Hey there. I’m Zac, I’m 22, I’m a pharmacy tech, a hopeful visual artist, a husband-to-be, and I’m waist-deep in debt.

I moved out from my dad’s house for the first time in May of 2024. It was a bit of an emergency situation, as my roommates needed to move much more urgently than I did, and I wanted to help them build a better home for themselves. One of those roommates ended up becoming my fiancé. I had thousands in my savings account, well-paid credit cards, and a lot of resources at my disposal.

Nobody is perfect, and my first mistake to cause all of this was a car crash. The savings I’d built up for moving out had to be immediately used on tow and storage fees, not to mention getting my hands on a new car somehow.

The second mistake was not vetting my individual car sellers enough. I paid nearly $4000 out of pocket for a Cruze, hoping it would get the job done, but it broke down weeks after purchase. A mechanic listed the problem as a cracked engine cylinder, and the price to fix that on a discontinued vehicle is not nice! The car was not salvageable in a way we could access. I spent a lot of time stacking up debts on my credit cards buying groceries and household essentials in order to get by.

My third mistake was not double-checking my healthcare plan payments. When I had set up payments over the phone, I’d been told that the operator on the other end had set the payments for me, but this wasn’t the case. Now I need to pay a thousand dollars in order to keep the basic treatments I need to function, and I already didn’t have the means to pay many of my other owes.

My fourth, and possibly my biggest, mistake was to not talk to the people around me when I needed it the most. Had I asked for help earlier, things would have never degraded to this degree. As it was, I was scared of judgement and scared of seeming like I’d somehow already “lost” at life.

Life isn’t something you can lose at like a game—it’s a long circuit of interconnected choices, that ripple across the world at large and affect people you’ll never even meet. It’s a gift freely given. Now that I know that, my confidence is picking back up. Now that I’m more sure of who I am and where I want to take myself, I’m going to ask you for help.

Every dollar counts toward me being able to keep paying my rent and keep taking my essential medications. Anything you can give my fiancé and I will have me blessing you in my sleep, I promise!