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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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i was just wondering the other day, how many people i've come across who keep up appearances of a certain lifestyle or able to afford certain amounts of rent are actually in crippling debt, because it's something i never even considered until last year. i've never opened a credit card or taken out a loan and so have lived a very basic low income life yet i'd always see people my age or even younger living life with many more amenities with a part time job or even no job... i'm sure trust fund/parental contribution also plays a role
i wonder if the anxiety of having no money is greater or less than the anxiety of being in debt, but certainly from outward appearance those with decent living situations/freedom of choice in what they eat, where they go, how they spend their time, in exchange for being in debt, generally seem to be much happier
Being in credit card debt, and probably going deeper in it if I don't get a job soon, the anxiety of the credit card debt limit being hit in the future is the greatest fear
One thing that I've learned is to use balance transfers. It costs a little up front, but it's cheaper than paying the interest and you can dig yourself out faster
Yeah I'm actually thinking of going this now. I have been sitting on a "pre selected offer" for 21 month 0℅ APR on balance transfers. The fee costs about 2 months of the interest I'm currently paying.
We sort of fucked up and haven't been living very frugally while my income has been variable and no guaranteed due to it being part time contract based. Our rent eats up 2/3 of my partners after tax pay. Right now we are really cutting out the unnecessary stuff to limit how much worse the debt can get. Unfortunately I will have to put this months rent or at least a portion of it on credit.
If I can actually get a full time job, hopefully we can maintain frugality and pay it off quick, maybe consolidate it using some debt agency.
If I can't get a job soon, or if my partner loses her job, we will need to move back in with parents. I'm beyond lucky that we have that option with both sets of parents, but it would still suck
Good luck! Hope it works out for you! My wife and I went a little nuts with credit when we first really moved in together. We didn't have any furniture and we definitely bought some concert tickets on credit we shouldn't have. Long story short, with having to put actual small emergencies on credit (sick cat/car trouble) it took us about six years to dig out from under it. Probably four of those years were us paying the interest rate on the first credit card until she got a really good credit score and we started doing the balance transfer every year and a half. Granted, we were "only" in about $9,000 debt total, but the extra money we were able to throw at it from saving money on the interest made it go away so much faster.
Never gonna make that mistake again. Hopefully it never becomes a necessity. We live very frugally most of the time and splurge once or twice a year on a trip or a concert. Other than that, it's rice and beans and hanging out at home most of the time.
The anxiety of being in debt sucks because it's an obligation.
If you don't have money, you can get more money. If you're in $15k of credit debt at 25%, that's an additional $300/month just to have the debt.
Then it follows you and makes it harder to do anything. A 300 credit score is basically a death sentence. No one will rent you you, no one will approve you more loans, and anything you do get will be even more predatory.
that's generally the same logic that has led me to avoid getting a cc or loans, probably better to be at 0 with room to go up than in the negative constantly. but your credit score point; i have no credit score at all and so people still won't rent to me
No score is kinda a default ~600 I think. You can massage it by just getting a couple $500 starter cards and using them for a purchase then immediately paying them off and never touching them again (just so you have some credit and no utilization).
I think your debit accounts also count towards "average account age" too.
It's all a game, and if you play a bit, you can kinda make it work. If you play too much they take evening, and if you don't play at all, they won't give you anything...
As someone who finally got their credit score to something respectable, they count debt to income, open line of credit and how much you use (stay under 1/3rd), age of credit, number of times you swipe the card in a given month, and probably a few other weird things. Another thing they teach in school, but not the whole truth is that bad things leave your credit report after seven years. That's only true if you resolve it, and even then, it's seven years from the payoff letter, not seven years from start of credit. If you ignore the collections agency, they just kick your debt around to "different agencies" that open a new case, which restarts the clock.
Even if you keep your proverbial nose clean they still are unlikely to let you into the club. I bought my car when I had a mid 600s score and got like a 13% interest rate for six years. I now have a 750ish score and I tried to refinance and the one I tried with came back to me with a 20+% interest rate and like 84 months. But good news! My payment was going to go down like $40! I cussed the person out, told them to get a job that doesn't prey on people and hung up on him.
This comment isn't meant specifically for you, just sharing things I've learned to anyone reading