Hi, my name is Zac.
My wife and I are a family of 7: five kids under the age of 8, all homeschooled, and we can’t afford our current debt.
We sold our house in 2021 and were feeling like we were doing great with our new ‘wealth’. We invested some of it into a camper and decided to stay in it for most of the year and put the rest into cryptos. Having read that the actual wealthy use debt to short the dollar, we decided to use credit cards while we were waiting for our cryptos to ‘take off’. During this time we thought that with our investment sure to pay out big, we’d just wait until the end of summer to buy a house and we’d be set.
Then at the end of June 2021, I ended up in the hospital for a week. I do not have any insurance and the amount that hit us was close to around $20,000. We paid around $4000 of it and put the rest on a payment plan. Then in September 2021, our cryptos started tanking and our bills were catching up with us.
I started looking into business ventures, and in January 2022, bought a heavy equipment trailer to start a shipping supply recycling business. We had gone from no debt after our house sold in May 2021, to a sudden heap of debt. At this point, the $70,000 we had started with after the sale had diminished to around $40,000, and our debt shot up to around $50,000. We were sinking fast. The equipment trailer needed repairs that cost around $4,000 in total. Simultaneously my hauling vehicle went out and I had to put another $4,500 into it. The trailer was unable to be legally used for 4 months during all of this since it was an ‘assembled trailer’. I was put on hold by the state for a VIN inspection and the wait was two and a half months on top of the time in the shop for repairs. By the time I had the trailer ready and was able to try to start my new business venture, we were too far behind. Our capital was down to $30,000 and then the crypto market dropped even further. We were forced to pull out our investments to pay bills. I was left with no choice but to return to my previous line of work.
I am currently doing construction work and am about to start a night job. We still live in the camper and have too much in bills to afford to add rent to our list of expenses. Fortunately, our friend is allowing us to live on his property with just utility bills. As it stands, our bills from credit alone total $1,545 a month. With the price of gas, utilities, phones, insurance, and storage unit rentals, our monthly burden is around $2,400, and we still need to buy groceries and food for our large family. At my construction job, I make $25 an hour, which is decent, but at 40hrs a week it is only $4,000 before taxes. That being said, most months, due to weather, I average closer to 35hrs a week, and with winter approaching (I live in a northern state) work will dry up until spring.
If we could get a clean slate, I could afford rent again, and with my normal income, be able to start getting us on our feet again. The total debt we’ve accumulated in the last year is just over $49,000, with no savings. And each month the amount grows with us unable to afford our current bills. We are dreading when winter hits. Any amount to cut away from the looming debt can only help!
Thank you for taking the time to read our story. We hope that someone will be willing to reach out to help us. We’d be forever grateful.
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/MelissaCrater
