She refinanced out of it, but says her mortgage broker pushed her to take another high-interest loan that she couldn't afford.

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Somebody decided to change the definition of credit and made consumers feel that buying on credit was less like a high-interest loan and more like an increase in disposable income.

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Those who learn how to manage money during this time will learn to build the savings required to make a down payment on a future home, buy cars without the help of a lease or high-interest loan and eventually afford the joys that real financial freedom offers, such as frequent vacations or early retirement.

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These stories were repeated time and again from people like Juana Rodriguez, who has a high-interest subprime loan, and Juan Carlos Jacobo, whose home is about to be sold off to the bank.

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For that reason, financial advisers continue to advise borrowers to exhaust every other option a home-equity line of credit, a loan from a family member or a high-interest credit card before pawning anything.

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Guess too high and you will be making an interest-free loan to the U.S. Treasury.

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Under the arrangement, a participating company would take out a bank loan and give some of the money to Zhongdan for investing in high interest-paying wealth management products for a month or more.

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Analysts worry that some of the money going into these products has been used to make high-interest loans to risky private businesses shunned by the banks themselves, a phenomenon critics say could exaggerate loan and investment losses in China's financial system if an economic slowdown led to widespread defaults.

WSJ: China Tightens Regulations on Wealth Management