Smart Cookies tell how they raised their dough

— -- Before the five women who now call themselves The Smart Cookies formed a money club in 2006, their fiscal know-how was half-baked at best. Not only did they not have savings, most were in debt.

Two years later, the quintet have written a personal-finance guide for young women and have their own money-makeover television show in their native Canada.

How they moved from being inept to experts started when a "debt diet" episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show inspired them to begin a money group. "Kind of like a book club," they write, "but instead of reading and discussing books, we'd be reading our bank statements and discussing ways to pay down our debt and make more money."

Despite having careers, all were in crumbling financial situations at the time:

•Andrea Baxter, 28, was a marketing manager who was crippled with $18,000 in debt, including a credit card that had gone to collections.

•Katie Dunsworth, 23, was a public-relations manager and compulsive spender who had no savings, a $3,000 credit card debt and an upcoming wedding to pay for.

•Robyn Gunn, 31, was a social worker who had gone through $16,000 worth of savings and run up $12,000 in debt in the two years since her divorce.

•Sandra Hanna, 24, was a public relations coordinator and shopaholic who had recently moved out of her parents' home but had already spent her savings and owed $2,000 on her credit cards.

•Angela Self, 26, earned $10 an hour and had just cashed in her retirement fund to buy a condo. Her boyfriend controlled their finances, and they were on the verge of breaking up.

Eighteen months after forming their club, they'd collectively paid off nearly all their credit card debt, added to their retirement accounts, saved $25,000, and Dunsworth and her then-fiancé paid for their $22,000 wedding in cash. All this, they write, without sacrificing their social lives and wardrobes, since they budgeted themselves $100 a week in fun money. Side note: The Cookies generally prefer the term "spending plan" to the more restrictive-sounding "budget."