begin paying off my 4-figure credit card debt, and I think that was the kick in the pants I needed to start spending more responsibly. While my mom was glad to help, I sure felt crappy having to ask.

As somebody who got decked with the double-whammy of no-fault debt (job loss AND medical crisis), I can only say that I wish I had the luxury of solving things the way Sarah did (not to downplay Sarah's situation - I'm not going to invalidate what she's gone through, which is considerable - I can identify with the fear and reluctance to grow up! The fear of looking into the future is what led me to recklessly take out private student loans from multiple lenders, which I can't consolidate.)

I've spent countless hours calling and recalling various debt relief agencies and counselors, all of whom referred me back to the people I'd been referred by. All of them said that they could help me if my debt was brought on by overspending, rather than by medical debt. Upshot: according to the experts, I don't have any choice but to declare bankruptcy. However, I can't declare bankruptcy on my $75,000 of student loans from four different lenders ... nor can I afford the exorbitant, painfully ironic cost of being bankrupt (evidently, bankruptcy only for rich people). Furthermore, I can't even figure out how much I owe. With hospitals, pretty much every person who looks at you or even reads your name on a chart bills separately, with the result being that I have mountains of bills that all look like they're from the same place, but have different numbers on them. Many of these bills haven't even shown up on my credit report yet. It's a big, scary, confusing mess.

So, I'm getting calls from creditors an average of three times a day. I've been insulted, yelled at, told to get a job (after seven months of frenzied, painful, degrading,and demoralizing searching, I can't tell you how helpful that suggestion was), and told that I never should have accepted medical treatment in the first place if I knew I couldn't pay for it (yes, really).

I know I need to get this under control, but most days I just want to hide in a dark hole and pray that a Democrat gets elected next fall, so there's at least a slight chance that things might get better - if not for me, than for all the people who are lined up to get their godsmack and don't know it yet.