"New Jersey Housewives" star files BK, owes $11m, earns $79k/year

[keepinitreal]

June 5, 2010

Spendaholic 'Housewife of NJ' owes a big-hair-raising $11MYet, in bankruptcy papers, Teresa and Joe claim to spend just $400 a month on clothes.

On a recent "Real Housewives" episode, Teresa boasted that she dropped "a fortune" on daughter Gia's televised 9th birthday party. The child got an all-terrain vehicle, along with a trip to a spa in a pink stretch limo for her and her friends.

Joe, who "owns several successful businesses throughout New Jersey," according to his wife's Bravo bio, owes more than $5 million, including debts to former partners associated with his Section 8 real-estate deals.

In court papers, Joe, who owns a stucco and stone company, lists his monthly income as $3,250; Teresa pulls down $3,333 a month for her Bravo gig. The couple gets another $10,000 in "monthly assistance from family members."

Behind the bankruptcy filing

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/deadbeat_reality_8f3qwDPV2oY8s9N51fL82I

[ForumReader]

Holy Moly about the article...sounds like the couple needs years of financial/debt management classes due to their enormous amount of debt and they filing for BK.

[ryan]

I have watched that series in the past. That woman built the UGLIEST mansion on the planet....ugly even for New Jersey. It looks like a Days Inn hotel with some trees in front.
She bragged about how she designed it and there wasn't a another one like it...cracked me up!

[nokia123]

this is crazy, i watched this show last year and you would think that there was no problems with the thousand of dollars she was throwing a round.

[freeatlast98]

She's Nuts!!

What was funny to me was when she was having the mansion built and she said she just couldn't live in a house where others had lived. She said it was "disgusting". Yet, she would stay in hotels where many,many,many people had stayed. Woman is nuts!!

[flyinbroke]

OK my question is how did they get this much money to borrow when they don't clear 80K on a good day! I opened my Nordstrom account 15 years ago. I got a 1K limit. I make three times what I made then, and still have the same limit! Then again I think the highest I ever went on it was 800 or so...maybe they figured I did not need more.

We know what will happen in this case...somehow they will weasel into a CH 7 and get a fresh start, get brand new credit cards and mortgage lines and car loans, lather, rinse, repeat in a few years....

[goingcrzy]

I briefly looked at the filings and it seems like he was making 500K a year back in the day. I noticed they were under the median for NJ and a family of six. I wonder as a business owner if the husband didn't take on any projects for the lookback so the income would look low.

They filed in Oct, I wonder if the UST had a field day with them or if they slid by...

[PoorGrammyinBK7]

Holy Moly about the article...sounds like the couple needs years of financial/debt management classes due to their enormous amount of debt and they filing for BK.

Wow - I agree! But I also have to wonder what kind of "classes" these banks need to have given them so much credit --- 4 mortgages on multiple houses, etc????