Lessons From Teresa Giudice’s Bankruptcy

August 30th, 2010 by Reed Allmand

If you’ve been watching the news and following the celebrity blogs then you’ve probably heard that Teresa Giudice is taking a lot of heat for spending $60,000 on home furnishings after filing bankruptcy.  Her bankruptcy attorney is supposedly defending the purchases saying that the money spent was from income earned after the bankruptcy fling and therefore could be legitimately spent for necessities such as furnishing her home.

“That was the money she earned as an advance for her book Skinny Italian,” her attorney Jim Kridel tells PEOPLE. “Since she earned it after the filing, she was absolutely free to spend it.”

But many people were shocked and upset about Giudice’s splurge not so much because she may have broken bankruptcy laws, but because they felt that she was spending lavishly while in bankruptcy.  This is the deal, Giudice lives a lifestyle that requires lavish spending and that lifestyle is probably one of the things that drove her into bankruptcy.  How many of us live a lifestyle where we live beyond our means, drive up debts we can’t pay and eventually need to file bankruptcy?  Bankruptcy is offering Teresa Giudice and her husband an opportunity to get a fresh financial start; but she cannot successfully take advantage of that opportunity if she is not willing to change her spending habits after bankruptcy. The Giudice family must make the effort to drastically pull back on their spending and abandon the idea of living a luxurious lifestyle if they cannot afford it. Giudice and many other less wealthy individuals are seduced by the idea of appearing to live in the lap of luxury even if it means they will squander the second chance that bankruptcy affords them. Don’t allow the ego boost that a faux luxurious lifestyle provides to ruin you second chance after bankruptcy.