Young, dumb, and full of debt, Beverly was dealing with it in the worst possible way: not dealing with it. Things got so bad that her plan for coping with all the angry letters from creditors filling her mailbox was to simply not get her mail anymore.

Beverly writes about her experience over at Credit.com:

The credit card bills had become overwhelming. I took the only course of action that made sense to me. I stopped going to my mailbox.

I lived in an apartment at the time so it was easy to avoid that area of the building. But then one day I’d gone home during lunch and ran into my mailman in the parking lot. He said he’d thought I’d moved because he could no longer stuff any more mail into my box.

I shamelessly told him that I’d lost my mailbox key. (It’s a little known fact that being in debt can turn you into an extraordinary liar.) I even started to embellish my story with how I’d also been out of the country for an extended period of time, but he interrupted me to hand me my mail. Then he suggested I walk with him to the mailbox so he could unlock it for me and give me all the mail currently stuffed in my box. Unable to make myself invisible, I had to take possession of my mail.

Young people sometimes don’t realize how serious credit cards are. They’re not like BMG CD of the month clubs where you can just send them a change of address saying you moved to Alaska and hope they’ll go away.

Confessions of a Former Credit Card-a-holic [Credit.com]

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