7 Roads to Financial Ruin

Leo Tolstoy famously wrote in "Anna Karenina," a novel that culminates in an equally famous suicide, that "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

When families are unhappy because of their finances, however, they've typically chosen one of a relatively small number of paths to get there.

That became abundantly clear Sept. 12 when MSN Money invited readers to post their debt and credit questions to the Your Money message board as part of "Get Out of Debt Day." Although the posts ranged all over the financial map, those in the most serious trouble often committed one or more of the following acts of financial suicide:

Carrying credit card debt

Carrying credit card balances is not the norm in America, as I wrote in "The truth about credit card debt." More than half of U.S. households have no credit card debt, and only 7.2% carried balances of $10,000 or more, according to the latest Federal Reserve survey.

Yet four- and five-figure credit card debts were scarily common among the Get Out of Debt Day posters. Many of those who had significant credit card debt were already behind on payments or dealing with collectors. Even those who were paying on time had suffered the consequences of bloated debt.

Poster Bobbie Pittsburg said he and his wife have $50,000 in credit card debt after a two-year stint of unemployment while putting four kids through college. Their high debt loads and previous trouble making payments were playing havoc with their credit scores and their plans to downsize to another home.