Over €30k in debt. Red final notices covering our kitchen table. And just twenty euros left in our bank account. If you’ve ever struggled with money, felt completely overwhelmed by debt, or wondered how you were going to feed your kids and make it through another day, you know the exact nightmare we were living. My name’s Alice, my husband and I are based in Ireland, And for the past two years, we weren't living — we were slowly drowning. Our life was a complete emotional prison. Debt collectors calling us every day, demanding money we simply didn’t have. Letters warning about sheriffs coming to seize our belongings and legal action turning up almost every morning. Maxed-out credit cards, an overdraft we couldn’t get out of, and rent that just kept going up. I pawned my late mother's ring, and both of us took every extra shift we could get. We were working 70 hours a week across exhausting jobs. Night shifts. Weekends. Barely 3 hours of sleep a night. Running ourselves into the ground and ruining our health just to stay afloat. And even then, once the rent, energy bills, and bin charges were paid, there was barely a single euro left to buy basic groceries. We were constantly skipping meals and going to bed starving just so our 8-year-old son had a proper uniform for school. The financial stress was completely tearing us apart. We were constantly fighting, screaming at each other over every cente. It got so bad that we genuinely thought this was going to be the end of our marriage. While everyone our age seemed to be out living their lives, providing for their families, meeting friends and enjoying dinners... We were counting every cent, and wondering how we were going to get through the week. We had no savings to fall back on. No safety net. No family who could lend us a cent. Just this constant, suffocating knot of panic in my chest every time I looked at my husband and child or thought about money. Then came that one Tuesday night. I came home to anot
