Drowning in $20,000 of credit card debt, shopaholic Karyn Bosnak asked strangers for money online — and it worked!

What would you do if you owed $20,000? Would you:

A) not tell your parents?

B) start your own website that asked for money without apology? or

C) stop coloring your hair, getting pedicures, and buying Gucci?

If you were Karyn Bosnak, you’d do all three.

Karyn received e-mails from people all over the world, either confessing their own debt-ridden lives, or criticizing hers. But after four months of Internet panhandling and selling her prized possessions on eBay, her debt was gone!

In Save Karyn: One Shopaholic’s Journey to Debt and Back, Karyn details the bumpy road her financial—and personal—life has traveled to get her where she is today: happy, grateful, and completely debt-free. In this charming cautionary tale, Karyn chronicles her glamorous rise, her embarrassing fall, and how the kindness of strangers in cyberia really can make a difference.

You’re probably jealous that you didn’t think of it first.