Thirteen years in Canada… and honestly, it’s only now that we finally feel like we can breathe again. My name is Chidinma. I came to Canada in 2013. My husband is here, our son is here… you know, our whole life is here now. Three years ago, we bought a normal house not far from Toronto for $640,000. Every month, around $3,350 was going straight to the bank. We weren’t rich, honestly, but we were managing. Then they started cutting my hours at work. I used to work 10–11 hours, and then suddenly I was down to just 5–6. My salary dropped a lot, and somehow, without even really noticing it at first, we started going through our savings. Groceries, the car, insurance, everything our son needed… none of it was getting any cheaper. First it was one card. Then the second one. After two years, when we added everything together, it had reached $62,162. I almost stopped sleeping properly. Three, four in the morning, I would just lie there thinking… who do we owe? How much? What are we supposed to pay first? On the night of the 6th, everyone was already asleep, and I was sitting alone in the kitchen, just scrolling on my phone. And then I came across this video of a man talking about work, his problems, and an app he had tried before. Honestly, I didn’t even know if I should believe it or not. But somehow, for the next two days, I just couldn’t get that story out of my head. In the end, I decided to try it and put in $40. At first, nothing much was happening. And then the amount on the screen started going up. And at one point… $73,500. I just sat there staring at the screen. Honestly, I couldn’t even understand what I was looking at. I stopped immediately and requested a withdrawal. When I saw the confirmation, I didn’t scream, I didn’t start jumping around or anything like that. I just sat there… and breathed. We were able to take care of most of our problems, and finally, that feeling like we were constantly drowning started to disappear. And one day, my husband looked at me
