With finances you always have to sit down and do the math, which could be already a fair ammount of work.

I think that this situation happens in part for the "moral"restrictions, in part for the credit rating, but also because of the effect that once that you invested a certain ammount of money in something, you keep pouring money on it even when its not good for you.( the famous throwing good money after bad money)

"i have already commited to buying this house, and pay this much already, so i might as well put more".

Im sure many of the readers here have put money into fixing their computer several times before acknowledging that to buy a new one would be cheaper :).