I know the fear.
I know the shame.
I know the way your fingers tremble when you reach for the third credit card, the telling quiver as you squeak, “Try this one.”
I never thought debt would happen to me.
I was always careful, playing far from the line of reckless spending, working extra jobs wherever I could.
Then I had to fight inflation.
This is my story.
Raised in a pragmatic, squarely middle-class family, I’ve always been frugal, spending little to nothing in the camp canteen and hoarding every five-dollar-bill I earned as a kid.
So when I ceremoniously joined the world of adulthood, I thought, I’ve got this finance thing in the bag.
With a like-minded wife who didn’t mind freebie trips and Dollar Store household essentials, we were living below our means and tucking extras away in savings for the first couple of years.
But five years, two kids, and twenty thousand dollars in credit card debt later, nothing was how I thought it would be.
Inflation hit me, a blinding, brutal punch in the gut, shattering the careful balance I had worked so hard to maintain. It was a wrecking ball to the house of cards I had built around my family, the security I thought was untouchable. Prices swelled, and what once felt like a stable income now teetered on the brink of collapse.
First, prices went up so much that my salary was no longer carrying us month to month.
From supermarket staples to basic monthly bills, I could no longer make it month to month.
I started dipping into savings.
Once.
Then again, and a third time.
And then my savings account became my spending account to cover the things I used to be able to afford.
I could feel the credit cards inching toward their limit, a clock ticking down to inevitable disaster. TO HELP CLICK HERE
I tried everything.
Cutting corners. Stretching meals. Bargain hunting. Side-hustling myself to exhaustion. But no matter how hard I worked, it was never enough.
Each swipe, each bill, each $12 charge seemed more impossible to pay off.
Add one unforeseen, not-covered-by-insurance hospital stay, and we were buried in debt, no shovel in sight.
It was there, deep in that black hole of obstinate numbers and impossible debt, that I found myself, trembling with relief and humiliation, reaching out for help.
That’s when I turned to Tomchei Shabbos.
Could I really be one of those people who needs tzedaka?
In that moment, pride didn’t matter.
It couldn’t.
We needed food, and we needed it fast.
It’s been a wrenchingly slow climb, working to reach solid financial footing.
Some days, I think it’ll never be okay again, I’ll never stand on my own feet.
But through it all, week after week, the kitchen shelves are full, the kids are fed.
Yogurts and fruit and suppers and sides; Shabbos party and challah and chicken and meat.
That’s a safety I never thought I’d find—not in my own control, but in the love of a community that refuses to let anyone fall through the cracks.
And I know: no matter how bad it gets, no matter how desperate it feels, Klal Yisroel will always have my back.
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