Maybe it’s difficult for us all to imagine because we’d never do such a thing, unless we had money to burn... and no college tuition to pay for.
I will tell this story, which a co-worker related to me three years ago.
In his youth (1980s), he was in the Air Force and living in the barracks. There was a lady friend he knew there, who decided on some early December day to go Christmas shopping with another lady friend. They got to the mall and in the parking lot....decided to make a bet.
The bet was....who could accumulate the most new credit cards/accounts within four hours. It’s a stupid bet....you might say.
But after four hours....my co-workers lady friend had “won”....with twelve new accounts or credit accounts. Within a two year period, she’d accumulated roughly $60,000 of debt off those twelve accounts. At that point, it was unmanageable and she could not keep up with payments. With interest, it eventually got up to around $90,000.
From that point, it took around twelve years of hard work and dedication to eventually pay that off. Along the way....one husband would leave. She would find herself at age forty....still without a house, just a renter.
He bumped into this lady friend in DC one day....she was now in mid-40’s and finally finding some success in life. People just don’t know the weight of being strongly in debt and how you never climb out of the pit without suffering.