Cue the world's smallest violin....

My local paper had a recession sob story about a contractor in Wisconsin who had lost pretty much everything. I was feeling fairly sorry for him until I got to about the fourth paragraph, where it noted that (boo hoo) he had lost his $700,000 home to foreclosure.

Given that it takes somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 per year simply to maintain a home of that size (mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, maintainance, etc..), I think I've got a hunch that "excessive debt" and "covetousness" might have had something to do with the demise of his company and the loss of his home. More or less, the first $100k to $200k in pre-tax income was devoted simply to keeping his home. If you doubt that covetousness can destroy a man, you now know better.