The Debt Trap - My First Credit Card Debt At Age 19

Debt basic knowledge

When I was younger, I had this fine young man as my boyfriend who told me about buying a fridge and washing machine with credit. He said it's ideal and you will not even notice paying this monthly because of the low monthly fees. Under the influence of pink glasses and believing every freaking word this guy told me, because I looked up to him, I went ahead and arranged some needed items for our home. Great! Or was it?

Looking back, my mother truly failed to explain to me about the interest rates these companies charge or informing me about hoe to manage money in general actually. Can I blame her? I think only partially, simply because she felt for these traps as well, being pushed there through life's circumstances and probably not wanting to ask for help from family again when some unexpected letter fell into the mailbox. I see how this happens and I see (and know!) how easily one can get sucked into the debt trap. Often not even with the intention to not pay it back but simply because you got a few lemons thrown at you by life.

I know these can hit you hard!

Debt trap set

Once I moved in with the lovely young man who had nothing but good intentions for me (yeah, that was sarcastic), I fell from one trap into the other. Before I knew it, I was using my credit card that I applied for in my previous relationship, which I never used once until I moved in with this one. I had a high limit because it was either having 1k limit with higher interest or 4k limit with lower interest, as per advice from the bank contact. He told me, even if you use just 10 below zero (I think it was gulden at the time, but who's counting, lol) you will pay the higher fee. My young and unexperienced brain was easily convinced to get the high credit and it was without any issues until the moment I moved in with the less financially stable guy.

Fooled

While I thought he was going to work every day, he was just chilling with some guys, smoking some weed and I was actually working or going to school, that is whenever I was not black and bruised and ashamed to go out. You can guess it, at some point I was afraid to show my face at school and lost my job and education at once as it was paid by my employer. There I was, no job and rent to pay without the guy contributing one cent. He kept making up excuses and at the final stage, he said he was talking with debt relief restructuring but it was taking time and meanwhile he needed to have proof of what he owed me. I was happy things were moving (so I thought) and gave him the proof. He signed the IOU and took everything to his appointment, stupid young me didn't even think about making copies (oof!) and so all my proof disappeared at once.

Rent due

How to pay your rent when having no income anymore? You turn to the options available, my only option at the time seemed to be using the credit card and so I went to the ATM and took out as much as I could every time rent was due for a few months. At that time I surely knew this was not a smart move but I felt stuck and not supported by family because he made sure that I was alienated from the friends and family being ashamed for the bruises on my face. And this is how you get into serious debt at age 18/19 people! Do not copy this behaviour, ever! There is always a better way, this is not the way to go.

Gone

ATM swallowed my credit card at some point, and then I had to make sure to get out of the home and find something else. I found a room and managed to get a few months of benefits from working thankfully. I had to be quick finding a new job, which I did and slowly I started building my life back up.

Paying interest only

At some point, I contacted the bank for a payment in instalments because there was no way I could pay back thousands and this was my first experience with a debt collector. I've seen this one probably 20 times in my life for the same debt because they keep trying to push you to pay more as with a 5000 debt, paying 50 a month is not going to cut it. I paid the bare minimum I could miss for 2 years only to find out that I had only removed a bit of the costs/interest over my actual base debt to the bank. I had no clue that this was how it worked.

I wish I could say that I never got into new debt again, but I can't. What I can say is that at least these were expensive but very valuable life lessons.

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