Swing and a miss.

From today's "Ask Amy":

Dear Amy: My beautiful wife of seven years is a shopaholic. She literally can't go into a store and come out empty-handed.

We have plenty of children and grandchildren between us, so there are lots of potential recipients of her generosity. What complicates the matter is that she's the bigger breadwinner in the family. She earns about $15,000 more a year than I do. She works very hard, putting in lots of overtime, and I appreciate that.

After six years of major financial struggles, we're finally emerging from debt. I'm three months away from paying off my $42,000 in credit card debt. But as quickly as I pay off mine, she continues piling up her own. She has about 10 credit cards with around $10,000 on them.

I hate to see us buried in debt again.

What can I do without rocking a beautiful marriage? And before your readers suggest I suck it up to allow her the luxuries, that's not possible. I drive a 10-year-old bashed-in pickup truck with 150,000 miles on it. I need dentures and new glasses. And I'm no slacker. I've been with the same company for 36 years.

If she were a drinker, smoker or gambler, that would be one thing. But she's a wonderful woman whose only vice is shopping.

—Buried in Debt

Dear Buried: First, congratulations on your own debt diet. You see how good it feels to finally emerge from debt.

It doesn't matter that your wife makes more money—a higher income doesn't justify her overspending. I read recently that many companies are cutting back on overtime because of the soft economy—your wife's extra income could disappear overnight.

You two need to commit to debt counseling. A counselor could help your wife see the long-term impact of today's choices.

I really like the work Suze Orman has done to educate and encourage people to control their spending practices. Her latest book is "Women & Money: Owning the Power To Control Your Destiny (2007, Spiegel & Grau).

Isn't "Buried in Debt's" last paragraph a scream plea for Amy to give weight to what's really going on here (notwithstanding his first sentence)? And instead of doing that, she completely whiffs. Well, okay, maybe not completely, but she never makes solid contact with the ball, either.

The dude wants to hear that compulsive shopping is as much a problem and an addiction as alcoholism, drug addiction, compulsive gambling, nicotine addiction, etc. And instead of acknolwedging that, Amy talks about debt counseling services.

Oy.


Thank you, Bucky. I knew you'd see things my way.