Drowning in debt... any advice on how to survive?

[Hooka]

Hey guys LONG time no talk, been struggling for a long time... I was wanting to know if anybody had any advice. I've been struggling to battle school debts for the past decade and lost my job about six months ago. Tried starting my own company doing web development and game design, but failed to get any clients and my gaming rig died on me making progress on the games slow and laborious... Luckily my sister borrowed me her laptop to be able to continue at a turtle's pace.

In the words of Johnny 5 "No function, need input...", when times are rough what do you guys do to survive? I've been going through my games and taking pics to list them on ebay, but it tears me apart inside. I'm planning on using the pics I take to make a book about those Krazy Korean Handhelds and the community they spawned but that'll be a ways off and doesn't help me survive in the short run...

Between online web testing gigs and a few other things I managed to keep afloat for awhile but I'm really struggling. Any advice/input would be appreciated.

I always thought by now I'd have a few games released and would've been able to work towards my goal of starting a videogame museum, but sizing up my small collection and planning to sell the games really is a kick in the pants...

If you'd like to check out the sites I made for myself you can follow the links below.

ForTheWin - Main Company site
Mewsixz - A music site with a Video-Radio
Awesome Sauce - A review site
The Session - A Stoner/Paraphernalia site, Age of consent+ only...
Gaming with ForTheWin - The Gaming-centric site of the ForTheWin network, you can find reviews of games, info on game bundles and some tidbits about the games I'm working on here!
Mr. Fuzzy - The Mr. Fuzzy comic page, been struggling with my hand jitters lately so I haven't managed to get any new ones up lately.
Roommates with Gliders - An older site I made with Strikingly to blog about my 3 Sugar Gliders... Love those little Fur Bebebs and with what's going on in Australia I'm glad to know they're safe with me.

 

[levi]

Your gaming blog I've had a look at. It's a shame I can't use it without enabling javascript, but I guess that's the way of the world today. I found personally with both the header and the cookie question footer enabled the area I was able to read and scroll was rather small on this limited screen, although that's obviously just me. If I had 1080p I might be less distracted by that.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

Cutting costs and getting a part-time job might be able to ease your situation and leave you time to go after your goals. If there' still room for improvement, that is. Or being more productive on an employers hardware might generate more money. Moving in with your parents an option, that hasn't been exhausted, yet?
What's causing the jitters? can it be helped?

 

[PokeParadox]

When I was nearly out of options, I rang around anyone that I could think of if they could send a little money my way,
Sofa surfed at a friends and made getting any new job a priority - took a job as a waiter in a hotel.
Cut down on all extras and concentrated on getting my overdraft down.

 

[Mr_Loon]

@ Hooka : It's hard to advise without a little deeper understanding of your problem.

Can you put some rough figures on your level of debt & size of monthly repayment and what you'd need to earn to put yourself in a comfortable situation?

What's the area you live in like for employment opportunity? Are you willing / able to move?

Good luck man, you've certainly got some design skills

 

[TeDaDeS]

Maybe there are Canadian services regarding debt that could help.
As Mr_Loon mentioned it all depends on what's possible in your area.

Have you checked with your school mates to see how they are doing?

If you're really running into problems and have to park you dreams for a while you might want to look into getting other means of income.
My experience with getting a steady income was looking for a big corporation doing an okay paid job. Usually IT is something you can find a job in almost anywhere.
Big companies might sometimes also pay your should debt, they do ask you to work for them for a fix amount of time in return (like 1 or 2 years). That could create a fresh start.
I tried to get a job with nice and little companies, but they usually pay less and it could be stressful if they are not doing great financially.
Having a job doesn't mean you can't work on pet projects like games at home, always good to have that put into a contract before joining a company though.

 

[Hooka]

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions guys.

My debt is over 30k, not sure what the minimum repayment plans would work out to. My Dad's allowed me to stay @ his place for the time being, but it's a community of 500 and applying to all 5 available jobs didn't lead to any responses. I did get my Qualified Cannabis Worker certification the other day and I'm starting to send out resumes and applications across the province, seems there's lots of weed shops here looking for workers.

The nice part is with the extra time I've been working on my game designs and other game-related content again, just a shame my old gaming rig takes almost an hour to open unity3d

 

[Mr_Loon]

@Hooka : Have you considered declaring bankruptcy? I've no idea whether this would be the right thing for you to do based on the information available, my knowledge of your personal goals or the Canadian system regarding insolvency but according to this article there are many in your situation who do consider it the best way to deal with a student debt crisis. In your shoes I'd do a lot of research & thinking before going down that particular avenue....

 

[Djoga'Ro]

How's it going?

 

[FBnil]

@Hooka Hey man, give some signs of life. Are you ok? (relatively speaking)

 

[TeDaDeS]

@Hooka How are you doing?

I think 2020 provided many people with financial challenges, and I assume 2021 will keep providing as the US and other countries economy's are slowly breaking.
The dollar breaking will have impact on everyone else I would assume. Sad good news is that a debt of 30k will mean less when money becomes worth less, so it might be easier to pay off over time.