Debt, the bottomless pit

It seems the web of debt is always going to be a financial distress for millions out there including myself. Whether it is a student loan received during your studies or a bank loan acquired when one got one’s first pay cheque at the first job, everyone is destined for the disastrous repercussions.
Debt is usually granted with expected repayment. In most cases this includes repayment of the original sum,plus interest, but I feel once you start this process of borrowing, you are simply digging yourself into a bottomless pit, as debt will always haunt you.
The debt problem only seems to be escalating and getting worse and worse. Recently I went to a public auction, and yes it was a bank repo auction. It seems I am not the only one in this ‘debt bubble’ and it was evident at the auction that a lot of people are failing to meet their creditors and in the end they are the ones that incur a huge loss.
At the auction I witnessed a Kia Sedan vehicle go for a measly N$2,000. The bank repo car had a slight dent that could not have cost more than the price of the vehicle to get it fixed. It was lucid how people are failing to settle their debts to the extent that their cars are repossessed and sold at shockingly ridiculous prices.
Trust me if I had the money on me I would have taken the gamble but again I remembered I was in debt already and could not afford to throw away money even though it was a bargain, possibly never to be observed again.
Even if people turn a blind eye to their own personal debt issues, these will sooner or later catch up with them. People are at a loss as they remain caught in the debt trap as some banks continue to add costs to money owed to them, while the initial debt is already sky high. It is clear that debt is a bottomless pit.
I know this for a fact as one of our local banks once kept on nagging about giving me a credit card. They constantly pestered me to get a credit card with a credit limit of N$30,000, even though my purse was only around N$9,000 monthly those days.
By so agreeing to these terms it can be likened to selling your soul to the devil, because when the bank decides to take what belongs to them, when you can not make the payments to cover your debt, they do it with a cold heart and will not flinch regardless of your plight.

Lucky enough I know these marketing tricks by banks and simply ignored their insistence. The reason for me declining the credit card was simple: with jobs nowadays nothing is guaranteed and no one is indispensable. Next thing you know you can become a statistic in the unemployment realm and at the end of the day how and what will you use to give back to the bank.
Back to the core of the issue of debt. Lately I also discovered many people tend to repeat the same mistake over and over again hence they are always trapped in the web. People tend to borrow money so as to cover another debt but meanwhile this is just a temporary measure and not a solution. This usually is a recipe for disaster as one will be constantly be in debt. Come pay day, you simply dread to collect your pay cheque as you know that money is just a visitor to you. It is simply passing through your hands going to the rightful owner. So you may ask me what is the way forward to avoid this bottomless pit. To be frank, I have no clue, as this disease also affects me, but on a minor scale. Nothing seems to balance financially and for it to seem normal, borrowing seems to be the only available outlet. To avoid the debt trap it seems the only way to do so is through a strict and calculated financial budget and avoid unnecessary borrowing while working on saving up to acquire things that you know at the end of the day are yours, and will not be sacrificed at an auction.