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"!

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"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.

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May you always have..Love to Share, Health to Spare, and Friends that Care!

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.