I just found this site about 10 minutes ago. I can't believe it. I read a few sites and the lives are just like mine: I worry everyday, much of the day...lying in bed, on the bus. Somebody else wrote how they use to be outgoing/social and now they're not. Thinking about my loans and how to keep above water all the time has done the same to me. I feel very defeated in many ways.
I'm 30 years old. I have a debt at around 30000$. The past 10 years I have either been in school or paying off student loans. Thus, I have no savings. And to make it worse financially I'm an actor. To my credit,(and to give you an idea of an actor's financial life) if I may, I have been employed in my field about half the time since graduating from theatre school just over 2 years ago. And compared to the amount of time many other actors work, I can only be grateful. I'd say, in that time, I've made 16500$, before taxes and agent's commisions. Obviously, I've supplemented other ways, as much as I can: 1) Waitering (comes with being an actor, right?) during the down times. Though today was another example of a setback:
I'm doing a show right now. Rehearsals and performances have been going on for the past 5 weeks. I have one more week left until my contract ends and again unemployed. The show is out of town so I took a leave of absence from my waitering job. I visited my restaurant today to let them know I could come back next week but they laid me off instead, saying that presently they had enough servers. Now things are URGENT, I have a week of work left and no income following (which is a common situation after a theatre "gig"). And right now, I'm only making 350/week from my show.
2) Asking my Mom for money. I don't like the thought of having to live off my Mom at my age, especially when she'll be retiring next year.
Julius' story is so much like mine. I have a girlfriend that means the world to me but a part of me is just waiting for the day when the finances will be too much for her. And as some one else said, I probably wouldn't pursue other relationships if it happened. Who wants to date someone with huge debt problems? And when I was younger I thought going to post-secondary school would be (as I was taught) a way of having a secure life.
I haven't checked but I should have a great credit rating, I've never been late with a payment. But I am very tired: mentally, physically, spiritually.
I heard just the other day that your debt can be reduced after 5 years. But that you have to go through a certain amount of "debt relief intervals" to finally qualify for that. The debt relief is something I had heard about a year or so ago, but where do I get started? My bank is CIBC but I find it very hard to get help from them. Especially to volunteer information and answers (like how to get started on debt relief). Could someone please tell me?
Thanks.
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