Debt Diet

Got Questions?

Posted by Jean

Want to know more about the ideas and the people behind this program? Check out the green Got Questions? box to the right – it has links to some videos I made to answer key questions. And, after the jump, you’ll find answers to even more questions in text format.

Follow these links, or just scroll down for some answers.

Who is Jean Chatzky?

How was this program developed?

What are behavior change strategies?

When am I ready for a new stage?

Who is Jim Prochaska?

Who are the folks at Pro-Change?

Who is Jean Chatzky?

From my official biography:

Jean Chatzky is an award-winning journalist, best-selling author and the financial editor for NBC’s Today. She is a contributing editor for More Magazine, a columnist for The New York Daily News, and a contributor to The Oprah Winfrey Show. She blogs daily at JeanChatzky.com.

She has been working in the trenches with real people and their real money for close to two decades now, and in the process has written books on everything from money and happiness (The 10 Commandments of Financial Happiness) to women and money (Make Money, Not Excuses) to getting out of debt (Pay It Down! From Debt to Wealth on $10 A Day; recently updated). Her newest book is The Difference: How Anyone Can Prosper in Even the Toughest Times (Crown Business). Back to top

How was this program developed?

Six years ago, I wrote a book called “Pay it Down! From Debt to Wealth on $10 a Day.” We were in most pleasant financial times—the stock market was chugging along nicely, the housing market doing better than that. Americans were feeling more than flush and as a result many of us were living larger than ever.

We outfitted our homes with better appliances, took fancier vacations, added another car to the driveway (or another bay to the garage)—and did it all on borrowed money. Credit cards and home equity lines paved the way. As a country we weren’t worried, every time we turned around it seemed that we were wealthier on paper than we had been the day before.

And yet, I had a nagging feeling that this was all a house of cards about to come tumbling down. I felt it for the first time on January 19, 2001. That was the day I opened my New York Times to find a story by Louis Uchitelle noting that Americans had less equity in their homes than at any time since the Great Depression. We owned less of our cards than at any time in the past. Our average household debts on student loans and credit cards were setting new records as well.

And so I dug in to write a book I was sure Americans were going to need immediately.

The concept of that book—the Rx for getting out of debt—worked then, and it works now. Hundreds of thousands of readers, as well as the million people who participated in the Debt Diet on The Oprah Winfrey Show (based largely on the information in my book) can attest to that. But too many people weren’t ready to listen.

As the economy twisted and turned, making clear that only those individuals who minimized their debt and maximized their savings had a shot at a stable financial future, that changed. But with it, so did some of the rules of the road. So I not only updated Pay it Down!, I took it one step further by working with the folks at Pro-Change to develop Debt Diet Online, an interactive program that combines proven behavioral change science with my debt reduction strategies.

I wanted a program that could help everyone, including those who are still, despite the current economy, not ready to set aside money to pay down their debt. No matter where you are in the battle against your debt, this program will prepare you to start paying it down, free you from that never-ending cycle of bills—when you’re ready—and help you build a financial cushion to fall back on. Back to top

What are behavior change strategies?

Change is a process, not an event. Over 30 years ago, Jim Prochaska and a team of researchers at the University of Rhode Island Cancer Prevention Research Center developed a model of how people change called the Transtheoretical Model (TTM). The TTM—or Stages of Change model—suggests that people go through different stages of readiness as they change their behavior.

People in the earliest stage are not ready (Precontemplation). They may not even be aware that a change is needed. People in the final stage have made a change and are staying with it (Maintenance). And in the middle? We have some who are getting ready to change their behavior (Contemplation), others who are ready to make a change (Preparation), and still others who have just begun to change their behavior (Action).

Research shows that up to 80% of people are not ready to take action right away. It’s something they have to work up to, and not everyone works at the same pace. For every stage, there are powerful principles and processes of change that can help people move forward. In the early stages, weighing the Pros and Cons is typically important.

In fact, there is a rule of thumb that you should have twice as many Pros as Cons. In later stages, being confident that you can engage in the new behavior even when it is tempting to engage in the old behavior is important. And along the way, other strategies for changing—such as getting the information you need or finding support—become more or less important depending on where you are. Throughout this program, I’ll suggest activities that are appropriate for you depending on how ready you are. Back to top

When am I ready for a new stage?

As you know, I chose the activities that I recommended for you based on how ready you were to set aside $10 to pay down your debt. Once you have completed all of those activities, you can check whether you are ready to move to the next stage. Just click on the Overview tab, and select “Request a reassessment” in the Moving Forward box. Back to top

Who is Jim Prochaska?

Dr. James O. Prochaska, who earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Wayne State University, was named one of the five most influential authors in Psychology by the Institute for Scientific Information and the American Psychological Society. Jim played a key role in developing the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change and is the author of more than 300 papers on behavior change for health promotion and disease prevention.

He has served as Principal Investigator on over $70 million in research grants on the prevention of cancer and other chronic diseases and has received numerous honors, including major awards from the American Psychological Association, the Society for Prospective Medicine, and Harvard University.

He is the first psychologist to win a Medal of Honor for Clinical Research from the American Cancer Society. He has also received both an Innovators Award and an Innovators Combating Substances Abuse Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Healthtrac Foundation Education Award.

Jim is the founder of Pro-Change Behavior Systems, Inc., the Director of the Cancer Prevention Research Center, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Rhode Island. He is the author of several books including Changing for Good. Back to top

Who are the folks at Pro-Change?

They are primarily psychologists, public health specialists, and educators with a strong training in the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTM). Founded in 1997 by Jim Prochaska, Pro-Change is a privately held research-based, behavior change product development company led by Janice M. Prochaska, Ph.D.

The folks at Pro-Change focus on using the TTM in a broad range of health behaviors, social issues, and organizational change such as stress and depression management for adults, youth obesity prevention, anger and violence reduction, and consumer credit debt. Their award-winning programs are used by Fortune 500 employers, health insurers, school districts, disease management companies, the U.S. government, and more.

Sara S. Johnson, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Research and Development, led the team that worked with me on the Debt Diet program. Sara has been the principal investigator on over $4.5 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to determine if TTM-based programs for medication adherence, weight management, and multiple health behaviors in the college population were effective.

For more information about Pro-Change visit: http://www.prochange.com. Back to top