15 Folks Who Lost Everything Are Revealing What Actually Happened And It Shows How Broken Our System Really Is
15 Folks Who Lost Everything Are Revealing What Actually Happened
And It Shows How Broken Our System Really Is
Aaron Ant Sun, April 20, 2025 BuzzFeed
Money isn't a measure of character, but society acts like it is. And that couldn't be further from the truth. It's important to hear that at a time when financial anxieties are at an all-time high.
Jobs are vanishing, the stock market is fluctuating, medical bills are piling up, and government budget cuts are putting Social Security and other public services at risk. For some, the economic situation we're currently facing mirrors previous recessions.
Bankruptcy and financial loss aren't personal failures in any capacity. More often than not, it's a case of someone in a system that's already working against them.
Last week, I asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to open up about experiencing bankruptcy or losing it all, and these submissions shared some honest insight into how they handled or are currently handling debt and stress.
Note: Some submissions have been edited and condensed for clarity. Some responses are from this Reddit thread.
1."So, I was a stay-at-home mom at the time, because my old job hadn’t paid enough to cover daycare. My ex-husband made enough for us to live on, but nothing more, really. My parents helped put him through grad school. Then he committed crimes and was fired (of course), and I was unemployed with two kids and no daycare openings.
I scrambled to find a job and a place to live, and am eternally grateful for my parents’ support. That said, my job paid about a quarter of what his did, so there was no choice. I’m a little more than halfway through."
"That’s the backstory, but here’s the truth: it’s MORTIFYING. The bank I’d been using since I was 15 closed my account unceremoniously. Didn’t matter that I hadn’t had any loans through them that were discharged. Just cut me off and mailed me a check weeks later. I can’t get a cellphone plan or any reasonable insurance, I had to pay cash for a car, and thank heavens, my parents were willing to have their names on my utilities because the WATER company refused to give me an account.
Before this, I’d never missed payments or fallen behind, and had good credit. It was so good that most of the debt was in my name, which probably worked out great for my crap bag ex. So that’s it, I pay for someone else’s mistakes every day. And if it weren’t for my parents, it would have been catastrophically worse." —shannonmiz
2."I'm a bankruptcy paralegal, and honestly, people think it will be so much worse, but it's a fairly simple process. Even the 341 meeting of creditors isn't that bad. Bankruptcy forms are free online, and if you want to file, my biggest advice is to fill out forms A/B (personal property), I (income), and J (expenses) because a lot of the holdup is just trying to get that info. So many people will call crying after their discharge, thanking us because they feel the weight off their chest." —monikap6
3."American here. My husband and I filed after I got sick and couldn’t work for two years, racking up medical debt without the income to pay it, and using credit cards to buy groceries and basic needs. We had to move back in with my family because we couldn’t afford rent. We filed a Chapter 13, which meant we still owed a large portion of the money, but a fraction of the total. We've just paid it off after five years of payments."
"We’re wiser about our budget now, we’ve completed credit counseling, and our income has now increased to where we rent and our only debt is student loans. We’ll have to get secured credit cards and build credit back up slowly. It’s a long process, but I’m so thankful we did it. The payments were tough, but manageable, and we now have a sense of accomplishment, as well as a sense of how to build a nest in savings that can be there if one of us is out of work due to illness. It sucked, but I’m forever thankful." —carak4a8cd43e8
4."21 years ago, I'd just had a child. He turned 1, my spouse came home, and decided he wanted a divorce! I didn’t even know we were having issues! I mean, we just had a kid! I was always a happy-go-lucky type! Came out of nowhere! Discovered we were $100,000 in debt!"
TO READ MORE: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/americans-doom-buying-coffee-olive-224100006.html
