A Man, an RV, and a Plan to Get You Out of Debt

Once upon a time there was a woman named Karyn who wanted people who read the Internet to give her money to help her pay off her extensive credit card debt. Karyn was Too Cute to Fail, and she was not offering much of anything in return (“If you help me, then someday someone might help you when you need it”), instead making the bold claim that “Together we can make a difference!” — that difference being entirely localized to Karyn and her credit card debt.

This was back in 2002, and because we all spent like madcap heiresses, Karyn soon paid off her debt, the nation heaved a sigh of relief that we were able to single-handedly save a blonde lady, and Karyn repaid the world by writing novels not nearly as good as Persuasion.

Before The Fall — the housing bubble, the economic crisis, the global economic crisis — personal responsibility was a quaint idea, like knitting or making your own soap, that only surfaced as subtext to stories about Americans’ overwhelming reliance on personal debt. After The Fall, while we’re still working out our blame-pointing fingers, we appear to be more inspired by accounts of personal accountability. People who embody the American Fantasy of pulling-up-by-our-bootstraps. People like Adam Baker, and his website, Man vs. Debt.

Baker is currently touring the country in an RV on a Personal Finance Tour, with the stress on “personal.” Baker and his wife Courtney realized, after the birth of their first child, that they were too beholden to personal debt. Rather than relying on the kindness of strangers to just hand over money, they relied on the interest of strangers in buying all of their crap. (That’s Baker’s word, not an editorial comment.) Gathering everything not essential, they shuffled it off to lucky eBay patrons and others, and were able to pay off their debt and finance a trip abroad as a family.

Baker’s mantra — “Sell Your Crap” — is an interesting form of minimalism and one often overlooked in a consumer culture that extols the virtues of owning lots of disposable stuff. The tour he’s currently on is promoting the idea of consumers pledging to pay off $1,000 in personal debt. Baker has said, “It’s a big number to some, a small number to others, but it’s a number that everybody can achieve if they really focus on it.”