One couple he counseled was Quinn and Miriam Stewart. The Stewarts have figured out how to use credit to their advantage. Quinn Stewart, 29, remembers how he and four brothers and sisters grew up jammed into a two-bedroom house. The Stewarts ran up more than $5,000 in credit-card loans to furnish their home in a run-down section of west Salt Lake. But they had their eye on a home in the suburb of South Jordan.

Stewart, who has been moving up steadily at his job at Amsco Windows from a $10-an-hour production worker to a $16-an-hour computer programmer, wasn't able to find a buyer for his home. So he decided to refinance his mortgage, pay down his credit-card debt and rent the place. To pay for a three-bedroom $167,000 house in South Jordan, he found a mortgage that didn't require a down payment.

For others, using debt to try to move ahead has as many pitfalls as promise. Growing up in a small house crammed with as many as 11 kids, Winford Wayman, a 30-year-old construction worker, longed for privacy and open spaces. But he and his wife, Kristin, a 26-year-old bookkeeper, fell behind as they borrowed to buy pickup trucks. Winford Wayman has purchased or leased four since 1999. "I see a good-looking truck and I have to have it," says the slender, goateed Wayman.

Recently, the Waymans got interested in a $125,000 vinyl-side home in Tooele. They applied for an interest-only loan, but just as the loan was being finalized Kristin Wayman got cold feet. She feared the couple couldn't afford the mortgage payments. "We freaked. We didn't know what to do," she says. They ended up going through with the house deal, fearing a lawsuit if they tried to back out.

Now the Waymans are trying to figure out how to finish the basement, an expense that may require additional borrowing. "I don't think I'm too glad that I have all these ways of borrowing," says Winford Wayman.