It was a wake-up call nearly $50,000 in the making.
Between three credit cards, a line of credit, personal loans from friends, account overdraft and a car loan, Eduek Brooks had found herself with tens of thousands in debt hanging over her head — $47,328 worth, to be exact.
Brooks, now a financial educator in the Greater Toronto Area, began experiencing “lifestyle creep” soon after she secured her first “big girl” job. She had been working minimum wage jobs during a 22-month wait for her permanent residency after finishing her master’s degree in chemical engineering. Brooks left the engineering field last year.
“I wasn’t actually being mindful of what was coming in and what was going out. I was thinking, ‘I’m going to get a paycheque next week and put it on the credit card and pay it off,’ and it just kind of spiralled out of control where I had all this debt and…
