With five sets of Brad’s golf clubs in the garage and a closet stuffed with Sharon’s clothing, it seems that the pair featured on Til Debt Do Us Part’s 100th episode is living a comfortable life.
There is only one problem: they can’t afford any of it. Drowning in nearly $60,000 of debt and financially supporting six children from previous relationships, Sharon and Brad are one paycheque away from losing everything.
Enter Gail Vaz-Oxlade, Til Debt’s financial guru. In “Blended Family Blues,” a landmark episode in the show’s eighth and final season, she assesses the couple’s money situation and sets them straight using teamwork activities and family budgets.
Vaz-Oxlade, an author an author of three personal finance books, chatted with TVGuide.ca about filming “Blended Family Blues,” ending Til Debt, and plans for her upcoming show for Slice, Princess.
TVGuide.ca: Congratulations on 100 episodes of Til Debt Do Us Part! Are you still surprised by the actions of some couples in debt?
Gail Vaz-Oxlade: I am not. I think that if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the series it’s that people are completely delusional about their money and capable of just about anything.
TVG: Sharon and Brad said they had split up because of money in the past. Why is money the No. 1 cause of failed marriages?
GVO: There’s always this negotiation on how the money will be spent and sometimes people will talk about it. In Brad and Sharon’s case, they hadn’t even had a discussion about money before they hooked up. So they didn’t even know what they even thought about money.
When you don’t talk about it, then it just comes and bites you on the butt over and over and over again. And eventually it just wears you down.
TVG: Have you had any instances when couples don’t appreciate your in-your-face attitude?
GVO: Oh yeah. [Laughs.] More than once! If you go back and look at the Ivy and Carson show, for example, there was a couple that did not appreciate my brutal honesty. And very often the couple who get into the process aren’t actually totally committed to making the changes – they push back a lot.
Sometimes people actually think they’re ready, but when I start to point out just how dumb they’re behaving, they’re not ready to hear that. They take it as a personal assault, where really what I’m dealing with is their delusion and their behaviour, which is contributing to the crisis they’ve found themselves in.
TVG: What made you decide to use brutal honesty?
GVO: I’m a brutally honest person. You can ask anybody. I am not known for my tact and generally people either love me or not, but they will always get the truth if they ask me. Or I don’t answer at all.
TVG: Do you have any regrets or things you would have done differently on the show?
GVO: I tend not be a person who embraces the concept of regret. I like to see things as lessons; then I learn lessons and I get back up. If you look at the show and how the show progress, you can see how it’s getting stronger and stronger over time.
We are now finished making Til Debt Do Us Part – this was the last season and so we finished on 104 episodes. The last 13 episodes, which represent the final season, are the best episodes we ever did. And that is because we continued to grow and get stronger as a crew, and in terms of figuring out what challenges would work, figuring out how to make people more accountable for their behaviour.
TVG: Now, you have another venture in the works about spoiled girls who spend their parents’ money …
GVO: It might not just be girls. There might be guys we find along the road, and it’s not just spending their parents’ money. The definition – my definition – of a princess is someone who wants it all right now and is happy to use somebody else’s wallet to do it.
TVG: What can you share with TVGuide.ca readers about the new show? How does it compare to Til Debt Do Us Part?
GVO: Well, Til Debt Do Us Part was a half-hour show; we dealt primarily with couples and their relationships. On Princess, it’s an hour-long show and we deal with the development of a person, as that person hopefully moves from unconscious taker to conscious liver. And when I say that, I mean you can’t live taking from people constantly and always having what you want; it also has to be about having a life that’s worthwhile.
TVG: What will you miss most about Til Debt?
GVO: Well, I really like my couples. One of the very interesting things about working with couples is that they bring different skill sets to the arena. So, one person may be really good at figuring out the details of a budget, while the other one is much more creative in terms of coming up with ways to have a great time together when there’s little or no money.
And watching couples sort of balance off against each other, draw on each other’s strengths and sort of come to figure out how to support each other in their weaknesses, is really satisfying.
That being said, the nice thing about working with princesses is that they haven’t a long way to go, and there’s potential because many of these people are very smart.
What they’ve done is they’ve chosen to show themselves by their stuff instead of who they are. And so I’m really looking forward to sort of shining a light on the inside of them that they may not have looked at yet, and you can see just how beautiful they are on the inside.
Til Debt Do Us Part airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on Slice
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