This is the true story of a man who lost his business and fell deep into debt. We asked him to tell his story. These are his words which we’ve left unedited.
This is an on-going story. You can read month one here.
As 50-year old recently separated dad with a mountain of debt and the wreckage of a failed business in my face on an hourly basis, my mood was pessimistic bordering on desperate.
Because my business closure had played out in the local newspaper, I didn’t have the luxury of pretending things were fine. My family and friends rallied behind me, but the nights were still endless, dark and unforgiving.
My over-extended line of credit, which had served as my working capital for the past year, had quickly resulted in a lawsuit from my bank. Since I was forced to close my company’s doors, my own income had disappeared at a time when I couldn’t have needed it more.
So while I worked on the proposal, I quietly floated out my skills for contract hire.
Most of the other businesses in my industry had reached out to me in the past month with words of sympathy, invariably followed by questions about what my existing clients would do for marketing support now that my business was closed. I had a few loyal clients who let me know they would wait for me to get myself established again – so there was a definite value I could bring to a new company, but I was damned if I was going to give it to anyone who came to offer condolences and play for my clients in the same breath.
At about this time, I was offered a job in a small BC town. The owner of the business was versed on my predicament and offered me a large signing bonus, which he knew I would find hard to resist, given my requirement for money.
It wasn’t a job I wanted but I travelled to the town, let his sales pitch sink in and did all the mental calculations that would enable this move to a smaller job with less money in a tiny market that froze over 6 months of the year.
With money the only thing I could see, I told him yes. I immediately regretted my decision. When I say immediately I mean within about 5 minutes of making it. It was a defeatist decision and only really served my interests to disappear.
A few weeks earlier I would have been nothing but thankful for the lifejacket this job offered me. While searching for a new job, I had received more than a dozen collection agency notices from across the country and my office phone rang all day without cease.
Dealing with this stress was the first thing my 4 Pillars consultant, Benjy, tackled. Within a week of hiring him, he had prepared a letter to my creditors, which outlined my situation and the path forward.
My first obligation would be to any credit I was tied to by means of a personal guarantee. Several days after this letter was sent, the phones stopped ringing. It was miraculous. Soon the collection agency notices would slow down too. While he tackled the short-term pain of anxious creditors, Benjy began working on my consumer proposal.
This was the cents-on-the-dollar offer I would make to the companies my business owed money to. He required detailed financial records and I was kept busy pulling all the documents together.
It was good to be busy in a way that was working towards my rehabilitation. Benjy gave me precise instructions about how to manage my remaining capital, so I kept as much for me and my evolving circumstances as possible.
With a bit of support and Benjy in my corner, I was feeling less desperate and more focused on making good long-term decisions for myself. Benjy helped here as he was able to offer an outside perspective and kept reminding me that my decisions had to serve my long-term gain, not just my short-term pain.
That became my mantra over the next few months, and it gave me the presence of mind to say no to the easy cash this job represented and make my rehabilitation a process rather than a single desperate act.
Next resources:
The 50 best ways to get out of debt
Debt consolidation versus a consumer proposal-what’s the difference?
The complete guide to debt consolidation
A guide to avoiding bankruptcy for Canadians
I can’t make my student loan payments–advice for those deep in education debt
