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A compulsive debtor shares her story of financial struggles.
C onstantly struggling with debt nearly cost Diana her life.
Putting her head in her hands, she slumped in her chair at work and sobbed as she planned how to kill herself.
“I’ve always struggled with money,” says the Regina woman, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. “I love to spend it and I’m very good at it ... I’ve struggled with finances even back to when I first left home. I’ve had trouble saving and had lots of credit cards.
“I’ve got myself into more trouble than I can even begin to remember.”
Compulsive debtors like Diana take shopping to an extreme.
“Lots of times, they will have clothes in their closet that they’ve never worn and the tags are still on,” Diana says. “But it’s just that compulsion to spend money.”
She’s lost count of the loans she’s taken out to pay off credit cards. “People throw around the term ‘shopaholic’ like it’s a charming personality flaw, but for me it’s so much more than that,” Diana says. “It’s one thing to not want to pass up a bargain, get that cute new skirt, those amazing shoes, that sixth pair of running shoes you don’t need. But it’s another to spend money you don’t have or, more importantly, money you shouldn’t be spending at all.”
It wasn’t unusual for her to use money earmarked to pay bills to take her kids out for supper. When a stack of overdue bills stamped final notice piled up, she borrowed money from banks, payday loan companies, family and friends. When she couldn’t screw up the courage to ask for a loan, the bills went unpaid.
“There is so much shame when it comes to talking about money,” Diana says. “You don’t hear a lot of people openly admitting they’ve declared bankruptcy or they can’t qualify for a credit card because their credit isn’t good enough. People most times keep that shame to themselves. I certainly did. Even through my marriage!
“I’m kidding myself if I think my money mismanagement didn’t contribute to the breakdown of my marriage. I carried that shame and guilt like a 400-pound anvil right on my back.”
And so, six years ago, Diana was plotting her death.
“I was going to give the kids one big blowout Christmas, and then I was going to kill myself in January so that they would have the memories of that Christmas,” she says.
Diana stopped paying her mortgage, but by January, she “chickened out” and abandoned her suicide plan.
Because of missing mortgage payments, she lost her house and was into bankruptcy. Her ongoing depression deepened. She felt guilty about losing the family home and having to move her children. “That was really the start of this tailspin downward into a mess that I am still digging myself out of,” she says.
Despite taking medication to treat depression, Diana was in a bad way.
When her marriage fell apart in 2002, she tearfully called a friend in Halifax.
“She said to me, ‘I promise it will get better. You will rise out of the ashes like a Phoenix.’ I remember thinking what an incredibly beautiful image that was.”
Often, she carried on conversations with her father, who passed away seven years ago.
“I was at work crying,” she says. “It was the dead of winter and I said to dad, ‘I am so out of control! I don’t even know where to go. I am so lost.’ ”
Raised in a strict Lutheran family, Diana’s father was a big believer in going to church. When he visited Diana in Regina, he attended Christ Lutheran Church.
“I heard his voice telling me, ‘Get back to church and you will find your way.’ ”
But she didn’t heed that voice. In desperation, she Googled “compulsive spending” on her computer and Debtors Anonymous (DA) appeared.
Similar to Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, men and women in DA follow a 12step program to help them recover from compulsively accruing debt.
On the website, Diana read success stories about people like herself. She learned the group’s primary purpose is to stop running up debt one day at a time and help other compulsive debtors to stop incurring debt.
“It’s literally my story, over and over again,” she says. “The feeling of community was instantaneous so I said a little prayer to dad, ‘Please let there be a group in Regina.’ ”
Debtors Anonymous indeed has a presence in Regina. To Diana’s amazement, the Phoenix group meets every Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Genesis room at Christ Lutheran Church.
It took her four weeks to get the guts to go to a meeting. Moments before walking in, she panicked and called a friend who attends another 12-step program.
“She said, ‘Congratulations! Getting to the meeting is the hardest part. It will turn your life around.’”
Despite her friend’s assurances, Diana was nervous walking into the room. But she got the warmest welcome she has ever experienced.
“They were the first people I ever told that I’d stopped paying my mortgage and the house was being foreclosed on, that I was having problems with my vehicle payments and that I wanted to die because I was so bad with money. I cried so hard during that meeting.”
After she spoke, members gathered around her and hugged her tightly.
“That hug at the beginning was the hook to keep coming back,” Diana says.
Over three years, she has made dear friends in the group and for one hour a week, she doesn’t “feel like a loser.”
But her inability to manage money has greatly affected her family.
“I would steal from Peter to pay Paul,” Diana says. “I’ve had power turned off. I’ve had my water turned off, I’ve had my gas turned off for making payment arrangements and not following through on them.
