Woot! I'm above average!
It's no secret that I've been deep in the debt hole so I know it's possible to dig yourself out (as well as how easy it is do fall in). In my case it was the desire to have my wife stay at home with the kids despite not being able to afford it. That was our sacrifice for what we thought was best. For the first 10 years, and three kids we were at a net loss every year by about $5K/yr, in addition to expenses we ran up at school. Operating in the black is a recent (last three years) thing for me although I'm not quite to comfortable stage yet.