Dear Cheapskate: My husband and I have really gotten ourselves in deep this time. At the time, we thought buying a franchise using our personal credit cards was a good idea. The manager we hired was inept and untrustworthy. Now we are in credit card debt to the tune of $250,000. We are trying to crawl out from under this problem and are out of working capital to keep things going. We can’t find anyone who will make us a consolidation loan. We are sinking fast!—Name withheld, Texas
Dear Nameless: I wish you'd written before you headed down such a dangerous path. Instead, you violated nearly every rule of self-employment: You went into business with borrowed funds. You hired employees before you were profitable. You thought of credit as “working capital.” Need I go on?
