When I started college, in the first couple of days there were people at the school getting you to sign up for a credit card.
I applied for a student Visa, everyone was doing it and it seemed like a very reasonable thing to do.
I planned to use it to pay for my books and travel expenses while I was in school. I had a part time job and my parents were paying for my tuition so it wasn’t a problem.
However, once I graduated I could not find work in my field and started applying for more credit to help me get by.
Once I was working I kept using the credit cards, plus a line of credit to pay for unexpected expense like car repairs or I would use them at Christmas time or occasionally to take a vacation.
I was never really given advice on how to budget or deal with finances. Before long I realized that the debt was so high I was never going to get out of it.
Even if I paid the most I could afford every month it would still take me years to pay everything off.