You couldn’t be blamed for thinking that Lucas and Penny are living the Canadian dream. She runs her own upscale hair salon in downtown Montreal. He’s an advertising salesman for a national media company. They live with their 11-year-old daughter Janet in a stunning half-million dollar house. Designed by an up-and-coming local architect, their showpiece home sits perched on a hill overlooking the city. With large windows and minimalist furniture in red and black throughout, it could easily be featured in Architectural Digest. There are huge closets for Penny’s stylish wardrobe and an outdoor kitchen perfect for entertaining. A new BMW sits in the driveway. Between them they pull in a healthy $200,000 a year.

But while they look like they have it all, the Andersons have a secret: their sumptuous lifestyle is a sham. The truth is they’re drowning in debt. They have hardly any equity in their showy properties, they’re leasing their car, and after you subtract the overhead on Penny’s salon and their income taxes, they really only have about $100,000 a year coming in the door.

For years, the Andersons have lived in denial. They thought they were being smart by taking advantage of super-low interest rates to support the same lifestyle that many of their friends seemed to be enjoying. Not only did they borrow to buy the hair salon and their home, they borrowed to buy their RRSP investments too. But lately cracks have begun to appear, and when they finally ran the numbers earlier this year, they had the shock of their lives.

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