“Then, I’d borrow money from family and they’d get turned on. But there would be times when we were without power for several hours. You would think that would be enough. You wonder, ‘Is this rock bottom?’ ‘Is this embarrassing enough for you?’ Clearly, it wasn’t.”
Her inability to control her spending makes her worry about the availability of credit to young people. She recalls when her son was in university and got an offer for a credit card with a $2,000 limit.
“I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ I had tears in my eyes and grabbed his hands and I said, ‘You listen to me. You go and sit down with your father and you get him to tell you about how credit cards work. This is not $2,000 cash. You need to know that. You can really be hurting yourself if you don’t know how to use it.’ ”
Regina’s DA group has a handful of members.
“It’s a small group because I don’t think a lot of people know about us,” says Diana. “We joke because we wonder, ‘Are we literally the only 10 people in Regina who are bad with money?’ ”
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A growing number of Saskatchewan residents are hurting because of their spending habits.
Last year, 400 new clients sought help from the Credit Counselling Society’s Regina office. Clients included Reginans as well as folks from Saskatoon.
So far this year, the Regina office has had 203 new clients despite being closed throughout February. Counsellors at the Saskatoon office have already helped 262 new clients in 2015.
The Saskatoon office sees clients in northern Saskatchewan while the Regina office helps clients in the southern half of the province.
The society will help Regina clients repay over $1 million of debt in 2015 versus $750,000 in 2014, notes Tanis Ell, a credit counsellor with the society in Regina.
The average Regina client seeking help typically owes between $20,000 and $30,000 and has six different credit products, loans, lines of credit and credit cards, Ell says.
Clients in financial trouble because of car loans have increased by six per cent this year.
Lines of credit are growing and “people are using their homes as an ATM,” because banks are really pushing secured lines of credit, Ell says. She finds people often use money from lines of credit frivolously. Add to that, people are spending faster that they’re saving, so they don’t have a safety net for emergencies.
“They’re maxing out their credit cards, they’re maxing out their lines of credit, making just the minimum payments and then they don’t have anything to fall back on when there is something major that they need cash for,” Ell says.
Counsellors do a full financial review with clients so they understand how much money is coming in, what their assets are and what their debts are.
“Then we work through a budget with them and guide them on how to build a budget and educate them on what their options are.
On their first visit to the Credit Counselling Society, many clients are scared, ashamed or feel helpless.
“They’re just drowning in debt and they feel hopeless — like it’s not going to end,” Ell says. “That’s the great thing about being at the Credit Counselling Society. We get to help people relieve that hopeless feeling.”
Making minimum payments on debt is costly and can take forever.
“If you have $18,000 in debt, your minimum payment is going to be about $370. It will take you 97 years to pay that off if you make minimum payments,” Ell says.
The first step in budgeting is identifying expenses — how much income is spent for essentials such as rent or mortgage, groceries and utilities.
“If there isn’t enough money to cover your debt payments, then you need to bring in more income,” Ell says.
Creating that additional income requires creativity.
Ell suggests renting a spare room in your home or converting an area in a garage to storage space that you can rent to someone requiring a storage unit.
Getting rid of a new vehicle for a more affordable ride will help the bottom line as well as cutting out non-essential expenses such as restaurant meals or picking up coffee on the way to work, which can add up to $80 a month or more. The society has a debt management program. All services are free and interviews can be done over the phone for those who live outside Regina or are too shy to meet face to face.
“That will save them money on gas and they won’t have to miss work — we’re really accommodating to make sure that people do get the help that they need,” Ell says.
Saskatchewan residents can make appointments by calling 1-888-527-8999.
Had Diana stayed in her house, her mortgage payments would be $800. Instead, she’s forking out $1,500 in rent every month.
Still, declaring bankruptcy was a blessing for her.
“Because of my compulsive behaviour, I don’t keep track of anything financial,” she says. “One of the tools that we have to use in Debtors Anonymous is you keep track of your numbers — money in, money out. You keep track of every penny you spend. You keep all receipts and you see where you spend your money ... I was very slow to do that, even while being in DA.
“With bankruptcy, you have no choice. They need those every month with your payment. If you don’t want to make those payments, they will garnish your wages. It was humbling, but bankruptcy was very good for me because my back was against the wall. You have no choice.”
Attending DA meetings has been liberating.
“You learn you are not alone,” Diana says. “There are others who struggle with money management as well. Tuesday nights are literally my salvation ... I’m a lifer, a DA lifer and quite frankly, proud of it.”
Looking at her circle of friends outside of the group, Diana sees many are paying off their mortgages and planning their retirements.
“I’m still stuck in this huge hole,” she says. “Sometimes that’s daunting and sometimes that’s overwhelming, but I’m not dead. The kids still have their mom.”