New York Times economic columnist Edmund L. Andrews got real with his readers this week and shared an enormous secret: Even personal-finance experts aren’t immune to poor money management.

In an article adapted from his upcoming book, he explains how easy it was for him to get in over his head in debt, starting with buying a house outside Washington, D.C. in 2004.

Andrews details the mortgage he rationalized at the beginning — until the weight of it began to jeopardize his marriage and cause sleepless nights. Soon enough, even buying groceries would overdraw his checking account. In just two years, he and his wife found themselves $50,000 in credit card debt, spending thousands more per month than they were bringing in.

Andrews writes:

Why had I been trying to live a lifestyle that I couldn’t afford? Why had I tried to keep up the image of a conventional suburban family man, when nothing about my situation was conventional? How could I have glossed over the fact that we had been spending about $3,000 more than we were earning, month after month after month? How could a person who wrote about economics for a living fall into the kind of credit-card trap that consumer groups had warned about for years?

This article is a chilling cautionary tale of what happens when you sign onto financial agreements you don’t understand. It’s also a shockingly honest look at the financial life of one of the experts. A true must-read.