Articlr

I went out for coffee yesterday with one of my good friends, Jill.  We have been friends since high school and we get together quite often to talk.  We use this opportunity to talk about life, work, our spouses and money.  She looked a little frazzled - she had something to say.

Now, she was just about crying when I met up with her - I had to ask what was wrong.  She told me that her husband had a problem with payday loans and gambling.  She told me that he was spending more money than they had coming in and they were on the verge of losing everything.

A few year ago, they had taken out a home equity loan to renovate their home - but her husband spent all the money.  They ended up getting behind on their payments, so they enrolled in a debt consolidation program to try and get their finances under control.  It worked well for some time, but her husband’s problem put them back in the red with no way out.

I asked her if her husband knew he had a problem and would go get himself some help.  All she would say is that he would get mad if she said anything.  She had been looking into going bankrupt, but she was worried that her husband would still use payday loans to pay for his gambling.

I told her that she needed to go talk to someone before the situation became any worse than it already was.  She also needed to confront him, make him see he had a problem, and get him help.  It was either that or get a divorce - if things continued on how it had been, they would always have money problems.  I felt really bad for her - but in the end, there was nothing that I could really do for her.