Up to your eyeballs or green with envy?

The correct answer to the question posed in the title above should be neither, but in today's world of easy money and unchecked consumerism, there are few who can honestly answer that way.

If you count yourself as part of that crowd, congratulations.

A story from last weekend by CBS MarketWatch senior columnist Herb Greenberg along with an email received earlier today from Shira Boss, author of Green with Envy, prompt another look at credit, consumption, and the color of some people's faces when they see their neighbors pull up with a new Mercedes.

In this Marketwatch story that also appeared in the Wall Street Journal ($), buying stuff you don't need with money that you don't have doesn't seem to be nearly as much fun as it was just a couple of years ago when the housing boom was still booming.

You may have seen that LendingTree commercial with a happy-go-lucky guy named Stanley Johnson, who brags about his big house, his new car and how "I even belong to the local golf club. How do I do it?" he continues with a big, dumb smile, "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs." Lowering his voice, but still smiling, he adds, "I can barely pay my finance charges." The smile doesn't leave his face as he drives a riding lawn mower, saying, "Somebody help me."
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Few get a closer peek into what is really going on than people like Mr. (Douglas) Ley, who do taxes. As I recently quoted him in a MarketWatch column as saying, "I am shocked by the bad and deteriorating financial condition of many of my clients."

He wasn't referring simply to the "careless tapping" of home-equity loans as though they were ATMs with a bottomless pit or the extensive use of credit cards while paying only the minimum payment. More disturbing, he says, is how some clients have perilously little in taxes withheld by their employers but then wind up with a sharply higher tax hit at year-end because they have resorted to tapping their 401(k)s or individual retirement accounts for living expenses.
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No region is better represented with ready-to-tell stories than Orange County, Calif. That is where, until 2005, Donald Parker owned a large insurance agency. He recalls how low mortgage rates spurred business in late 2001 with refinancings and home-equity lines of credit that required proof of insurance. "It really became excessive by the summer of 2004," he says. "That's when I started noticing that many of my clients had either refinanced or added a second mortgage or home-equity line of credit multiple times within the prior three years -- often doubling or in some cases tripling their mortgage balances."

He adds that it wasn't the expansion of mortgage balances that was so alarming. "It was all the new, expensive cars being purchased and added on to their auto insurance," he says. "Often people were calling to replace a Honda Accord with a new BMW or Mercedes. We were also receiving a lot of phone calls from our customers asking coverage questions: for instance, 'Is my new Rolex watch covered if I lose it on vacation in Hawaii?'"

How times have changed - the satire in that commercial from a couple years ago is even more powerful today.

Addressing the thoughts of the Lending Trees guy's neighbors and many of her own, Shira Boss has penned Green With Envy: A Whole New Way to Look at Financial (Un)Happiness and is now about to conduct a series of "Green with Envy" seminars at ING Cafes.

Have you ever been jealous of a co-worker that seems to have it all: two kids, a fancy car and a large house with a pool in a gated community? What you may not know is that they are living on credit and sliding into bankruptcy. It's time to take control of your own financial well-being and stop trying to "Keep up with the Joneses." Join us for a free seminar to learn interesting facts about the actual financial status of those around you.

As an independent journalist over the past 12 years, Shira Boss contributed regularly to The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Crain's New York Business, Forbes.com, Good Housekeeping and "Marketplace" on national public radio. Boss is the author of "Green With Envy" a guided tour behind the scenes of our private money lives. This ING DIRECT seminar is meant to inspire us to break the money taboo and talk more freely about our financial concerns.

Sounds interesting.

For obvious reasons, a seminar such as this holds little of the appeal and receives far less promotion than something like Donald Trump's Real Estate and Wealth Expo. Truth be told, people would be a lot better off attending Shira's event than the Donald's.

Whether this newfound acknowledgment of the virtue of modesty is a nascent movement slowly gathering steam or simply a pause between the last bout of rampant, credit-fueled consumerism and the next one - this remains to be seen.