Growing up, my parents were strict. Like other immigrant families, they moved to Australia to give me a better life, one with opportunities.
This included a non-negotiable agreement that I would complete a law degree, so my final year of high school was filled with charts, acronyms and studying rather than the teenage rite of passage of a part-time job.
By the time I got my first job at 18, I had no idea how to handle money. The trouble began with my first parking fine.
While working at a supermarket, my only option was to station my car in customer parking, which had a limit of two hours. It was perfect for anyone doing their weekly shop, but impossible for a part-time worker with a six-hour shift.
Every two hours, I pleaded with my supervisor to let me move my car but they insisted it would be fine. I walked out that day $90 (£70) richer, only to find a pink slip taped to the windshield of my car – $80 (£62) for overtime parking.
I felt sick but I blamed my supervisors and stubbornly refused to pay the fine on principle. I imagined writing a letter to contest it. But it felt like an insurmountable task so I kept putting it on the back burner until I eventually forgot.
Instead, I continued to work there and proceeded to get routinely fined. At one point I couldn’t open my glove compartment without pink slips spilling over the passenger seat.
I compartmentalised these tickets, both literally and figuratively. Pieces of paper didn’t feel real. As soon as I put them away they disappeared from my consciousness. Sweeping things under the rug is how my family has always dealt with issues and applying this methodology to parking fines seemed to work until it didn’t.
Looking back, I want to shake myself but being in the deep throes of denial makes you feel untouchable – and anyway, I was due for a rude awakening.
Notices began arriving at the house I lived in with my parents. One day, I came home to 15 opened letters sitting on the dining table.
My parents scolded me and organised a payment plan on my behalf. My problems were fixed without me having to lift a finger, but nothing was done to fix my toxic patterns of behaviour.
Looking back, I want to shake myself but being in the deep throes of denial makes you feel untouchable.
Over the next five years, I used the city as my own parking playground. As long as I wasn’t at risk of getting towed, any parking spot was a safe space. I racked up parking violations, failed to pay tolls, shrugged my shoulders when I didn’t have change for a parking meter and went on my merry way.
On an average week, I was receiving 20 overdue notices in the post. And like anyone harbouring a dark secret, I learned how to keep this paper trail hidden. Some people stuff their mattresses with money; I was shoving thousands of dollars of unpaid tickets in mine.
I was simultaneously too afraid to know how bad things had become while also telling myself that if it was so bad someone would have stopped me by now.
And if they did, I was sure my parents wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. I was wrapped in a youthful, haphazard security blanket of my own imagination.
Then in 2015, I heard a knock at the door. I was already flustered, running late for a date and answered the door to what I assumed would be a delivery. It was the police.
As one officer confirmed my identity, another clamped the wheel of my car in the driveway. Within seconds they asked to come inside, where they told me I was being arrested for $12,000 (£9,300) worth of unpaid parking fines. My legs went numb.
I asked if there was something I could do – surely a payment plan would save the day again? Stoic and unmoved by my tears, the officer told me payment plans were only offered to offenders with a debt of $10,000 (£7,700) or less. They asked me to show them around the house to note down any valuable items that could be seized.
My mother lent me $3,000 (£2,300) then and there, which allowed me to go on a payment plan and avoid jail. But things were about to get worse.
When I called to set up a plan I found out the officers had given me the wrong information. Even with the $3,000, I still owed a tremendous $30,000 (£23,000). I had to go to court.
I hung up. Completely in shock, I sat down on the floor in silence and didn’t move for the next two hours.
I could no longer pretend my debt didn’t exist. I had a $30,000 impetus to get my life together. There was no way out.
In the weeks leading up to my court date, I sought out free legal advice. Unless the judge took the unlikely decision to wipe my debt clean from my record, I was facing jail time or a garnering of my meagre wages.
My day in court was a blur of long lines and nervous visits to the bathroom. I was called to the stand just after midday.
The judge asked why I hadn’t paid my fines. I rattled off pitiful excuses about how school was all-consuming, as though that kept me from the 30 seconds it took to pay a fine.
He was unmoved. ‘Why do you think you’re special?’ I didn’t have an answer.
Looking through my records – a letter from one of my lecturers, another from my therapist, and one from me begging for forgiveness – the judge looked up from his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and said the unfathomable. He was letting it go. My debt was wiped clean.
Driving home, I felt good albeit incredibly guilty for my unfathomable luck. The judge had pardoned my debt due to my good standing in the community, my lack of significant assets, and crucially because my lecturer and therapist had vouched for me.
Since then, I haven’t procured a single fine. Every day I’ve spent debt-free is a blessing, but I keep that day in court at the top of my mind.
Living in denial may feel good, but your day of judgement is always just around the corner.
My punishment may have only been a slap on the wrist but the lesson wasn’t lost on me. I’m very lucky to have parents that stepped in when I needed them and I’ve since paid them back.
Facing jail for my debts instilled the fear of God in me, and I now check my bank account every day, and live within my means.
It’s a privilege to move forward with a clean slate so I don’t have a credit card and keep a budget of all the money I make, spend, and save.
I’m terrified of slipping up but the only thing I can control is how I prevent that happening again.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/22/debt-diaries-ignored-parking-fines-30k-debt-11176429/
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