Julia Ogden thought she had life figured out after getting her master’s degree, moving in with her boyfriend and making money with her art. But when her partner was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) in 2007, it triggered a string of events that left her paying off £17,000 debt at her lowest point.
Julia and her partner had signed their first tenancy agreement together just six months before his devastating diagnosis. ME is characterised by extreme fatigue that doesn’t improve with rest and can also cause severe brain fog, muscle or nerve pain and sleeping problems.
Overnight, the artist found herself being the sole breadwinner in the house and the finances forced them apart. While the long-distance was tough, it allowed the pair to cut costs and save up for a home in West Yorkshire.
But when they moved in, Julia’s intense workload to keep up with the bills and her boyfriend’s illness took its toll as she told Money Wellness: “It depressed him. And he felt guilty and awful, I felt resentful and frustrated. I didn’t have any spare time, and he had too much spare time, so it was just a complete imbalance.”
They decided to move down south, with the money from selling their Yorkshire home. This hefty deposit saw a mortgage broker mis-selling them a product that they couldn’t actually afford monthly payments on.
Late payments and management fees quickly racked up and the couple soon had to return up north, where they started staying with a flatmate while Julia upskilled in the hopes of earning more.
By the time she finished her teacher training, tensions at home reached a “crisis point” with their housemate and the couple were forced to live separately again. Not knowing that this marked the beginning of the end for their romance and they have never lived together since.
She said: “We were going to do long distance with a view that I was going to move back down when I could afford. I just needed a bit of recovery time, and I kept applying for jobs down south because, obviously, I had a teaching qualification now… but I didn’t get any jobs down there.”
Julia retreated to her parents to recover financially and emotionally from the last few years of chaos. She faced a total debt of £17,000 and let the stigma of it prevent her from fighting for herself.
At one point she recalled a landlady charging her for the entire building’s electricity: “I was so embarrassed that I could hardly pay what was on the paper, I didn’t question how massive the amount was. We were paying for her heating and her electricity for three years.”
Julia took on her mounting debt headfirst, scraping by for years: “I never really knew what was out there, I don’t know why. I didn’t get any help. I just had to literally suck it up that I was absolutely poor as anything, like too poor to buy decent food.”
After six years, she had finally cleared her dues and rented a studio in Hebden Bridge where she also started giving art classes. With a more stable income, living in a place she loved and learning to set boundaries, Julia felt life was coming together again and got herself ready to buy a home.
But life wasn’t done with her. A fire broke out in the building where her studio was, suffering irreparable damage: “Everything was just covered in like this black mulch stuff… It looked like Stranger Things. When I moved in, I had no money… I could hardly live, let alone buy insurance.”
Unlike the last few times she was down on her luck, Julia now had a community behind her. They organised crowdfunders and provided space for her to continue teaching while she figured things out. In just a few months she was back on her feet.
Experts at Money Wellness praised Julia’s story for highlighting just how easy it can be for debts to pile up and finances to go under, even when you’ve made the best-laid plans. Help is also available if you find yourself in similar situations and recovery is possible.